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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/64961-0.txt b/64961-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d852f92 --- /dev/null +++ b/64961-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1259 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 4, December +1934, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will +have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using +this eBook. + +Title: The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 4, December 1934 + The Fan's Own Magazine + +Author: Various + +Editor: Charles D. Hornig + +Release Date: Mar 30, 2021 [eBook #64961] + +Language: English + +Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed + Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FANTASY FAN, VOLUME 2, +NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 1934 *** + + + + + + Dedicated To Edgar Allan Poe + + THE FANTASY FAN + + THE FANS' OWN MAGAZINE + + Published + Monthly + + Editor: Charles D. Hornig + (Managing Editor: Wonder Stories) + + 10 cents a copy + $1.00 per year + + 137 West Grand Street, + Elizabeth, New Jersey + + Volume 2 + December, 1934 + Number 4 + Whole No. 16 + + [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any + evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + + NOTICE + +Due to increased printing costs, we find it no longer possible to +continue our covers. + + * * * * * + + + OUR READERS SAY + +We hope that this issue will give you a better appreciation of that +father of the weird tale, Edgar Allan Poe. H. P. Lovecraft's article +brings out many points in the ability of this immortal which have never +been mentioned in his biographies. + +"The issues have been consistently pleasing. The September had the +edge over the October number on account of variety."--Lester Anderson, +Hayward, Calif. + +"I wish you to know that the idea of dedicating each issue is a very +fine one. I hope you can keep on giving us such fine material that has +never before seen print."--F. Lee Baldwin, Asotin, Wash. + +"Oh--hurray and other such expletives! It just tickled me pink to find +some more of H. P. Lovecraft's works 'Fungi from Yuggoth,' 'Tis many a +long year I've been waiting to find more of them."--Gertrude Hemken, +Chicago, Ill. + +"I am extremely glad to see the new TFF, which manages to hold much +of interest despite the space I use up. As I said before, I surely +appreciate the courtesy of the dedication. I shall be anxious to see +the coming Smith and Poe numbers."--H. P. Lovecraft, Providence, R. I. + +"Congratulations on the new and greatly improved appearance of TFF. The +new cover adds its dignity."--Richard Ely Morse, Washington, D. C. + + * * * * * + + + WEIRD WHISPERINGS + + by Schwartz and Weisinger + +_Horror Stories_, a companion weird magazine to _Terror Tales_, will +appear in the middle of December.... The Winford Publications' weird +magazine forecast in this column some months ago made its bow in +November under the title, _Mystery Novels Magazine, Weird! Strange!! +Unusual!!!_ To judge from the first issue there will appear a complete +book-length novel in each number, to be accompanied by three or four +weird-mystery yarns.... Edmond Hamilton deserts science fiction in +the February _Weird Tales_ for a crime story, called "Murder in the +Grave".... Clark Ashton Smith does a lot of drawing for his own +amusement, mostly heads of supernatural creatures. One very good one +shows an old man with an elephant's trunk for a nose, ending in the +head of a snake. + +A strange and unusual twist to stories about radio will be given in +a new story by the author of "Vampires of the Moon," A. W. Bernal, +titled "The Man who was Two Men".... _Tales of Magic and Mystery_, a +short lived weird magazine, published a few yarns by Frank Owen, and an +exceptionally good H. P. Lovecraft story, "Cool Air".... An ingenious +tale of the distant future, dealing with mechanical companions and +synthetic love, written by Frank Belknap Long, Jr., and entitled "The +Body Masters," will be one of the highlights of the February WT. + +For the past few years the Philip Allan & Co., Ltd., of London, has +been publishing a collection of weird tale books under the title, The +Creeps Series, a Collection of Uneasy Tales. Included in the series +so far are: "Powers of Darkness," "Panics," "Monsters," "Nightmares," +"Mysteries of Asia," (by Achmed Abdullah), "Quakes," "Horrors," +"Terrors," "Devil's Drums," "Veils of Fear," "The Strange Papers of Dr. +Blayre," and now in preparation, "Tales of the Grotesque." The books +contain about 12 stories, each of a distinctly weird nature by such +authors as Tod Robbins, Elliott O'Donnell, H. R. Wakefield, Douglas +Newton, and others. Every year, too, appears a "Not at Night" series, +edited by Christine Campbell Thomson, containing a collection of the +best weird stories published during the year, the majority being from +_Weird Tales_. + +Paul Ernst's three part novel, "Rulers of the Future," relating what +the world will be like millions of years from now, and carrying the +heroes of the story thru the whole universe with the speed of light, +will be published starting with the January _Weird Tales_.... "The +Red Room," by H. G. Wells, is the most often plagiarized weird story, +according to Farnsworth Wright, and "The Damned Thing," by Bierce is +another plot often seized upon.... In the February _Weird_ will appear +the first of Seabury Quinn's new series dealing with Thomas Eldridge +Carter, investigator for the Grand Central Life Assurance Company, +called "The Web of Living Death." + + * * * * * + + + SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE + + by H. P. Lovecraft + + (copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook) + + Part Fifteen + + VII. Edgar Allan Poe + +In the eighteen-thirties occurred a literary dawn directly affecting +not only the history of the weird tale, but that of short fiction as +a whole; and indirectly moulding the trends and fortunes of a great +European aesthetic school. It is our good fortune as Americans to be +able to claim that dawn as our own, for it came in the person of our +illustrious and unfortunate fellow-countryman Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's +fame has been subject to curious undulations, and it is now a fashion +amongst the "advanced intelligentsia" to minimise his importance both +as an artist and as an influence; but it would be hard for any mature +and reflective critic to deny the tremendous value of his work and the +pervasive potency of his mind as an opener of artistic vistas. True, +his type of outlook may have been anticipated; but it was he who first +realized its possibilities and gave it supreme form and systematic +expression. True also, that subsequent writers may have produced +greater single tales than his; but again we must comprehend that it +was only he who taught them by example and precept the art which they, +having the way cleared for them and given an explicit guide, were +perhaps able to carry to greater lengths. Whatever his limitations, Poe +did that which no one else ever did or could have done; and to him we +owe the modern-story in its final and perfected state. + +Before Poe the bulk of weird writers had worked largely in the dark; +without an understanding of the psychological basis of the horror +appeal, and hampered by more or less of conformity to certain empty +literary conventions such as the happy ending, virtue rewarded, and in +general a hollow moral didacticism, acceptance of popular standards and +values, and striving of the author to obtrude his own emotions into the +story and take sides with the partisans of the majority's artificial +ideals. Poe, on the other hand, perceived the essential impersonality +of the real artist; and knew that the function of creative fiction +is merely to express and interpret events and sensations as they +are, regardless of how they tend or what they prove--good or evil, +attractive or repulsive, stimulating or depressing, with the author +always acting as a vivid and detached chronicler rather than as a +teacher, sympathiser, or vendor of opinion. He saw clearly that all +phases of life and thought are equally eligible as subject matter for +the artist, and being inclined by temperament to strangeness and gloom, +decided to be the interpreter of those powerful feelings and frequent +happenings which attend pain rather than pleasure, decay rather than +growth, terror rather than tranquility, and which are fundamentally +either adverse or indifferent to the tastes and traditional outward +sentiments of mankind, and to the health, sanity, and normal expansive +welfare of the species. + +Poe's spectres thus acquired a convincing malignity possessed by none +of their predecessors, and established a new standard of realism in +the annals of literary horror. The impersonal and artistic intent, +moreover, was aided by a scientific attitude not often found before; +whereby Poe studied the human mind rather than the usages of Gothic +fiction, and worked with an analytical knowledge of terror's true +sources which doubled the force of his narratives and emancipated +him from all the absurdities inherent in merely conventional +shudder-coining. This example having been set, later authors were +naturally forced to conform to it in order to compete at all; so that +in this way a definite change began to affect the main stream of +macabre writing. Poe, too, set a fashion in consummate craftmanship; +and although today some of his own work seems slightly melodramatic +and unsophisticated, we can constantly trace his influence in such +things as the maintenance of a single mood and achievement of a single +impression in a tale, and the rigorous paring down of incidents to such +as have a direct bearing on the plot and will figure prominently in +the climax. Truly may it be said that Poe invented the short story in +its present form. His elevation of disease, perversity, and decay to +the level of artistically expressible themes was likewise infinitely +far-reaching in effect; for avidly seized, sponsored, and intensified +by his eminent French admirer Charles Pierre Baudelaire, it became the +nucleus of the principal aesthetic movements in France, thus making Poe +in a sense the father of the Decadents and the Symbolists. + +Poet and critic by nature and supreme attainment, logician and +philosopher by taste and mannerism, Poe was by no means immune from +defects and affectations. His pretence to profound and obscure +scholarship, his blundering ventures in stilted and laboured +pseudo-humorous, and his often vitriolic outbursts of critical +prejudices must all be recognized and forgiven. Beyond and above them, +dwarfing them to insignificance, was a master's vision of the terror +that stalks about and within us, and the worm that writhes and slavers +in the hideously close abyss. Penetrating to every festering horror in +the gaily painted mockery called existence, that vision had power to +project itself in marvelous crystallisations and transmutations; till +there bloomed in the sterile America of the thirties and forties such a +moon-nourished garden of gorgeous poison fungi as not even the nether +slope of Saturn had known in the days of the unutterable blasphemies. +Verses and tales alike sustain the burden of cosmic panic. The raven +whose noisome beak pierces the heart, the ghouls that toll iron bells +in pestilential steeples, the vault of Ulalume in the black October +night, the