Horror! Author Mystery Solved!

Back in October 2012 I posted about Horror!, the acclaimed book about Horror films and authors. The author’s real identity has long been a point of speculation. Thanks to Glenn Hildebrand the “mystery” of Drake Douglas, author of the cult classic, Horror! has been verified. Drake Douglas was a pseudonym for Werner Zimmerman who also wrote under the name Douglas Drake. He graduated from High School in January 1945 and his yearbook lists he was awarded the “Clifton Leader Press award in Journalism.” He also wrote Strangers and Lovers as Douglas Drake. Horror!, it's sequel Horrors! and Strangers and Lovers are his only known books. He passed away on June 27, 2004 and his memorial card/obit used the name Drake Douglas.

Here are some memories direct from Glenn:

“He grew up and lived in Clifton NJ and was a Navy vet at the end of WWII and right after the war. Was on the Missouri in Tokyo for the signing and during the Truman cruise to South America in 1946. If you are still interested in more detail on Drake let me know – he was my uncle and I spent many days sitting on the floor in his room looking through all his books (his bedroom had three walls floor to ceiling bookshelves) while he typed on his typewriter.”

“I was born in 1949 and by the time I can remember him he was working for some type of accounting firm in NYC and living with my grandparents in Clifton NJ. He would commute each day to the city and come home late at night, type for a while and go to bed, just to get up and do it again the next day. All weekend he would type. He always had classical music playing when he was typing. Never wanted a word processor when they began to come out. To this day whenever I hear a typewriter clacking I think of him.”

Drake Douglas AKA Werner Zimmerman

“He developed Alzheimer’s and was in a support facility for the last few years. It was very frustrating for him as the disease progressed because his whole life was words and he started having difficulty even holding a discussion. He would get so frustrated when he couldn’t think of the word he wanted. He had a vast VCR library of old horror movies with Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff and the gang, and watched them all the time but eventually he couldn’t even operate the TV and VCR, even though we tried to put color tape on the necessary buttons to push.”

Horror! remains a highly-sought after collector’s item. Originally published in 1966, my paperback copy of Horror! By Drake Douglas is now dog-eared and battered. The back cover blurb for Horror! stated: The awful truth about the monsters, vampires, werewolves, zombies phantoms, mummies, and ghouls of literature – and how they went Hollywood, the book is an affectionate and literate account of monsters with emphasis on Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, werewolf folklore, and the writers that helped popularize them. Written in the strong, imagistic style of the pulps, Horror! is a beguiling and fascinating introduction to the world of monsters and other creatures of the night. I have always loved the unique style of the writing and the obvious love the author has for films and literature.