C. L. Moore
Catherine Lucille Moore. Writers, artists, and editors of Weird Tales belong here. The Unlocking Shelf is the record of when her stories enter the United States public domain. This archive does not host the stories.
Moore was born 24 January 1911 in Indianapolis and died 4 April 1987 in Hollywood. She sold her first professional story, Shambleau, to Weird Tales for the November 1933 issue. Two cycles followed in that magazine: Northwest Smith, and Jirel of Joiry.
She married the writer Henry Kuttner in 1940. Much of the later fiction appeared under joint names, including Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O’Donnell. In 1981 she received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the Gandalf Grand Master Award.
No C. L. Moore story is on this page, and none is in the Weird Library Reading Room. Weird Tales publication is not a license to host the text. Works are added only when they are in the United States public domain.
The Unlocking Shelf
First-publication dates below are taken from sources opened for this draft (Wikisource author page, ISFDB, Wikipedia story and series pages, and the Catalog of Copyright Entries for the November 1933 renewal). Issue months have not yet been checked against digitized Weird Tales scans. Unlock years are the Wikisource “copyrighted until” dates, which follow a renewed 95-year term. Titles with no such date on those sources are listed as locked, without an invented year.
Unlocks 1 January 2029
| Title | First publication | Cycle | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shambleau | Weird Tales, November 1933 | Northwest Smith | Locked |
Unlocks 1 January 2030
| Title | First publication | Cycle | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Thirst | Weird Tales, April 1934 | Northwest Smith | Locked |
| Scarlet Dream | Weird Tales, May 1934 | Northwest Smith | Locked |
| Dust of Gods | Weird Tales, August 1934 | Northwest Smith | Locked |
| The Black God’s Kiss | Weird Tales, October 1934 | Jirel of Joiry | Locked |
| Black God’s Shadow | Weird Tales, December 1934 | Jirel of Joiry | Locked |
| The Bright Illusion | 1934 (venue not pinned on the sources opened) | — | Locked |
Unlocks 1 January 2031
| Title | First publication | Cycle | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Julhi | Weird Tales, March 1935 | Northwest Smith | Locked |
| Jirel Meets Magic | Weird Tales, July 1935 | Jirel of Joiry | Locked |
| The Cold Gray God | Weird Tales, October 1935 | Northwest Smith | Locked |
| Greater Glories | 1935 (venue not pinned on the sources opened) | — | Locked |
Unlocks 1 January 2032
| Title | First publication | Cycle | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tryst in Time | 1936 (venue not pinned on the sources opened) | — | Locked |
Locked — unlock year not stated on the sources opened
First published in Weird Tales (or first in a fanzine, then in the magazine). Individual renewal / “copyrighted until” year was not on the Wikisource author page opened for this draft. No year is invented here.
| Title | First publication | Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| The Dark Land | Weird Tales, January 1936 | Jirel of Joiry |
| Yvala | Weird Tales, February 1936 | Northwest Smith |
| Lost Paradise | Weird Tales, July 1936 | Northwest Smith |
| The Tree of Life | Weird Tales, October 1936 | Northwest Smith |
| Quest of the Starstone | Weird Tales, November 1937; with Henry Kuttner | Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry |
| Hellsgarde | Weird Tales, April 1939 | Jirel of Joiry |
| Nymph of Darkness | Fantasy Magazine, April 1935; with Forrest J Ackerman. Later in Weird Tales, December 1939 (expurgated, per ISFDB / Wikipedia) | Northwest Smith |
Not on this shelf
Three campus pieces appeared in Indiana University’s The Vagabond (1930–31): Happily Ever After, Semira, and Two Fantasies. The month of each issue is not pinned in the sources opened. They are excluded until counsel clears a 1930 first publication. They are not a back door into the professional corpus.
Collaborations and later magazine work (including fiction as Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O’Donnell) are not inventoried here. This page is the Weird Tales alumni hub for Moore, not a complete bibliography.
Reading Room · Open for United States public-domain holdings. Moore is not among them.