The output of Pelley’s pen in an average day was more than many writers will publish in a lifetime. The sheer volume of his corpus makes it difficult to navigate. Among the most overlooked of his compositions is his poetry. I don’t know much about poetry, but I think his is rather good. It has often moved me emotionally. Of course, I’m a cultist, so perhaps my opinion is not to be trusted.
Jun 24, 2022·edited Jun 24, 2022Liked by Vance Pollock
A point of interest for me lately has been Pelley's influence from the Heiss Corporation of New York City. I've long heard the tale that WDP was influenced by Friedrich Heiss, who supposedly was affiliated with the Nazi Party, and it further cemented Pelley's anti-Semitism and shifted him closer to entering politics but finding much info on these interactions and the Heiss Corporation proper has been nigh impossible. I've never actually found record of how Pelley and the Heiss family would have interacted and the only things I have from their business is one copy of their Immortality magazine hosted on IAPSOP, some works from William Danmar, two small books by a fellow named Henry Mildeberger and some German language things that catered to the German American market.
In a lot of ways this sent me down another rabbit hole much like the one you mentioned in the Adelbert Cornell article. Simply knowing of WDP and researching him can lead you to finding all sorts of people and groups that are otherwise totally forgotten, because I can't imagine many other people in 2022 are trying to learn about a small German-American literary business from the early to mid 1900's.
A point of interest for me lately has been Pelley's influence from the Heiss Corporation of New York City. I've long heard the tale that WDP was influenced by Friedrich Heiss, who supposedly was affiliated with the Nazi Party, and it further cemented Pelley's anti-Semitism and shifted him closer to entering politics but finding much info on these interactions and the Heiss Corporation proper has been nigh impossible. I've never actually found record of how Pelley and the Heiss family would have interacted and the only things I have from their business is one copy of their Immortality magazine hosted on IAPSOP, some works from William Danmar, two small books by a fellow named Henry Mildeberger and some German language things that catered to the German American market.
In a lot of ways this sent me down another rabbit hole much like the one you mentioned in the Adelbert Cornell article. Simply knowing of WDP and researching him can lead you to finding all sorts of people and groups that are otherwise totally forgotten, because I can't imagine many other people in 2022 are trying to learn about a small German-American literary business from the early to mid 1900's.