shocking spires and cones under the sea, the "wild, weird +clime that lieth, sublime, out of Space--out of Time"--all these +things and more leer at us amidst maniacal rattlings in the seething +nightmare of the poetry. And in the prose there yawn open for us the +very jaws of the pit--inconceivable abnormalities slyly hinted into +a horrible half-knowledge by words whose innocence we scarcely doubt +till the cracked tension of the speaker's hollow voice bids us fear +their nameless implications; demoniac patterns and presences slumbering +noxiously till waked for one phobic instant into a shrieking revelation +that cackles itself to sudden madness or explodes in memorable and +cataclysmic echoes. A Witches' Sabbath of horror flinging off decorous +robes is flashed before us--a sight the more monstrous because of the +scientific skill with which every particular is marshalled and brought +into an easy apparent relation to the known gruesomeness of material +life. + +Poe's tales, of course, fall into several classes; some of which +contain a purer essence of spiritual horror than others. The tales of +logic and ratiocination, forerunners of the modern detective story, are +not to be included at all in weird literature; whilst certain others, +probably influenced considerably by Hoffman, possess an extravagance +which relegates them to the borderline of the grotesque. Still a third +group deal with abnormal psychology and monomania in such a way as to +express terror but not weirdness. A substantial residuum, however, +represents the literature of supernatural horror in the acutest form; +and give their author a permanent and unassailable place as deity +and fountain-head of all modern diabolic fiction. Who can forget the +terrible swollen ship poised on the billow-chasm's edge in "Ms. Found +in a Bottle"--the dark intimations of her unhallowed age and monstrous +growth, her sinister crew of unseeing greybeards, and her frightful +southward rush under full sail thru the ice of the Antarctic night, +sucked onward by some resistless devil-current toward a vortex of +eldritch enlightenment which must end in destruction? + +Then there is the unutterable "M. Valdemar," kept together by hypnotism +for seven months after his death, and uttering frantic sounds but a +moment before the breaking of the spell leaves him "a nearly liquid +mass of loathsome, of detestable putrescence." In the "Narrative of +A. Gordon Pym" the voyagers reach first a strange south polar land of +murderous savages where nothing is white and where vast rocky ravings +have the form of titanic Egyptian letters spelling terrible primal +arcana of earth; and thereafter a still more mysterious realm where +everything is white, and where shrouded giants and snowy-plumed birds +guard a cryptic cataract of mist which empties from immeasurable +celestial heights into a torrid milky sea. "Metzengerstein" horrifies +with its malign hints of a monstrous metempsychosis--the mad nobleman +who burns the stable of his hereditary foe; the colossal unknown horse +that issues from the blazing building after the owner has perished +therein; the vanishing bit of ancient tapestry where was shown the +giant horse of the victim's ancestor in the Crusade's; the madman's +wild and constant riding on the great horse, and his fear and hatred +of the steed; the meaningless prophecies that brood obscurely over the +warring houses; and finally, the burning of the madman's palace and +the death therein of the owner, borne helpless into the flames and +up the vast staircase astride the beast he has ridden so strangely. +Afterward the rising smoke of the ruins takes the form of a gigantic +horse. "The Man of the Crowd," telling of one who roams day and night +to mingle with streams of people as if afraid to be alone, has quieter +effects, but implies nothing less of cosmic fear. Poe's mind was +never far from terror and decay, and we see in every tale, poem, and +philosophical dialogue, a tense eagerness to fathom unplumbed wells of +night, to pierce the veil of death, and to reign in fancy as lord of +the frightful mysteries of time and space. + +Certain of Poe's tales possess an almost absolute perfection of +artistic form which makes them veritable beacon-lights in the province +of the short story. Poe could, when he wished, give to his prose a +richly poetic cast; employing that archaic and Orientalised style with +jeweled phrase, quasi-Biblical repetition, and recurrent burthen so +successfully used by later writers like Oscar Wilde and Lord Dunsany; +and in the cases where he has done this we have an effect of lyrical +phantasy almost narcotic in essence--an opium pageant of dream in the +language of dream, with every unnatural colour and grotesque image +bodied forth in a symphony of corresponding sound. "The Masque of the +Red Death," "Silence, a Fable," and "Shadow, a Parable," are assuredly +poems in every sense of the word save the metrical one and owe as much +of their power to aural cadence as to visual imagery. But it is in two +of the less openly poetic tales, "Ligeia," and "The Fall of the House +of Usher,"--especially the latter--that one finds those very summits +of artistry whereby Poe takes his place at the head of fictional +miniaturists. Simple and straight-forward in plot, both of these tales +owe their supreme magic to the cunning development which appears in the +selection and collocation of every least incident. "Ligeia" tells of +a first wife of lofty and mysterious origin, who after death returns +through a preternatural force of will to take possession of the body of +a second wife; imposing even her physical appearance on the temporary +reanimated corpse of her victim at the last moment. Despite a suspicion +of prolixity and topheaviness, the narrative reaches its terrific +climax with relentless power. "Usher," whose superiority in detail +and proportion is very marked, hints shudderingly of obscure life in +inorganic things, and displays an abnormally linked trinity of entities +at the end of a long and isolated family history--a brother, his twin +sister, and their incredibly ancient house all sharing a single soul +and meeting one common dissolution at the same moment. + +These bizarre conceptions, so awkward in unskillful hands, become under +Poe's spell living and convincing terrors to haunt our nights; and +all because the author understood so perfectly the very mechanics and +physiology of fear and strangeness--the essential details to emphasise, +the precise incongruities and conceits to select as preliminaries or +concomitants to horror, the exact incidents and allusions to throw +out innocently in advance as symbols or prefigurings of each major +step toward the hideous denouement to come, the nice adjustments of +cumulative force and the unerring accuracy in linkage of parts which +make for faultless unity throughout and thunderous effectiveness at the +climactic moment, the delicate nuances of scenic and landscape value to +select in establishing and sustaining the desired mood and vitalising +the desired illusion--principles of this kind, and dozens of obscurer +ones too elusive to be described or even fully comprehended by any +ordinary commentator. Melodrama and unsophistication there may be--we +are told of one fastidious Frenchman who could not bear to read Poe +except in Baudelaire's urbane and Gallically modulated translation--but +all traces of such things are wholly overshadowed by a potent and +inborn sense of the spectral, the morbid, and the horrible which gushed +forth from every cell of the artist's creative mentality and stamped +his macabre work with the ineffaceable mark of supreme genius. Poe's +weird tales are _alive_ in a manner that few others can ever hope to be. + +Like most fantaisistes, Poe excels in incidents and broad narrative +effects rather than in character drawing. His typical protagonist is +generally a dark, handsome, proud, melancholy, intellectual, highly +sensitive, capricious, introspective, isolated, and sometimes slightly +mad gentleman of ancient family and opulent circumstances; usually +deeply learned in strange lore, and darkly ambitious of penetrating to +forbidden secrets of the universe. Aside from a high-sounding name, +this character obviously derives little from the early Gothic novel; +for he is clearly neither the wooden hero nor the diabolical villain +of Radcliffian or Ludovician romance. Indirectly, however, he does +possess a sort of genealogical connexion; since his gloomy, ambition +and anti-social qualities savour strongly of the typical Byronic +hero, who in turn is definitely an off-spring of the Gothic Manfreds, +Montonis, and Ambrosios. More particular qualities appear to be derived +from the psychology of Poe himself, who certainly possessed much of the +depression, sensitiveness, mad aspiration, loneliness, and extravagant +freakishness which he attributes to his haughty and solitary victims of +Fate. + +(Part Sixteen next month deals with the eighth section of this article, +"The Weird Tradition in America," dealing mostly with Nathaniel +Hawthorne and his comparison with Poe. Don't miss it.) + + * * * * * + + + THE FAVORITE WEIRD STORIES OF CLARK ASHTON SMITH + + (Courtesy of H. Koenig) + + "The Yellow Sign" by Chambers + "The House of Sounds" by Shiel + "The Willows" by Blackwood + "A View from a Hill" by James + "The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Bierce + "The House of Usher" by Poe + "The Masque of Red Death" by Poe + "The White Powder" by Machen + "The Call of Cthulhu" by Lovecraft + "The Colour out of Space" + + * * * * * + + + WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON + + by H. Koenig + +A few years ago Faber and Faber published an anthology of ghost +stories chosen by Colin de la Mare under the title "They Walk Again." +Most of the stories included in this splendid anthology were by +well-known writers such as Blackwood, Dunsany, and Bierce and many of +the stories were familiar ones--"The Monkey's Paw," "Green Tea" and +"The Ghost Ship." However, one new story was included in the book; one +comparatively new face appeared among all the old familiar ones. The +story was "The Voice in the Night" a horrifying and yet pathetic tale +of human beings turned into a fungoid growth; the author is William +Hope Hodgson. + +Except perhaps for a few of the older readers of weird stories, the +name of Hodgson will mean nothing, and yet twenty-five years ago +Hodgson wrote a number of books which compare very favorably with any +of our modern weird stories, books which rank high in the fantasy +field and which deserve more popularity and publicity than they ever +received. Five of his books should be read by all weird story lovers: +"The Boats of the Glen Carrig" 1907, "The House on the Borderland" +1908, "The Night Land" 1912, and "Carnacki, The Ghost Finder" 1913. + +The first three books form (in Hodgson's words) "what perhaps may be +termed a trilogy; for though very different in scope, each of the +three books deals with certain conceptions that have an elemental +kinship." A few chapter headings will give some idea of the treat in +store for fantasy fans fortunate enough to locate these books--"The +Thing that Made Search," "The Island in the Weed," "The Noise in the +Valley," "The Weed Men," "The Thing in the Pit," "The Swing Things," +etc. + +"The Night Land" is one of the longest fantastic romances ever written, +running close to six hundred pages. It is a story of the world in the +future when the sun has died and the "Last Millions" are