W. Paul Cook

(1880 – January 22, 1948)

W. Paul Cook was a writer, printer and publisher who lived and wrote mostly in Vermont and Massachusetts. In 1927, he published The Recluse, a one-shot magazine that has a claim toward being a paleo-fanzine, at least.

Some of the material intended for a second issue of The Recluse appeared in published The Ghost (5 issues, 1943–1947), a mundane-leaning zine which included an article on Farnsworth Wright and several pieces on weird fiction. Harry Warner, Jr. described it as an “ideal fanzine, or something very close to it” (Centauri 4, page 7).

He wrote under his own name and the pseudonym Willis T. Crossman, and was a leading figure in the hobbyist tradition of amateur journalism.

He knew H. P. Lovecraft and wrote H. P. Lovecraft, A Portrait (The Mirage Press, 1968). W. Paul Cook: The Wandering Life of a Yankee Printer edited by Sean Donnelly (Hippocampus Press, 2007) is his biography.

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Person

1880—1948

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