Carl Jacobi Papers

Carl Richard Jacobi was an author of horror, fantasy, science, and adventure fiction.

Jacobi was born July 10, 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At an early age, young Jacobi began reading fantasy and juvenile adventure stories, including Frank Merriwell books, Tom Swift, and the Boy Allies. His father, a reporter with the Minneapolis Times, encouraged Carl's budding interest in writing. While attending Bryant Junior High School, Carl even sold his handwritten "dime novels" to his classmates. In the process, he launched a literary career that would span almost sixty years. In December 1924, he published his first complete story, "The Runaway Box-Car", in the Central High School's literary magazine, The Quest.

Jacobi enrolled at the University of Minnesota in January 1927, majoring in English Literature and Composition with a minor in Journalism. He continued to write while serving on the editorial staff of the campus humor magazine, Ski-U-Mah.

In 1928, his detective story "Rumbling Cannon" was accepted for publication by pulp magazine Secret Service Stories. "Mive", his carnivorous butterfly tale, was written for the University's literary magazine, Minnesota Quarterly. Jacobi accepted an editorial position with the magazine after the story won a university short-story contest. "Mive" appeared in the January 1932 issue of Weird Tales, launching him onto the national pulp magazine scene.

The publication of "Mive" helped introduce Jacobi to a circle of like-minded authors, including notable American fantasist H.P. Lovecraft and pulp writer August W. Derleth. In 1939, Derleth and fantasy writer Donald A. Wandrei assisted in the establishment of Arkham House, a publisher of fantasy fiction (which published some of Jacobi's work). In August 1930, Jacobi began a friendship with writer Hugh B. Cave, a frequent contributor to Weird Tales. Their corresponding lasted over fifty years.

In December 1930, Jacobi took a job working for the Minneapolis Star as a reporter, feature writer, and theatrical reviewer. He continued selling his fiction stories, including one of his most famous, "Revelations in Black," published in the April 1933 issue of Weird Tales. His first Arkham House collection was published under the same title in 1947. This was followed by his subsequent collections from Arkham House: Portraits in Moonlight in 1964, and Disclosures in Scarlet in 1972.

After leaving the Star, Jacobi supported himself by freelance writing for eight years. His fiction was sold to over forty—five magazines in the U.S and others in Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and New Zealand. During the Depression, Jacobi supported himself by writing stories in many different genres. Those that seemed to have a more lasting impact on his success were in the realm of fantasy—weird, macabre, supernatural, and science fiction. At least a third of his published output, however, was classified as "high adventure." In 1988, a collection of his adventure stories was published under the title East of Samarinda.

Jacobi would often start stories, jot down ideas, compose plots and synopses, but not develop them further. Many were tossed aside creating a large body of unfinished work. He commented that often if a story was rejected at first submission and revisions were recommended, he would set the story aside for a time and resubmit it unchanged and have it accepted on the second try.

In 1940, he became managing editor of Midwest Media, an advertising and radio trade magazine in Minneapolis, a position which only lasted until 1941. He would briefly return to the University of Minnesota to manage the Key Center of War Information, in his words, "a propaganda bureau." He wrote radio sketches and made arrangements for professors to write speeches in support of the war effort. Due to an inability to sell enough of his own fiction and as sole provider for his aging parents, in September of 1942, Jacobi took a job at the Honeywell defense plant as an electronics inspector, a job for which he had no prior experience, understanding or interest. This "career" lasted for twenty-three years. In his spare time, he wrote mostly science-fiction stories which proved to be in high demand during the 1940s.

Since 1932, ten of Jacobi's stories were published in Weird Tales. Between 1947 and 1950, another eight appeared in the magazine whose 279th issue in 1954 was its last until it was revived briefly in 1973. In the late 1940s, with the passing of the pulps and a viable market for his work, Jacobi tried his hand at stories with more mass appeal such as romance fiction which he submitted to the "slicks" without much success. Fantasy fiction markets, however, remained strong and Jacobi continued to be published. "Witches in the Corn Field" was among his most remembered tales published in the 1950s.

By 1965, he was alone after the passing of the last of his immediate family. He quit the job at Honeywell and began to toy with the idea of writing novels. In the past such lengthy works were usually started and set aside unfinished. Some of these included: Captain Royal, Mississippi Coach, Gentleman of the Forest, and Caribbean Assignment. In December of 1967, however, he began writing a juvenile mystery adventure. The resulting work, The Jade Scorpion, was completed in 1969 but was never published.

Carl Jacobi died August 25, 1997 due to complications from a prolonged illness.