living in a +large redoubt, a huge pyramid of gray metal nearly eight miles high +and five miles around the base. Beyond the pyramid were mighty races +of terrible creatures, half-beast and half-man, night hounds monstrous +slugs, and other horrible monsters. As a protection against all these +evils a great electric circle was put about the pyramid and lit from +the Earth Current. It bounded the pyramid for a mile on each side and +none of the monsters were able to cross it due to a subtle vibration +which affected their brains. + +"Carnacki, The Ghost Finder" is a series of six short ghost stories in +which Carnacki investigates ghostly phenomena in various homes. One or +two of the tales are somewhat weakened by a natural explanation of the +ghosts, but each of the stories is well worth reading. + +Hodgson's tales may well have served as source books for many of the +stories now being read in our present day pulp magazines. The whole +range of weird and fantastic plots appears to have been covered in the +five books listed previously--pig-men, elementals, human trees, ghosts, +sea of weeds, thought-transference, intelligent slugs, and in "The +Night Land" the men are equipped with a hand weapon called a Diskos. +This consists of a disk of gray metal which spins in the end of a metal +rod, is charged from earth currents and capable of cutting people in +two. + +Unfortunately, there is practically no bibliographical data concerning +Hodgson available. Even his old publishers are unable to supply +any information except a meager list of some of his books and the +regrettable fact that he was killed during the war. + + * * * * * + + + The Sorcery of Aphlar + + by Duane W. Rimel + +The council of twelve seated on the jeweled celestial dais ordered that +Aphlar be cast from the gates of Bel-haz-en. He sat too much alone, +they decreed, and brooded when toil should have been his lot. And +in his obscure and hidden delvings he read all too frequently those +papyri of Elder æons which reposed in the Gothic shrine and were to be +consulted only for rare and special purposes. + +The twilight city of Bel-haz-en had climbed backward in its knowledge. +No longer did philosophers sit upon street corners speaking wise words +to the populace, for stupid ignorance ruled within the crumbling +and immemorially ancient walls. Where once the wisdom of the stars +abounded, only feebleness and desolation now lay upon the place; +spreading like a monstrous blight and sucking foul nurture from the +stupid dwellers. And out of the waters of the Oll that meandered from +the mountains of Azlakka to pass by the aged city, there rose often +great clouds of pestilence that racked the people sorely, leaving them +pale and near to dying. All this their loss of wisdom brought. And now +the council had sent their last and greatest wise man from them. + +Aphlar wandered to the mountains far above the city and built a cavern +for protection from the summer heat and winter chill. There he read his +scrolls in silence and his mighty wisdom to the wind about the crags +and to the swallows on the wing. All day he sat and watched below or +drew queer drawings on small bits of stone and chanted to them, for he +knew that some day men would seek the cave and slay him. The cunning +of the twelve did not mislead him. Had not the last exiled wiseman's +screams rent the night two moon-rounds before when people thought him +safely gone? + +Had not his own eyes seen the priest's sword-slashed form floating by +in the poison waters? He knew no lion had killed old Azik, let the +council say what they might. Does a lion slash with a sword and leave +his prey uneaten? + +Through many seasons Aphlar sat upon the mountain, gazing at the muddy +Oll as it wound into the misty distance to the land where none ever +ventured. He spoke his words of wisdom to the snails that worked in the +ground by his feet. They seemed to understand, and waved their slimy +feelers before they sank beneath the sand again. On moonlight nights +he climbed the hill above his cave and made strange offerings to the +moon-God Alo; and when the night-birds heard the sound they drew close +and listened to the whispering. And when queer winged things flapped +across the darkened sky and loomed up dimly against the moon Aphlar was +content. Those which he had addressed had heeded his beckoning. His +thoughts were always far away, and his prayers were offered to the pale +fancies of dusk. + +Then one day past noontide Aphlar rose from his earthen chair and +strode down the rock mountain-side. His eyes, heeding not the rotten, +stone-walled city, held steadfastly to the river. When he drew near +its muddy brink he paused and looked up the bosom of the stream. A +small object floated near the rushes, and this Aphlar rescued with +tender and curious care. Then, wrapping the thing in the folds of his +robe, he climbed up again to his cave in the hills. All day he sat and +gazed upon the object; rummaging now and then in his musty chronicles, +and muttering awful syllables as he drew faint figures on a piece of +parchment. + +That night the gibbous moon rose high, but Aphlar did not climb above +his dwelling. Queer night-birds flew past the cavern's mouth, chirped +eerily, and fled away into the shadows. + +Many days passed before the council sent their messengers of murder; +but at last the time was thought ripe, and seven dark-browned men +stole away to the hills. Yet when that grim seven ventured within the +cave they saw not the wise man Aphlar. Instead, small blades of grass +were sprouting in his natural chair of earth. All about lay papyri dim +and musty, with faint figures drawn upon them. The seven shuddered +and left forthwith when they beheld these things, but as the last man +tremblingly withdrew he saw a round and unknown thing lying on the +ground. He picked it up, and his fellows drew close in curiosity; but +they saw upon it only alien symbols which they could not read, yet +which made them shrink and quaver without knowing why. Then he who +had found it cast it quickly over the steep precipice beside him, but +no sound came from the slope below whereon it should have fallen. And +the thrower trembled, fearing many things that are not known but only +whispered about. Then, when he told how the sphere he had held was +without the weight a thing of stone should have; how it was like to +have floated on air as the thistledown floats; he and the six with him +slunk as one from the spot and swore it was a place accursed. + +But after they had gone a snail crawled slowly from a sandy crevice and +slid intently over to where the blades of grass were growing. And when +it reached the spot, two slimy feelers stretched forth and bent oddly +downward, as if eager to watch forever the winding river. + + The End + + * * * * * + + Subscribe to + THE FANTASY FAN + only a dollar a year + Insure yourself of your copy; + only a limited number are printed + and the supply does not last long. + + Tell Your Friends About TFF + + Help to increase our circulation. + + * * * * * + + + PROSE PASTELS + + by Clark Ashton Smith + + _5. The Passing of Aphrodite_ + +In all the lands of Illarion, from mountain-valleys rimmed with +unmelting snow, to the great cliffs of sand whose reflex darkens a +sleepy, tepid sea, were lit as of old the green and amethyst fires +of summer. Spices were on the wind that mountaineers had met in the +high glaciers; and the eldest wood of cypress, frowning on a sky-clear +bay, was illumined by scarlet orchids.... But the heart of the poet +Phaniol was an urn of black jade overfraught by love with sodden ashes. +And because he wished to forget for a time the mockery of myrtles, +Phaniol walked alone in the waste bordering upon Illarion; in a place +that great fires had blackened long ago, and which knew not the pine +or the violet, the cypress or the myrtle. There, as the day grew old, +he came to an unsailed ocean, whose waters were dark and still under +the falling sun, and bore not the memorial voices of other seas. And +Phaniol paused, and lingered upon the ashen shore; and dreamt awhile of +that sea whose name is Oblivion. + +Then, from beneath the westering sun, whose bleak light was prone on +his forehead, a barge appeared and swiftly drew to the land: albeit +there was no wind, and the oars hung idly on the foamless wave. And +Phaniol saw that the barge was wrought of ebony fretted with curious +anaglyphs, and carved with luxurious forms of gods and beasts, of +satyrs and goddesses and women; and the figurehead was a black Eros +with full unsmiling mouth and implacable sapphire eyes averted, as if +intent upon things not lightly to be named or revealed. Upon the deck +of the barge were two women, one pale as the northern moon, and the +other swart as equatorial midnight. But both were clad imperially, and +bore the mien of goddesses or of those who dwell near to the goddesses, +without word or gesture, they regarded Phaniol; and, marvelling, he +inquired, "What seek ye?" + +Then, with one voice that was like the voice of hesperian airs among +palms at evening twilight in the Fortunate Isles, they answered, saying: + +"We wait the goddess Aphrodite, who departs in weariness and sorrow +from Illarion, and from all the lands of this world of petty loves and +pettier mortalities. Thou, because thou art a poet, and hast known the +great sovereignty of love, shall behold her departure. But they, the +men of the court, the market-place and the temple, shall receive no +message nor sign of her going-forth, and will scarcely dream that she +is gone.... Now, O Phaniol, the time, the goddess and the going-forth +are at hand." + +Even as they ceased, One came across the desert; and her coming was +a light on the far hills; and where she trod the lengthening shadows +shrunk, and the grey waste put on the purple asphodels and the deep +verdure it had worn when those queens were young, that now are a +darkening legend and a dust of mummia. Even to the shore she came and +stood before Phaniol, while the sunset greatened, filling sky and +sea with a flush as of new-blown blossoms, or the inmost rose of that +coiling shell which was consecrate to her in old time. Without robe or +circlet or garland, crowned and clad only with the sunset, fair with +the dreams of man but fairer yet than all dreams: thus she waited, +smiling tranquilly, who is life or death, despair or rapture, vision or +flesh, to gods and poets and galaxies unknowable. But, filled with a +wonder that was also love, or much more than love, the poet could find +no greeting. + +"Farewell, O Phaniol," she said, and her voice was the sighing of +remote waters, the murmur of waters moon-withdrawn, forsaking not +without sorrow a proud island tall with palms. "Thou hast known me +and worshipped all thy days till now, but the hour of my departure is +come: I go, and when I am gone, thou shalt worship still and shalt +not know me. For the destinies are thus, and not forever to any man, +to any world or to any god, is it given to possess me wholly. Autumn +and spring will return when I am past, the one with yellow leaves, the +other with yellow violets; birds will haunt the renewing myrtles; and +many little loves will be thine. Not again to thee or to any man will +return the perfect vision and the perfect flesh of the goddess." + +Ending thus, she stepped from that ashen strand to the dark prow of the +barge; and even as it had come, without wafture of wind or movement of +oar, the barge put out on a sea covered with the fallen, fading petals +of sunset. Quickly it vanished from view, while the desert lost those +ancient asphodels and the deep verdure it had worn again for a little. +Darkness, having conquered Illarion, came slow and furtive on the path +of Aphrodite; shadows mustered innumerably to the grey hills; and the +heart of the poet Phaniol was an urn of black jade overfraught by love +with sodden ashes. + + * * * * * + + + AN INTERVIEW WITH E. HOFFMANN PRICE + + by Fred Anger & Louis C. Smith + +Author, linguist, world-traveller, automobile mechanic and cook--that, +fantasy fans, is a fairly representative picture of E. Hoffmann Price! +The Syrian quarters of Chicago and New York and the Old French Quarter +of New Orleans are no strange places to this prolific author of weird +stories and detective yarns; he is equally at home in the Philippines +and in certain little-known sections of France. He is--but wait!