Everil Worrell

Everil Worrell was born on November 3, 1893. She was an only child and the daughter of a school principal, teacher, accounting auditor, and patent examiner. In her youth, she lived with her family in Nebraska, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Guam, Washington, D.C., and finally Arlington, Virginia. She studied music, voice, literature, English, and psychology at George Washington University and the University of California at Berkeley and afterwards went to work for the U.S. government as a secretary and stenographer.She married Joseph Charles Murphy in early 1926. A few months later, Weird Tales published the first of her nineteen stories for the magazine. Her last appeared in the March 1954 issue, only a few months before Weird Tales gave up the ghost, thus giving her one of the longest tenures with the magazine. Eighteen of those stories were under her own name. One "Norn" (Feb. 1926) appeared under the byline "Lireve Monet." She also wrote a number of letters to "The Eyrie" and contributed to other fantasy magazines, including Ghost Stories ("The Key and the Child," Oct. 1930; "None So Blind," Mar. 1931) and Mystic Magazine ("The White Gull," Aug. 1955). Several of her stories were reprinted in later collections, and one "The Canal" (Dec. 1927) was adapted to television in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery.In addition to being a writer, she played the violin, sang, painted, and joined a number of clubs, including the League of American Pen Women, the Writer's League of Washington, and the Society of Free Lance Writers. While living in Washington, D.C., she also met with others who wrote for or were fans of Weird Tales, including Julius P. Hopkins, Seabury Quinn, Bruce Bryant, Earl Pierce, Jr., and William and Elizabeth Foster. She, like countless others, "was broken hearted when Weird Tales folded in 1954."She retired on the last day of 1957 and received the Albert Gallatin Award from the U.S. Department of Treasury for her years of service. She died eight years later, on Thanksgiving Day, 1969, at age seventy-six.