Shirk, Adam Hull
Entry updated 12 October 2026. Tagged: Author, Theatre.
(1881-1931) US author, playwright and publicist who began to publish work of genre interest with "Osiris" in Weird Tales for June 1923, a routine Horror tale of a man who unwisely violates an Ancient Egyptian tomb with the usual consequences. Shirk had four more stories in the same magazine; of somewhat greater sf interest are "Into the Fourth" (February 1925 Weird Tales), featuring a portal into the titular Dimension and one intruder's temporary return in a mirror-reversed condition; and "The Bearded Men" (August 1925 Weird Tales), in which Hypnosis – here instantaneous and requiring only eye contact & is used to frame people for crimes or seeming crimes (see Crime and Punishment).
Shirk's Cinema credits include scripting the jungle fantasy Ingagi (1930) directed by William Campbell, an early production in what was to become known as the Found Footage mode, featuring a large gorilla who kidnaps a woman. Shirk's play The Ape (date of first performance not known) was adapted reasonably faithfully for Cinema as House of Mystery (1934) and "suggested" the later and very different film The Ape (1940) directed by William Nigh, co-scripted by Curt Siodmak and starring Boris Karloff. [DRL]
Adam Hull Shirk
born Missouri: 7 August 1881 [often wrongly given as 1887]
died La Crescenta, California: 27 July 1931
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