--let's +go about this in an orderly manner. + +Contrary to popular belief, E. Hoffmann Price did _not_ have his first +story published in Weird Tales; his first was sold to "Droll Stories," +and brought him the magnificent sum of twenty-four dollars (he chuckles +over it now). His first story in Weird Tales was "The Rajah's Gift" +which appeared in January 1925; and from this time on, until his job +as manager of an acetylene plant petered out, Price wrote exclusively +for Weird Tales and Oriental Stories. Since the spring of 1932 he has +devoted all his time to fictioneering. + +"The Sultan's Jest" his third story in the "Unique Magazine" was later +reprinted in "The Sovereign Magazine" published in London. + +"The Lord of the Fourth Axis," in Weird Tales last year was revised +three times before Farnsworth Wright accepted it. The strange, unique +design for the rug which played so prominent part in this latter tale +was suggested by a Turkestan prayer rug of unusual shape now hanging in +the Chicago home of Editor Wright. + +The locale of the Pierre d'Artois stories is authentic: there is the +city of Bayonne, France, and there Price lived for some time, visiting +the underground chambers, soaking in the atmosphere of the place. +Also in France, he visited the city of Lourdes where he obtained from +several old legends, material for "Tarbis of the Lake." + +To "Strange Detective Stories" Price sold one of the Pierre d'Artois +stories, which he considers the wildest story he has ever written. + +Material for "The Prophet's Grand-children" (W. T. October 1925) was +picked up in the Philippines. + +Having sold every story in which a peacock was mentioned, Price quite +naturally considers this beautiful bird the best of good luck emblems. +But enough for the writings of E. Hoffmann Price! For the man himself: + +His favorite smoke is the _nargileh_ or water pipe; though on +occasions he does relish a cigar or a cigarette rolled from Bull +Durham tobacco. + +He speaks German, mangles French and Spanish, and gargles a smattering +of Arabic. + +While in Oklahoma this spring, he salvaged sheet metal from an +abandoned smokestack--welded the pieces together to make an automatic +feed acetylene generator for a friend who owned a repair shop. + +He lived several years in "Le Vieux Carre"--that's creole for "Old +French Quarter"--of New Orleans, which accounts for his frequent use +of Crescent City atmosphere. He has been in the Philippines, Japan, +Hawaii, Mexico, has covered France from end to end, and is at home in +most parts of the States. + +Favorite dishes: Chili con Carne, East Indian Curry, and on state +occasions, a capon stuffed with pistachios and basted with sherry +until, when completely roasted, the fowl is coated with a high glaze +of deep walnut color: the result being called "Varnished Vulture" by +the crew of fictioneers who make Weird Tales Editorial Rooms their +headquarters. And a close second to the foregoing is turtle stew, +prepared according to an old Creole recipe. + +And, there, in a fragmentary, woefully incomplete way, you have E. +Hoffmann Price: swell spinner of tall yarns, linguist, mechanic, cook +par excellence--and in general a hell of a good fellow. + +Selah! + + * * * * * + + + The Laughter of a Ghoul + + by Robert Bloch + +Have you ever heard the laughter of a ghoul? Shrill and high, it +rises and ululates with the cadence of a song from the Pit. Hearing +it brings the soul closer to strange terrors and gives the listener +vague glimpses into half-opened door-ways thru which no man should peer +too closely. Once I heard that mocking laughter in the silence of the +night, and since that evil-fated day the night has held neither silence +nor surcease from the haunting memory of that mirth or madness. Ever it +lurks and lingers in the shadows of my brain, till only thru expression +of my torment can I hope to maintain my sanity in a world made hideous +by the Nemesis of inescapable memory. + +In all the Rood-mass realms of Nightmare, there is nothing equalling in +foulness that grim and fearful monster known to legend as the Ghoul. +Accursed is he, and accursed the land burdened by his presence. In such +a land I dwelt, lord of an ancient, remote line. + +Slithering secrets dwelt within the archaic avenues of the vast and +sombre forest near my manor in the hills--secrets black and hideous, +haunting and unspeakable, such as demonian presences mumble nightly in +the aeon-dead abysses beyond the light of stars. Here in this forlorn +realm of trickling tarns and baleful solitude my newly-wedded and +beloved bride chanced one day to wander, as in rustic holiday. All +unbeknowning, I spent the day in town, returning only as even-tide drew +near. But she, my beloved, did not return, even with the coming of +darkness. + +Then it was that the frightened servants who met me at the gate babbled +that which sent me racing off, torch in hand, into the depths of the +dream-wood looming so loathesomely in the unholy luminance of the +autumn moon. Shrieking and cursing I went on, gibbering threats to the +skies; but more dreadful still was my silence when at last I reached +the end of my quest. Do not ask me how or where I found her. She was +not dead, but she would have been better so after what It had done. She +never spoke after I found her, and I do not think that she knew me. I +pray that she did not. I carried her back to the manor and delivered +her to the care of the servants. Then, with a score of retainers I +returned again to the forest to do that which must be done, and to +eradicate certain discoveries whose very existence was an insult to +sanity. There were bloated trees to cut down, and creepers to be torn +from the depths of nameless graves. There were curious holes to be +blocked with massive stones and certain tracks and monstrous footprints +over which the good curé must pronounce exorcism. There was another +shrub-hidden cavern in the swamps containing grisly but unmistakable +evidences of tenancy. One such place I entered alone and performed a +deed with the long sword my grand-sire had wielded in the Orient. Then +I collapsed, and was carried home upon a hastily-improvised litter of +birchen branches, to toss for many weeks thereafter in the delirious +agony of mocking, cacodemoniacal memory. + +After that I spent many days poring unceasingly over disquieting bits +of ancient legendry concerning the forest and its ghastly presences, +whilst awaiting the birth of my wife's child--for she, in a condition +of unsensibility precluding her removal from the manor, was about to +become a mother. And so slowly passed the dreary months of waiting and +expectancy, whilst over all hung the shadow of an impinging dread. + +At last the day arrived when, as I brooded in my study, poring over the +chronicle of a woodsman who had heard the pipes of Pan, the mid-wife +came and gently touched me on the shoulder. In faltering accents she +whispered that my wife was dead. I sat there dully for five endless +minutes; then in a voice sepulchrally muted, I asked after my child. +She led me silently into the room where dead mother and living infant +lay. + +Yes, the child was alive, still is alive, but I will say no more. May +the Ultimate Powers consign it--and the Fate that produced it--to +everlasting torment! For it was when I entered that room where the dead +mother and the living infant lay that I heard for the first time The +LAUGHTER OF A GHOUL! + +The End + + * * * * * + + + LOST EXCERPTS + + by Robert Nelson + + _II. The Feast of the Centaurs_ + +The enormous chamber was aflare with a myriad lamps. There were long +tables covered with seemingly endless varieties of meats, wines, +cheeses, birds, and other viands and edibles. Drunken centaurs carried +other intoxicated centaurs across the tables trampling everything +that came their way, causing both wrath and mirth to others. Wine was +spilled heavily all about; and centaurs fell and grappled with one +another on the lubricious earth. Two there were who fought for the +possession of a fried grasshopper; and three belabored each other's +heads with weighty stools. Some threw great platters of food from the +tables and demanded more wine. And the exhalation that arose from the +food and creatures became heavier; and the rejoicing and the swearing +and debating of tongues increased. + +There were huge mirrors of multiplied convexity in the vast room and +these seemed to enhance and sharpen the ebbing and flowing luminosity +from the immense wax lights and bright vases. The mirrors caused much +confusion among the inebriated and over-gorged creatures, for they +crashed and careened with one another against the mirrors and cut +themselves, and laughed and cursed at their own grotesque and misshapen +likenesses. + + * * * * * + + + SEABURY QUINN + + A Brief Note + +While it is not generally known to his readers, many of whom believe +him to be a physician, Seabury Quinn, author of the Jules de Grandin +stories which have been popular with the readers of Weird Tales for +ten years, holds the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Laws, being +graduated from the National University Law School, Washington, D. C., +in 1910. From 1910 until his entry into the U. S. Army at the outbreak +of the World War (Second Lieutenant, Infantry attached Intelligence +Service) he practised law in the National Capital, specializing in +criminal and personal injury cases, in which he acted principally as +medico-legal consultant to other attorneys. + + * * * * * + + + ADVERTISEMENTS + Rates: one cent per word + Minimum Charge, 25 cents + +Back Numbers of _The Fantasy Fan_: September, 1933, out of print; Oct., +Dec., 1933--Jan., Feb., Mar., May, June, Aug., Sept., Oct., 1934, 10 +cents each. Nov., 1933--Apr., July, 1934, 20 cents each. + + * * * * * + +CLARK ASHTON SMITH presents THE DOUBLE SHADOW AND OTHER FANTASIES--a +booklet containing a half-dozen imaginative and atmospheric +tales--stories of exotic beauty, horror, terror, strangeness, irony and +satire. Price: 25 cents each (coin or stamps). Also a small remainder +of EBONY AND CRYSTAL--a book of prose-poems published at $2.00, reduced +to $1.00 per copy. Everything sent postpaid. Clark Ashton Smith, +Auburn, California. + + * * * * * + +A. MERRITT'S New Fantasyarn, "The Drone," Donald Wandrei's short +weirdthriller, "The Chuckler," Francis Flagg's glamorous "Moon +Voyager's Speech," "The Horde of Elo Hava," by L. A. Eshbach. All for +10 cents! SFDCOff, 87-36--162nd Street, Jamaica, N. Y. + + * * * * * + +WANTED: Announcement circulars of _Unusual Stories_; September 1933 +_Fantasy Fan_. 50 Cents each. S-F Syndicate, 509 West 26th St., Austin, +Texas. + + * * * * * + +A CHRISTMAS GIFT! Why not give your fantasy-loving friends something +for Christmas that they will long remember? Give them a subscription to +THE FANTASY FAN! They will think of you as they receive their copies +each month of the year. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FANTASY FAN, VOLUME 2, NUMBER +4, DECEMBER 1934 *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so +the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. +Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this +license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and +trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be +used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the +trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project +Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> + +<div style='display:table;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:1em;'> + <div style='display:table-row;'> + <div style='display:table-cell;padding-right:0.5em;'>Title:</div> + <div style='display:table-cell;'>The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 4, December 1934</div> + </div> + <div style='display:table-row;'> + <div style='display:table-cell;padding-right:0.5em;'></div> + <div style='display:table-cell;'>The Fan's Own Magazine</div> + </div> +</div> + <div style='display:table-row;'> + <div style='display:table-cell;padding-right:0.5em;'>Author: </div> + <div style='display:table-cell;'>Various</div> + </div> +<div style='height:10px'></div> + <div style='display:table-row;'> + <div style='display:table-cell;padding-right:0.5em;'>Editor: </div> + <div style='display:table-cell;'>Charles D. Hornig</div> + </div> + +<div style='height:10px'></div> + +<div style='margin-bottom:1em;'> +Release Date: Mar 30, 2021 [eBook #64961] +</div> + +<div style='margin-bottom:1em;'> +Language: English +</div> + +<div style='display:table;margin-bottom:1em;'> + <div style='display:table-row;'> + <div style='display:table-cell;vertical-align:top;'>Produced by: </div> + <div style='display:table-cell;'>Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div style='margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG BOOK OF THE FANTASY FAN, VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 1934 ***</div> + + +<div class="x-ebookmaker-drop figcenter"> + <img src="images/title.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<p class="ph1">[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any<br /> +evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h3>NOTICE</h3> + + +<p>Due to increased printing costs, we find it no longer possible to +continue our covers.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h3>OUR READERS SAY</h3> + +<p>We hope that this issue will give you a better appreciation of that +father of the weird tale, Edgar Allan Poe. H. P. Lovecraft's article +brings out many points in the ability of this immortal which have never +been mentioned in his biographies.</p> + +<p>"The issues have been consistently pleasing. The September had the +edge over the October number on account of variety."—Lester Anderson, +Hayward, Calif.</p> + +<p>"I wish you to know that the idea of dedicating each issue is a very +fine one. I hope you can keep on giving us such fine material that has +never before seen print."—F. Lee Baldwin, Asotin, Wash.</p> + +<p>"Oh—hurray and other such expletives! It just tickled me pink to find +some more of H. P. Lovecraft's works 'Fungi from Yuggoth,' 'Tis many a +long year I've been waiting to find more of them."—Gertrude Hemken, +Chicago, Ill.</p> + +<p>"I am extremely glad to see the new TFF, which manages to hold much +of interest despite the space I use up. As I said before, I surely +appreciate the courtesy of the dedication. I shall be anxious to see +the coming Smith and Poe numbers."—H. P. Lovecraft, Providence, R. I.</p> + +<p>"Congratulations on the new and greatly improved appearance of TFF. The +new cover adds its dignity."—Richard Ely Morse, Washington, D. C.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h3>WEIRD WHISPERINGS<br /> +by Schwartz and Weisinger</h3> + + +<p><i>Horror Stories</i>, a companion weird magazine to <i>Terror Tales</i>, will +appear in the middle of December.... The Winford Publications' weird +magazine forecast in this column some months ago made its bow in +November under the title, <i>Mystery Novels Magazine, Weird! Strange!! +Unusual!!!</i> To judge from the first issue there will appear a complete +book-length novel in each number, to be accompanied by three or four +weird-mystery yarns.... Edmond Hamilton deserts science fiction in +the February <i>Weird Tales</i> for a crime story, called "Murder in the +Grave".... Clark Ashton Smith does a lot of drawing for his own +amusement, mostly heads of supernatural creatures. One very good one +shows an old man with an elephant's trunk for a nose, ending in the +head of a snake.</p> + +<p>A strange and unusual twist to stories about radio will be given in +a new story by the author of "Vampires of the Moon," A. W. Bernal, +titled "The Man who was Two Men".... <i>Tales of Magic and Mystery</i>, a +short lived weird magazine, published a few yarns by Frank Owen, and an +exceptionally good H. P. Lovecraft story, "Cool Air".... An ingenious +tale of the distant future, dealing with mechanical companions and +synthetic love, written by Frank Belknap Long, Jr., and entitled "The +Body Masters," will be one of the highlights of the February WT.</p> + +<p>For the past few years the Philip Allan & Co., Ltd., of London, has +been publishing a collection of weird tale books under the title, The +Creeps Series, a Collection of Uneasy Tales. Included in the series +so far are: "Powers of Darkness," "Panics," "Monsters," "Nightmares," +"Mysteries of Asia," (by Achmed Abdullah), "Quakes," "Horrors," +"Terrors," "Devil's Drums," "Veils of Fear," "The Strange Papers of Dr. +Blayre," and now in preparation, "Tales of the Grotesque." The books +contain about 12 stories, each of a distinctly weird nature by such +authors as Tod Robbins, Elliott O'Donnell, H. R. Wakefield, Douglas +Newton, and others. Every year, too, appears a "Not at Night" series, +edited by Christine Campbell Thomson, containing a collection of the +best weird stories published during the year, the majority being from +<i>Weird Tales</i>.</p> + +<p>Paul Ernst's three part novel, "Rulers of the Future," relating what +the world will be like millions of years from now, and carrying the +heroes of the story thru the whole universe with the speed of light, +will be published starting with the January <i>Weird Tales</i>.... "The +Red Room," by H. G. Wells, is the most often plagiarized weird story, +according to Farnsworth Wright, and "The Damned Thing," by Bierce is +another plot often seized upon.... In the February <i>Weird</i> will appear +the first of Seabury Quinn's new series dealing with Thomas Eldridge +Carter, investigator for the Grand Central Life Assurance Company, +called "The Web of Living Death."</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE</h2> + +<h3>by H. P. Lovecraft</h3> + +<p class="ph1">(copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook)</p> + +<p class="ph1">Part Fifteen</p> + +<p class="ph1">VII. Edgar Allan Poe</p> + + +<p>In the eighteen-thirties occurred a literary dawn directly affecting +not only the history of the weird tale, but that of short fiction as +a whole; and indirectly moulding the trends and fortunes of a great +European aesthetic school. It is our good fortune as Americans to be +able to claim that dawn as our own, for it came in the person of our +illustrious and unfortunate fellow-countryman Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's +fame has been subject to curious undulations, and it is now a fashion +amongst the "advanced intelligentsia" to minimise his importance both +as an artist and as an influence; but it would be hard for any mature +and reflective critic to deny the tremendous value of his work and the +pervasive potency of his mind as an opener of artistic vistas. True, +his type of outlook may have been anticipated; but it was he who first +realized its possibilities and gave it supreme form and systematic +expression. True also, that subsequent writers may have produced +greater single tales than his; but again we must comprehend that it +was only he who taught them by example and precept the art which they, +having the way cleared for them and given an explicit guide, were +perhaps able to carry to greater lengths. Whatever his limitations, Poe +did that which no one else ever did or could have done; and to him we +owe the modern-story in its final and perfected state.</p> + +<p>Before Poe the bulk of weird writers had worked largely in the dark; +without an understanding of the psychological basis of the horror +appeal, and hampered by more or less of conformity to certain empty +literary conventions such as the happy ending, virtue rewarded, and in +general a hollow moral didacticism, acceptance of popular standards and +values, and striving of the author to obtrude his own emotions into the +story and take sides with the partisans of the majority's artificial +ideals. Poe, on the other hand, perceived the essential impersonality +of the real artist; and knew that the function of creative fiction +is merely to express and interpret events and sensations as they +are, regardless of how they tend or what they prove—good or evil, +attractive or repulsive, stimulating or depressing, with the author +always acting as a vivid and detached chronicler rather than as a +teacher, sympathiser, or vendor of opinion. He saw clearly that all +phases of life and thought are equally eligible as subject matter for +the artist, and being inclined by temperament to strangeness and gloom, +decided to be the interpreter of those powerful feelings and frequent +happenings which attend pain rather than pleasure, decay rather than +growth, terror rather than tranquility, and which are fundamentally +either adverse or indifferent to the tastes and traditional outward +sentiments of mankind, and to the health, sanity, and normal expansive +welfare of the species.</p> + +<p>Poe's spectres thus acquired a convincing malignity possessed by none +of their predecessors, and established a new standard of realism in +the annals of literary horror. The impersonal and artistic intent, +moreover, was aided by a scientific attitude not often found before; +whereby Poe studied the human mind rather than the usages of Gothic +fiction, and worked with an analytical knowledge of terror's true +sources which doubled the force of his narratives and emancipated +him from all the absurdities inherent in merely conventional +shudder-coining. This example having been set, later authors were +naturally forced to conform to it in order to compete at all; so that +in this way a definite change began to affect the main stream of +macabre writing. Poe, too, set a fashion in consummate craftmanship; +and although today some of his own work seems slightly melodramatic +and unsophisticated, we can constantly trace his influence in such +things as the maintenance of a single mood and achievement of a single +impression in a tale, and the rigorous paring down of incidents to such +as have a direct bearing on the plot and will figure prominently in +the climax. Truly may it be said that Poe invented the short story in +its present form. His elevation of disease, perversity, and decay to +the level of artistically expressible themes was likewise infinitely +far-reaching in effect; for avidly seized, sponsored, and intensified +by his eminent French admirer Charles Pierre Baudelaire, it became the +nucleus of the principal aesthetic movements in France, thus making Poe +in a sense the father of the Decadents and the Symbolists.