Wandrei, Howard
Entry updated 22 June 2026. Tagged: Author, Artist.
(1909-1956) US illustrator and author, brother of Donald Wandrei, whose first published story was "The Pen" in The Minnesota Quarterly for Winter 1926. He was a prolific contributor to the Pulp magazines, publishing more than 200 stories under his own name and numerous pseudonyms (among then Robert Coley and H W Guernsey) in venues which included Astounding, Unknown and Weird Tales as well as Black Mask and Spicy Detective Stories. In his day he was perhaps best known for his intricately drawn Illustrations of Fantastika, often of his brother's work, while his stories were unjustly neglected; but fiction collections (initially announced though not published by Arkham House) eventually appeared. The most important in terms of sf, fantasy and Horror are the two volumes of The Collected Fantasy Tales of Howard Wandrei, comprising Time Burial (coll 1995) and The Eerie Mr. Murphy (coll 2003).
Among the sf tropes explored in Wandrei's tales are Antigravity in "Time Haven" (September 1934 Astounding), Disintegrator Rays, Mad Scientists, Matter Transmission in "The God Box" (April 1934 Astounding Stories), Space Flight and Suspended Animation in the already-cited "Time Haven". [DRL]
Howard Elmer Wandrei
born St Paul, Minnesota: 24 September 1909
died St Paul, Minnesota: 5 September 1956
works (selected)
series
The Collected Fantasy Tales of Howard Wandrei
- Time Burial (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fedogan and Bremer, 1995) [coll: The Collected Fantasy Tales of Howard Wandrei: hb/Howard Wandrei]
- Three Tales (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fedogan and Bremer, 1995) [coll: chap: three stories from the above released as a promotional pamphlet: The Collected Fantasy Tales of Howard Wandrei: pb/Howard Wandrei]
- The Eerie Mr. Murphy (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fedogan and Bremer, 2003) [coll: The Collected Fantasy Tales of Howard Wandrei: hb/Howard Wandrei]
collections and stories (selected)
- Here Lies (place not given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) as by H W Guernsey [ebook: first appeared October 1937 Weird Tales: na/]
nonfiction
- H.P. Lovecraft: Letters with Donald and Howard Wandrei and to Emil Petaja (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2019) with H P Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei [nonfiction: coll: edited by S T Joshi and David E Schultz: Emil Petaja: pb/]
links
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Howard Wandrei
- Project Gutenberg
- Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry