Bassett Morgan

Bassett Morgan (b. Chatham, Ontario, 26 November 1884; d. Alameda, California, 28 January 1977)

"Bassett Morgan" and Forrest J. Ackerman

Grace Ethel Jones was the daughter of British-born parents, Edwin Bassett Jones (1846-1916) and Emily Dunkley (1851-1926), whose families emigrated to Canada when they were very young. Grace Jones had two older brothers; the family grew up in Chatham, in southwestern Ontario, where Edwin Jones was Waterworks Superintendent and City Engineer. Grace Jones married Thomas Russell Morgan (1881-1930s?) on 20 August 1905; the couple had one daughter and one son. They emigrated to the United States around 1918, settling in Alameda, California, where Grace Jones Morgan died in 1977 at the age of 92.

Bassett Morgan's first cover
illustration, September 1927 

She is best remembered as a contributor to Weird Tales, in whose pages she published thirteen stories, between 1926 and 1936, under the pen-name “Bassett Morgan,” which was made up of her father’s middle name combined with her own married name.  And though she also contributed to Ghost Stories, most of her writing appeared outside the weird-fiction field in periodicals ranging from The Royal Magazine, Cassell’s Magazine, The Smart Set, Argosy, All-Story, Munsey’s Magazine, Sea Stories, Boy’s Life, Woman’s Journal, Top Notch, and Black Mask, among many others.  She also published three novels, two under her real name and the third under her pseudonym.     

The 1928 New York edition
of Morgan's first book

Salvage All (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1928; London: Grant Richards, 1928), as by Grace Jones Morgan, concerns a young street waif at a British Columbia seaport, and the men who seek to aid or abuse her.  Tents of Shem (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1930), also published as by Grace Jones Morgan, is a complicated story of a reckless young woman, born of an old Irish family and a San Francisco dancing girl with lax morals, who could not escape her heritage. The Golden Rupee (London: John Long, 1935), as by Bassett Morgan, is a South Sea adventure of young Captain Paradise, who murders a leper and takes the man’s treasure, including an intricately beautiful model of a ship called the “Golden Rupee.”  Captain Paradise has a vessel built to this design, but he is fated never to sail in it, as he is killed by a rival the night before his wedding, and his rival takes the ship. However, the ghost of Captain Paradise still rules over the lives of those who had known him, with tragic results. 

In 1974, under her full name Grace Jones Morgan she introduced and self-published an edition limited to one hundred numbered copies of her father’s autobiography, The Recollections of Edwin Bassett Jones.  This gives some accounts of his amateur archeological work, including his finds of Indian artifacts and of a mastodon.

NB: An earlier version of this entry appeared in my column “Notes on Lost and Forgotten Writers” in All Hallows no. 42 (October 2006). 

Morgan's second and last
cover illustration , January 1935 

A Bibliography of Bassett Morgan's weird fiction: 

Bimini

            Weird Tales, January 1929

            Donald A. Wollheim, ed. Avon Fantasy Reader 10 (1949)

Black Bagheela

            Weird Tales, January 1935

The Demon Doom of N’Yeng Sen

            Weird Tales, August 1929

The Devils of Po Sung

            Weird Tales, December 1927

            T. Everett Harré, ed. Beware After Dark! (1929)

            Christine Campbell Thomson, ed. By Daylight Only (1929)

            Weird Tales, March 1939

            Kurt Singer, ed. Satanic Omnibus (1973)

            Kurt Singer, ed. Shriek (1974)

Gray Ghouls

            Weird Tales, July 1927

            Weird Tales, September 1939

            Donald A. Wollheim, ed. Avon Fantasy Reader 15 (1951)

The Head

            Weird Tales, February 1927

The Island of Doom

            Weird Tales, March 1932

            Christine Campbell Thomson, ed. Grim Death (1932)

            Christine Campbell Thomson, ed. Not at Night (Arrow, 1960)

Laocoon

            Weird Tales, July 1926

            Christine Campbell Thomson, ed. You'll Need a Night Light (1927)

            Herbert Asbury, ed. Not at Night! (1928)

            Weird Tales, December 1937

            Hugh Lamb, ed. Star Book of Horror No. 2 (1976)

Midas

            Weird Tales, November 1936

The Punishment of Barney Muldoon

            Ghost Stories, October 1929 
            Mike Ashley, ed. Phantom Perfumes and Other Shades (2000) 

Rats at the Silver Cheese            

            Oriental Stories, Autumn 1931

 The Skeleton under the Lamp

            Weird Tales, May 1928

Tiger 
           Strange Stories, March 1932

            Startling Mystery Stories, Spring 1969

Tiger Dust

            Weird Tales, April 1933

            Christine Campbell Thomson, ed. Keep on the Light (1933)

            Donald A. Wollheim, ed. Avon Fantasy Reader 12 (1950)

            Weird Tales, January 1954

            Short Stories, Feb. 1959

The Vengeance of Ti Fong

            Weird Tales, December 1934

The Wolf Woman

            Weird Tales,  September 1927

            Robert Weinberg, ed. The Eighth Green Man and Other 

                            Strange Folk (1989)

            Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dzemianowicz, Martin H. 

                           Greenberg, eds. Weird Vampire Tales (1992)