</p> + +<p>Poet and critic by nature and supreme attainment, logician and +philosopher by taste and mannerism, Poe was by no means immune from +defects and affectations. His pretence to profound and obscure +scholarship, his blundering ventures in stilted and laboured +pseudo-humorous, and his often vitriolic outbursts of critical +prejudices must all be recognized and forgiven. Beyond and above them, +dwarfing them to insignificance, was a master's vision of the terror +that stalks about and within us, and the worm that writhes and slavers +in the hideously close abyss. Penetrating to every festering horror in +the gaily painted mockery called existence, that vision had power to +project itself in marvelous crystallisations and transmutations; till +there bloomed in the sterile America of the thirties and forties such a +moon-nourished garden of gorgeous poison fungi as not even the nether +slope of Saturn had known in the days of the unutterable blasphemies. +Verses and tales alike sustain the burden of cosmic panic. The raven +whose noisome beak pierces the heart, the ghouls that toll iron bells +in pestilential steeples, the vault of Ulalume in the black October +night, the shocking spires and cones under the sea, the "wild, weird +clime that lieth, sublime, out of Space—out of Time"—all these +things and more leer at us amidst maniacal rattlings in the seething +nightmare of the poetry. And in the prose there yawn open for us the +very jaws of the pit—inconceivable abnormalities slyly hinted into +a horrible half-knowledge by words whose innocence we scarcely doubt +till the cracked tension of the speaker's hollow voice bids us fear +their nameless implications; demoniac patterns and presences slumbering +noxiously till waked for one phobic instant into a shrieking revelation +that cackles itself to sudden madness or explodes in memorable and +cataclysmic echoes. A Witches' Sabbath of horror flinging off decorous +robes is flashed before us—a sight the more monstrous because of the +scientific skill with which every particular is marshalled and brought +into an easy apparent relation to the known gruesomeness of material +life.</p> + +<p>Poe's tales, of course, fall into several classes; some of which +contain a purer essence of spiritual horror than others. The tales of +logic and ratiocination, forerunners of the modern detective story, are +not to be included at all in weird literature; whilst certain others, +probably influenced considerably by Hoffman, possess an extravagance +which relegates them to the borderline of the grotesque. Still a third +group deal with abnormal psychology and monomania in such a way as to +express terror but not weirdness. A substantial residuum, however, +represents the literature of supernatural horror in the acutest form; +and give their author a permanent and unassailable place as deity +and fountain-head of all modern diabolic fiction. Who can forget the +terrible swollen ship poised on the billow-chasm's edge in "Ms. Found +in a Bottle"—the dark intimations of her unhallowed age and monstrous +growth, her sinister crew of unseeing greybeards, and her frightful +southward rush under full sail thru the ice of the Antarctic night, +sucked onward by some resistless devil-current toward a vortex of +eldritch enlightenment which must end in destruction?</p> + +<p>Then there is the unutterable "M. Valdemar," kept together by hypnotism +for seven months after his death, and uttering frantic sounds but a +moment before the breaking of the spell leaves him "a nearly liquid +mass of loathsome, of detestable putrescence." In the "Narrative of +A. Gordon Pym" the voyagers reach first a strange south polar land of +murderous savages where nothing is white and where vast rocky ravings +have the form of titanic Egyptian letters spelling terrible primal +arcana of earth; and thereafter a still more mysterious realm where +everything is white, and where shrouded giants and snowy-plumed birds +guard a cryptic cataract of mist which empties from immeasurable +celestial heights into a torrid milky sea. "Metzengerstein" horrifies +with its malign hints of a monstrous metempsychosis—the mad nobleman +who burns the stable of his hereditary foe; the colossal unknown horse +that issues from the blazing building after the owner has perished +therein; the vanishing bit of ancient tapestry where was shown the +giant horse of the victim's ancestor in the Crusade's; the madman's +wild and constant riding on the great horse, and his fear and hatred +of the steed; the meaningless prophecies that brood obscurely over the +warring houses; and finally, the burning of the madman's palace and +the death therein of the owner, borne helpless into the flames and +up the vast staircase astride the beast he has ridden so strangely. +Afterward the rising smoke of the ruins takes the form of a gigantic +horse. "The Man of the Crowd," telling of one who roams day and night +to mingle with streams of people as if afraid to be alone, has quieter +effects, but implies nothing less of cosmic fear. Poe's mind was +never far from terror and decay, and we see in every tale, poem, and +philosophical dialogue, a tense eagerness to fathom unplumbed wells of +night, to pierce the veil of death, and to reign in fancy as lord of +the frightful mysteries of time and space.</p> + +<p>Certain of Poe's tales possess an almost absolute perfection of +artistic form which makes them veritable beacon-lights in the province +of the short story. Poe could, when he wished, give to his prose a +richly poetic cast; employing that archaic and Orientalised style with +jeweled phrase, quasi-Biblical repetition, and recurrent burthen so +successfully used by later writers like Oscar Wilde and Lord Dunsany; +and in the cases where he has done this we have an effect of lyrical +phantasy almost narcotic in essence—an opium pageant of dream in the +language of dream, with every unnatural colour and grotesque image +bodied forth in a symphony of corresponding sound. "The Masque of the +Red Death," "Silence, a Fable," and "Shadow, a Parable," are assuredly +poems in every sense of the word save the metrical one and owe as much +of their power to aural cadence as to visual imagery. But it is in two +of the less openly poetic tales, "Ligeia," and "The Fall of the House +of Usher,"—especially the latter—that one finds those very summits +of artistry whereby Poe takes his place at the head of fictional +miniaturists. Simple and straight-forward in plot, both of these tales +owe their supreme magic to the cunning development which appears in the +selection and collocation of every least incident. "Ligeia" tells of +a first wife of lofty and mysterious origin, who after death returns +through a preternatural force of will to take possession of the body of +a second wife; imposing even her physical appearance on the temporary +reanimated corpse of her victim at the last moment. Despite a suspicion +of prolixity and topheaviness, the narrative reaches its terrific +climax with relentless power. "Usher," whose superiority in detail +and proportion is very marked, hints shudderingly of obscure life in +inorganic things, and displays an abnormally linked trinity of entities +at the end of a long and isolated family history—a brother, his twin +sister, and their incredibly ancient house all sharing a single soul +and meeting one common dissolution at the same moment.</p> + +<p>These bizarre conceptions, so awkward in unskillful hands, become under +Poe's spell living and convincing terrors to haunt our nights; and +all because the author understood so perfectly the very mechanics and +physiology of fear and strangeness—the essential details to emphasise, +the precise incongruities and conceits to select as preliminaries or +concomitants to horror, the exact incidents and allusions to throw +out innocently in advance as symbols or prefigurings of each major +step toward the hideous denouement to come, the nice adjustments of +cumulative force and the unerring accuracy in linkage of parts which +make for faultless unity throughout and thunderous effectiveness at the +climactic moment, the delicate nuances of scenic and landscape value to +select in establishing and sustaining the desired mood and vitalising +the desired illusion—principles of this kind, and dozens of obscurer +ones too elusive to be described or even fully comprehended by any +ordinary commentator. Melodrama and unsophistication there may be—we +are told of one fastidious Frenchman who could not bear to read Poe +except in Baudelaire's urbane and Gallically modulated translation—but +all traces of such things are wholly overshadowed by a potent and +inborn sense of the spectral, the morbid, and the horrible which gushed +forth from every cell of the artist's creative mentality and stamped +his macabre work with the ineffaceable mark of supreme genius. Poe's +weird tales are <i>alive</i> in a manner that few others can ever hope to be.</p> + +<p>Like most fantaisistes, Poe excels in incidents and broad narrative +effects rather than in character drawing. His typical protagonist is +generally a dark, handsome, proud, melancholy, intellectual, highly +sensitive, capricious, introspective, isolated, and sometimes slightly +mad gentleman of ancient family and opulent circumstances; usually +deeply learned in strange lore, and darkly ambitious of penetrating to +forbidden secrets of the universe. Aside from a high-sounding name, +this character obviously derives little from the early Gothic novel; +for he is clearly neither the wooden hero nor the diabolical villain +of Radcliffian or Ludovician romance. Indirectly, however, he does +possess a sort of genealogical connexion; since his gloomy, ambition +and anti-social qualities savour strongly of the typical Byronic +hero, who in turn is definitely an off-spring of the Gothic Manfreds, +Montonis, and Ambrosios. More particular qualities appear to be derived +from the psychology of Poe himself, who certainly possessed much of the +depression, sensitiveness, mad aspiration, loneliness, and extravagant +freakishness which he attributes to his haughty and solitary victims of +Fate.</p> + +<p>(Part Sixteen next month deals with the eighth section of this article, +"The Weird Tradition in America," dealing mostly with Nathaniel +Hawthorne and his comparison with Poe. Don't miss it.)</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h3>THE FAVORITE WEIRD STORIES OF CLARK ASHTON SMITH<br /> +(Courtesy of H. Koenig)</h3> + +<table summary="list of books"> +<tr><td>"The Yellow Sign" by Chambers</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The House of Sounds" by Shiel</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The Willows" by Blackwood</td></tr> +<tr><td>"A View from a Hill" by James</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Bierce</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The House of Usher" by Poe</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The Masque of Red Death" by Poe</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The White Powder" by Machen</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The Call of Cthulhu" by Lovecraft</td></tr> +<tr><td>"The Colour out of Space"</td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON</h2> + +<h3>by H. Koenig</h3> + + +<p>A few years ago Faber and Faber published an anthology of ghost +stories chosen by Colin de la Mare under the title "They Walk Again." +Most of the stories included in this splendid anthology were by +well-known writers such as Blackwood, Dunsany, and Bierce and many of +the stories were familiar ones—"The Monkey's Paw," "Green Tea" and +"The Ghost Ship." However, one new story was included in the book; one +comparatively new face appeared among all the old familiar ones. The +story was "The Voice in the Night" a horrifying and yet pathetic tale +of human beings turned into a fungoid growth; the author is William +Hope Hodgson.