Ted Olson

The byline ‘Ted Olson’ appears above ‘The Conquering Will’ in the April 1923 issue of Weird Tales. Specialist research identifies the writer as Theodore B. Olson (1899–1981), a native of Laramie, Wyoming, who worked as a pulp author. The story is presented as a manuscript left by Gordon Paige and follows a narrator who believes that will can outlast death. Its northern expedition, canoe travel and prospector’s cabin belong to the fiction; they are not evidence about Olson’s own life.

‘The Conquering Will’ is Olson’s only known contribution to Weird Tales and the only surviving example of his work in weird, fantasy or science fiction identified by the specialist bibliography. That makes the April issue a particularly clear point of contact between his writing and the magazine’s history. The story’s framing device—an account offered to readers without an imposed explanation—was also used by other contributors in the early issues. The printed byline is certain, while the broader personal record remains comparatively sparse. This page keeps those two levels distinct: it records the identification supplied by specialist research and treats the wilderness narrative as an imaginative work rather than autobiography.