History Creator / SeaburyQuinn

* FunetikAksent: Throughout various stories.

* ImAHumanitarian: "The Isle of Lost Ships" by way of degenerate island tribal cannibals, while "Children of Ubasti" had a race of cat people play TheMostDangerousGame involving kidnapped women and eating them afterwards. In both senses of "I'm a humanitarian" there's the "The White Lady of the Orphanage" where a kindly matron of an orphanage is also addicted to eating children.

After Mr Quinn's death, many of the Grandin stories were put out in mass-market paperback compilations from Creator/PopularLibrary in the early 1970s, but reprints were never done, and recent collections of his work have been in much smaller runs by independent publishers. A few of his stories have entered the public domain and can be found with searching, and many individual stories have been reprinted in various horror and weird fiction anthologies.

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His most successful creation was the occult investigator Jules de Grandin, who featured in over ninety stories published between 1925 and 1951 (including a novella, ''The Devil's Bride''). Creator/NightShadeBooks republished all the stories in a five volume set called ''The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin''.

* ChallegeSeeker: Jules de Grandin is the world's greatest criminologist. However because it's so easy for him to solve mundane crime, he refuses to take standard criminal cases and only accepts jobs that appear to involve the occult. In most stories where he's doing an ordinary murder case, it's either he got involved by coincidence or the police were too stumped and the stakes are very high.

* UnusualEuphemism: Jules de Grandin may just outdo [[{{Tintin}} Captain Haddock]]-- in his debut story alone ("Terror on the Links") we get "''Nom d'un petit porc!''"[[note]]"Name of a small pig!"[[/note]], "Name of a little blue man!", "''Nom d'un petit bonhomme!''"[[note]]"Name of a little gentleman!"[[/note]], "''Nom d'un fusil!''"[[note]]"Name of a rifle!"[[/note]], "''Par le barb d'un bouc vert!''"[[note]]"By the beard of a green goat!"[[/note]], and "''Mort d'un rat mort!''"[[note]]"Death of a dead rat!"[[/note]]. And it just keeps going from there...

* NoChallegeEqualsNoSatisfaction: Jules de Grandin is the world's greatest criminologist. However because it's so easy for him to solve mundane crime, he refuses to take standard criminal cases and only accepts jobs that appear to involve the occult. In most stories where he's doing an ordinary murder case, it's either he got involved by coincidence or the police were too stumped and the stakes are very high.

** OmnidisciplinaryScientist

* BadassMustache: We usually don't think of them as thin and waxed, but M. de Grandin makes it work.

''Magazine/WeirdTales'' was, in its day, the proving ground for several popular authors of weird fiction. Who would you say was its most popular-- Creator/HPLovecraft? Creator/RobertEHoward? Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith?

It was this man.

Seabury Grandin Quinn (aka Jerome Burke; December 1889 – 24 December 1969) was a frequent contributor to ''Weird Tales'', an author of some five hundred short stories (and one novel, ''Alien Flesh'', published posthumously in 1977). His most successful creation was the occult investigator Jules de Grandin, who featured in over ninety stories published between 1925 and 1951 (including a novella, ''The Devil's Bride''). Several of his stories tied or even beat out more currently-known works of Howard or Lovecraft in reader surveys. He also had a most oddly suitable day job for a ''Weird Tales'' author; he edited ''Casket and Sunnyside'', the trade journal for the American Undertakers' Association.

So what happened? Hard to say. After his death, many of the Grandin stories were put out in mass-market paperback compilations from Popular Library in the early 1970s, but reprints were never done, and recent collections of his work have been in much smaller runs by independent publishers. A few of his stories have entered the public domain and can be found with searching, and many individual stories have been reprinted in various horror and weird fiction anthologies. Give them a try-- you might like them.

Starting in 2017, Night Shade Books will be reprinting the Jules de Grandin stories in a five-volume collected edition.

!!Examples

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarI: de Grandin is a veteran of the Great War, which shapes a couple of attitudes of his: he is grateful to the [[{{Eagleland}} American soldiers]] who fought on the side of France, and [[NobleBigot he does not like Germans]].

So what happened? Hard to say. After his death, many of the Grandin stories were put out in mass-market paperback compilations from Popular Library in the early 1970s, but reprints were never done, and recent collections of his work have been in much smaller runs by independent publishers. A few of his stories have entered the public domain and can be found with searching, and many individual stories have been reprinted in various horror and weird fiction anthologies. [[SugarWiki/NeedsMoreLove Give them a try-- you might like them.]]

* FanService: In the Night Shade Book editions, the foreword mentions the reason why DamselInDistress feature so often is that the owner of Magazine/WeirdTales believed covers with a nude woman sold best and so Seabury Quinn would include women in various states of undress in his stories.

* FairForItsDay: While the stories definitely don't have East Indians and Afro-Americans in the best light, especially early on, Native Americans and East Asians are portrayed positively (though often for the East Asians, a number of depictions are of a good-hearted and intelligent man who's sadly butt-ugly and disgustingly fat). Seabury Quinn also paint non-Christian monotheistic religions in a good light, and even his depictions of East Indians and Afro-Americans improve in later stories.

* TheRoaringTwenties: Seabury Quinn wrote from the heights of the Great Depression, but his de Grandin stories are set shortly after World War 2 and many of the people in the stories are wealthy flappers at a jazz club.

* SharedUniverse: The Jules de Grandin universe is linked with the world of Manly Wade Wellman's heroes such as Judge Pursuivant and John Thunstone. In the ''Black Moon'' omnibus from Night Shade books, one of the one stories even has Manly Wade Wellman's name make an appearance (Jules de Grandin quoted that he's an expert in the idea of how belief can shape physical reality).