</p> + +<p>Except perhaps for a few of the older readers of weird stories, the +name of Hodgson will mean nothing, and yet twenty-five years ago +Hodgson wrote a number of books which compare very favorably with any +of our modern weird stories, books which rank high in the fantasy +field and which deserve more popularity and publicity than they ever +received. Five of his books should be read by all weird story lovers: +"The Boats of the Glen Carrig" 1907, "The House on the Borderland" +1908, "The Night Land" 1912, and "Carnacki, The Ghost Finder" 1913.</p> + +<p>The first three books form (in Hodgson's words) "what perhaps may be +termed a trilogy; for though very different in scope, each of the +three books deals with certain conceptions that have an elemental +kinship." A few chapter headings will give some idea of the treat in +store for fantasy fans fortunate enough to locate these books—"The +Thing that Made Search," "The Island in the Weed," "The Noise in the +Valley," "The Weed Men," "The Thing in the Pit," "The Swing Things," +etc.</p> + +<p>"The Night Land" is one of the longest fantastic romances ever written, +running close to six hundred pages. It is a story of the world in the +future when the sun has died and the "Last Millions" are living in a +large redoubt, a huge pyramid of gray metal nearly eight miles high +and five miles around the base. Beyond the pyramid were mighty races +of terrible creatures, half-beast and half-man, night hounds monstrous +slugs, and other horrible monsters. As a protection against all these +evils a great electric circle was put about the pyramid and lit from +the Earth Current. It bounded the pyramid for a mile on each side and +none of the monsters were able to cross it due to a subtle vibration +which affected their brains.</p> + +<p>"Carnacki, The Ghost Finder" is a series of six short ghost stories in +which Carnacki investigates ghostly phenomena in various homes. One or +two of the tales are somewhat weakened by a natural explanation of the +ghosts, but each of the stories is well worth reading.</p> + +<p>Hodgson's tales may well have served as source books for many of the +stories now being read in our present day pulp magazines. The whole +range of weird and fantastic plots appears to have been covered in the +five books listed previously—pig-men, elementals, human trees, ghosts, +sea of weeds, thought-transference, intelligent slugs, and in "The +Night Land" the men are equipped with a hand weapon called a Diskos. +This consists of a disk of gray metal which spins in the end of a metal +rod, is charged from earth currents and capable of cutting people in +two.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, there is practically no bibliographical data concerning +Hodgson available. Even his old publishers are unable to supply +any information except a meager list of some of his books and the +regrettable fact that he was killed during the war.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>The Sorcery of Aphlar</h2> + +<h3>by Duane W. Rimel</h3> + + +<p>The council of twelve seated on the jeweled celestial dais ordered that +Aphlar be cast from the gates of Bel-haz-en. He sat too much alone, +they decreed, and brooded when toil should have been his lot. And +in his obscure and hidden delvings he read all too frequently those +papyri of Elder æons which reposed in the Gothic shrine and were to be +consulted only for rare and special purposes.</p> + +<p>The twilight city of Bel-haz-en had climbed backward in its knowledge. +No longer did philosophers sit upon street corners speaking wise words +to the populace, for stupid ignorance ruled within the crumbling +and immemorially ancient walls. Where once the wisdom of the stars +abounded, only feebleness and desolation now lay upon the place; +spreading like a monstrous blight and sucking foul nurture from the +stupid dwellers. And out of the waters of the Oll that meandered from +the mountains of Azlakka to pass by the aged city, there rose often +great clouds of pestilence that racked the people sorely, leaving them +pale and near to dying. All this their loss of wisdom brought. And now +the council had sent their last and greatest wise man from them.</p> + +<p>Aphlar wandered to the mountains far above the city and built a cavern +for protection from the summer heat and winter chill. There he read his +scrolls in silence and his mighty wisdom to the wind about the crags +and to the swallows on the wing. All day he sat and watched below or +drew queer drawings on small bits of stone and chanted to them, for he +knew that some day men would seek the cave and slay him. The cunning +of the twelve did not mislead him. Had not the last exiled wiseman's +screams rent the night two moon-rounds before when people thought him +safely gone?</p> + +<p>Had not his own eyes seen the priest's sword-slashed form floating by +in the poison waters? He knew no lion had killed old Azik, let the +council say what they might. Does a lion slash with a sword and leave +his prey uneaten?</p> + +<p>Through many seasons Aphlar sat upon the mountain, gazing at the muddy +Oll as it wound into the misty distance to the land where none ever +ventured. He spoke his words of wisdom to the snails that worked in the +ground by his feet. They seemed to understand, and waved their slimy +feelers before they sank beneath the sand again. On moonlight nights +he climbed the hill above his cave and made strange offerings to the +moon-God Alo; and when the night-birds heard the sound they drew close +and listened to the whispering. And when queer winged things flapped +across the darkened sky and loomed up dimly against the moon Aphlar was +content. Those which he had addressed had heeded his beckoning. His +thoughts were always far away, and his prayers were offered to the pale +fancies of dusk.</p> + +<p>Then one day past noontide Aphlar rose from his earthen chair and +strode down the rock mountain-side. His eyes, heeding not the rotten, +stone-walled city, held steadfastly to the river. When he drew near +its muddy brink he paused and looked up the bosom of the stream. A +small object floated near the rushes, and this Aphlar rescued with +tender and curious care. Then, wrapping the thing in the folds of his +robe, he climbed up again to his cave in the hills. All day he sat and +gazed upon the object; rummaging now and then in his musty chronicles, +and muttering awful syllables as he drew faint figures on a piece of +parchment.</p> + +<p>That night the gibbous moon rose high, but Aphlar did not climb above +his dwelling. Queer night-birds flew past the cavern's mouth, chirped +eerily, and fled away into the shadows.</p> + +<p>Many days passed before the council sent their messengers of murder; +but at last the time was thought ripe, and seven dark-browned men +stole away to the hills. Yet when that grim seven ventured within the +cave they saw not the wise man Aphlar. Instead, small blades of grass +were sprouting in his natural chair of earth. All about lay papyri dim +and musty, with faint figures drawn upon them. The seven shuddered +and left forthwith when they beheld these things, but as the last man +tremblingly withdrew he saw a round and unknown thing lying on the +ground. He picked it up, and his fellows drew close in curiosity; but +they saw upon it only alien symbols which they could not read, yet +which made them shrink and quaver without knowing why. Then he who +had found it cast it quickly over the steep precipice beside him, but +no sound came from the slope below whereon it should have fallen. And +the thrower trembled, fearing many things that are not known but only +whispered about. Then, when he told how the sphere he had held was +without the weight a thing of stone should have; how it was like to +have floated on air as the thistledown floats; he and the six with him +slunk as one from the spot and swore it was a place accursed.</p> + +<p>But after they had gone a snail crawled slowly from a sandy crevice and +slid intently over to where the blades of grass were growing. And when +it reached the spot, two slimy feelers stretched forth and bent oddly +downward, as if eager to watch forever the winding river.</p> + +<p class="ph1">The End</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p class="ph1">Subscribe to</p> + +<p class="ph1">THE FANTASY FAN</p> + +<p class="ph1">only a dollar a year</p> + +<p class="ph1">Insure yourself of your copy;<br /> +only a limited number are printed<br /> +and the supply does not last long.</p> + +<p class="ph1">Tell Your Friends About TFF</p> + +<p class="ph1">Help to increase our circulation.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>PROSE PASTELS</h2> + +<h3>by Clark Ashton Smith</h3> + +<p class="ph1"><i>5. The Passing of Aphrodite</i></p> + + +<p>In all the lands of Illarion, from mountain-valleys rimmed with +unmelting snow, to the great cliffs of sand whose reflex darkens a +sleepy, tepid sea, were lit as of old the green and amethyst fires +of summer. Spices were on the wind that mountaineers had met in the +high glaciers; and the eldest wood of cypress, frowning on a sky-clear +bay, was illumined by scarlet orchids.... But the heart of the poet +Phaniol was an urn of black jade overfraught by love with sodden ashes. +And because he wished to forget for a time the mockery of myrtles, +Phaniol walked alone in the waste bordering upon Illarion; in a place +that great fires had blackened long ago, and which knew not the pine +or the violet, the cypress or the myrtle. There, as the day grew old, +he came to an unsailed ocean, whose waters were dark and still under +the falling sun, and bore not the memorial voices of other seas. And +Phaniol paused, and lingered upon the ashen shore; and dreamt awhile of +that sea whose name is Oblivion.</p> + +<p>Then, from beneath the westering sun, whose bleak light was prone on +his forehead, a barge appeared and swiftly drew to the land: albeit +there was no wind, and the oars hung idly on the foamless wave. And +Phaniol saw that the barge was wrought of ebony fretted with curious +anaglyphs, and carved with luxurious forms of gods and beasts, of +satyrs and goddesses and women; and the figurehead was a black Eros +with full unsmiling mouth and implacable sapphire eyes averted, as if +intent upon things not lightly to be named or revealed. Upon the deck +of the barge were two women, one pale as the northern moon, and the +other swart as equatorial midnight. But both were clad imperially, and +bore the mien of goddesses or of those who dwell near to the goddesses, +without word or gesture, they regarded Phaniol; and, marvelling, he +inquired, "What seek ye?"</p> + +<p>Then, with one voice that was like the voice of hesperian airs among +palms at evening twilight in the Fortunate Isles, they answered, saying:</p> + +<p>"We wait the goddess Aphrodite, who departs in weariness and sorrow +from Illarion, and from all the lands of this world of petty loves and +pettier mortalities. Thou, because thou art a poet, and hast known the +great sovereignty of love, shall behold her departure. But they, the +men of the court, the market-place and the temple, shall receive no +message nor sign of her going-forth, and will scarcely dream that she +is gone.... Now, O Phaniol, the time, the goddess and the going-forth +are at hand."</p> + +<p>Even as they ceased, One came across the desert; and her coming was +a light on the far hills; and where she trod the lengthening shadows +shrunk, and the grey waste put on the purple asphodels and the deep +verdure it had worn when those queens were young, that now are a +darkening legend and a dust of mummia. Even to the shore she came and +stood before Phaniol, while the sunset greatened, filling sky and +sea with a flush as of new-blown blossoms, or the inmost rose of that +coiling shell which was consecrate to her in old time. Without robe or +circlet or garland, crowned and clad only with the sunset, fair with +the dreams of man but fairer yet than all dreams: thus she waited, +smiling tranquilly, who is life or death, despair or rapture, vision or +flesh, to gods and poets and galaxies unknowable. But, filled with a +wonder that was also love, or much more than love, the poet could find +no greeting.</p> + +<p>"Farewell, O Phaniol," she said, and her voice was the sighing of +remote waters, the murmur of waters moon-withdrawn, forsaking not +without sorrow a proud island tall with palms. "Thou hast known me +and worshipped all thy days till now, but the hour of my departure is +come: I go, and when I am gone, thou shalt worship still and shalt +not know me. For the destinies are thus, and not forever to any man, +to any world or to any god, is it given to possess me wholly. Autumn +and spring will return when I am past, the one with yellow leaves, the +other with yellow violets; birds will haunt the renewing myrtles; and +many little loves will be thine. Not again to thee or to any man will +return the perfect vision and the perfect flesh of the goddess."</p> + +<p>Ending thus, she stepped from that ashen strand to the dark prow of the +barge; and even as it had come, without wafture of wind or movement of +oar, the barge put out on a sea covered with the fallen, fading petals +of sunset. Quickly it vanished from view, while the desert lost those +ancient asphodels and the deep verdure it had worn again for a little. +Darkness, having conquered Illarion, came slow and furtive on the path +of Aphrodite; shadows mustered innumerably to the grey hills; and the +heart of the poet Phaniol was an urn of black jade overfraught by love +with sodden ashes.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>AN INTERVIEW WITH E. HOFFMANN PRICE</h2> + +<h3>by Fred Anger & Louis C. Smith</h3> + + +<p>Author, linguist, world-traveller, automobile mechanic and cook—that, +fantasy fans, is a fairly representative picture of E. Hoffmann Price! +The Syrian quarters of Chicago and New York and the Old French Quarter +of New Orleans are no strange places to this prolific author of weird +stories and detective yarns; he is equally at home in the Philippines +and in certain little-known sections of France. He is—but wait!—let's +go about this in an orderly manner.</p> + +<p>Contrary to popular belief, E. Hoffmann Price did <i>not</i> have his first +story published in Weird Tales; his first was sold to "Droll Stories," +and brought him the magnificent sum of twenty-four dollars (he chuckles +over it now). His first story in Weird Tales was "The Rajah's Gift" +which appeared in January 1925; and from this time on, until his job +as manager of an acetylene plant petered out, Price wrote exclusively +for Weird Tales and Oriental Stories. Since the spring of 1932 he has +devoted all his time to fictioneering.</p> + +<p>"The Sultan's Jest" his third story in the "Unique Magazine" was later +reprinted in "The Sovereign Magazine" published in London.</p> + +<p>"The Lord of the Fourth Axis," in Weird Tales last year was revised +three times before Farnsworth Wright accepted it. The strange, unique +design for the rug which played so prominent part in this latter tale +was suggested by a Turkestan prayer rug of unusual shape now hanging in +the Chicago home of Editor Wright.</p> + +<p>The locale of the Pierre d'Artois stories is authentic: there is the +city of Bayonne, France, and there Price lived for some time, visiting +the underground chambers, soaking in the atmosphere of the place. +Also in France, he visited the city of Lourdes where he obtained from +several old legends, material for "Tarbis of the Lake."</p> + +<p>To "Strange Detective Stories" Price sold one of the Pierre d'Artois +stories, which he considers the wildest story he has ever written.</p> + +<p>Material for "The Prophet's Grand-children" (W. T. October 1925) was +picked up in the Philippines.</p> + +<p>Having sold every story in which a peacock was mentioned, Price quite +naturally considers this beautiful bird the best of good luck emblems. +But enough for the writings of E. Hoffmann Price! For the man himself:</p> + +<p>His favorite smoke is the <i>nargileh</i> or water pipe; though on +occasions he does relish a cigar or a cigarette rolled from Bull +Durham tobacco.</p> + +<p>He speaks German, mangles French and Spanish, and gargles a smattering +of Arabic.</p> + +<p>While in Oklahoma this spring, he salvaged sheet metal from an +abandoned smokestack—welded the pieces together to make an automatic +feed acetylene generator for a friend who owned a repair shop.</p> + +<p>He lived several years in "Le Vieux Carre"—that's creole for "Old +French Quarter"—of New Orleans, which accounts for his frequent use +of Crescent City atmosphere. He has been in the Philippines, Japan, +Hawaii, Mexico, has covered France from end to end, and is at home in +most parts of the States.</p> + +<p>Favorite dishes: Chili con Carne, East Indian Curry, and on state +occasions, a capon stuffed with pistachios and basted with sherry +until, when completely roasted, the fowl is coated with a high glaze +of deep walnut color: the result being called "Varnished Vulture" by +the crew of fictioneers who make Weird Tales Editorial Rooms their +headquarters. And a close second to the foregoing is turtle stew, +prepared according to an old Creole recipe.</p> + +<p>And, there, in a fragmentary, woefully incomplete way, you have E. +Hoffmann Price: swell spinner of tall yarns, linguist, mechanic, cook +par excellence—and in general a hell of a good fellow.</p> + +<p>Selah!</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>The Laughter of a Ghoul</h2> + +<h3>by Robert Bloch</h3> + + +<p>Have you ever heard the laughter of a ghoul? Shrill and high, it +rises and ululates with the cadence of a song from the Pit. Hearing +it brings the soul closer to strange terrors and gives the listener +vague glimpses into half-opened door-ways thru which no man should peer +too closely. Once I heard that mocking laughter in the silence of the +night, and since that evil-fated day the night has held neither silence +nor surcease from the haunting memory of that mirth or madness. Ever it +lurks and lingers in the shadows of my brain, till only thru expression +of my torment can I hope to maintain my sanity in a world made hideous +by the Nemesis of inescapable memory.</p> + +<p>In all the Rood-mass realms of Nightmare, there is nothing equalling in +foulness that grim and fearful monster known to legend as the Ghoul. +Accursed is he, and accursed the land burdened by his presence. In such +a land I dwelt, lord of an ancient, remote line.</p> + +<p>Slithering secrets dwelt within the archaic avenues of the vast and +sombre forest near my manor in the hills—secrets black and hideous, +haunting and unspeakable, such as demonian presences mumble nightly in +the aeon-dead abysses beyond the light of stars. Here in this forlorn +realm of trickling tarns and baleful solitude my newly-wedded and +beloved bride chanced one day to wander, as in rustic holiday. All +unbeknowning, I spent the day in town, returning only as even-tide drew +near. But she, my beloved, did not return, even with the coming of +darkness.</p> + +<p>Then it was that the frightened servants who met me at the gate babbled +that which sent me racing off, torch in hand, into the depths of the +dream-wood looming so loathesomely in the unholy luminance of the +autumn moon. Shrieking and cursing I went on, gibbering threats to the +skies; but more dreadful still was my silence when at last I reached +the end of my quest. Do not ask me how or where I found her. She was +not dead, but she would have been better so after what It had done. She +never spoke after I found her, and I do not think that she knew me. I +pray that she did not. I carried her back to the manor and delivered +her to the care of the servants. Then, with a score of retainers I +returned again to the forest to do that which must be done, and to +eradicate certain discoveries whose very existence was an insult to +sanity. There were bloated trees to cut down, and creepers to be torn +from the depths of nameless graves. There were curious holes to be +blocked with massive stones and certain tracks and monstrous footprints +over which the good curé must pronounce exorcism. There was another +shrub-hidden cavern in the swamps containing grisly but unmistakable +evidences of tenancy. One such place I entered alone and performed a +deed with the long sword my grand-sire had wielded in the Orient. Then +I collapsed, and was carried home upon a hastily-improvised litter of +birchen branches, to toss for many weeks thereafter in the delirious +agony of mocking, cacodemoniacal memory.</p> + +<p>After that I spent many days poring unceasingly over disquieting bits +of ancient legendry concerning the forest and its ghastly presences, +whilst awaiting the birth of my wife's child—for she, in a condition +of unsensibility precluding her removal from the manor, was about to +become a mother. And so slowly passed the dreary months of waiting and +expectancy, whilst over all hung the shadow of an impinging dread.</p> + +<p>At last the day arrived when, as I brooded in my study, poring over the +chronicle of a woodsman who had heard the pipes of Pan, the mid-wife +came and gently touched me on the shoulder. In faltering accents she +whispered that my wife was dead. I sat there dully for five endless +minutes; then in a voice sepulchrally muted, I asked after my child. +She led me silently into the room where dead mother and living infant +lay.</p> + +<p>Yes, the child was alive, still is alive, but I will say no more. May +the Ultimate Powers consign it—and the Fate that produced it—to +everlasting torment! For it was when I entered that room where the dead +mother and the living infant lay that I heard for the first time The +LAUGHTER OF A GHOUL!</p> + +<p class="ph1">The End</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>LOST EXCERPTS</h2> + +<h3>by Robert Nelson</h3> + +<p class="ph1"><i>II. The Feast of the Centaurs</i></p> + + +<p>The enormous chamber was aflare with a myriad lamps. There were long +tables covered with seemingly endless varieties of meats, wines, +cheeses, birds, and other viands and edibles. Drunken centaurs carried +other intoxicated centaurs across the tables trampling everything +that came their way, causing both wrath and mirth to others. Wine was +spilled heavily all about; and centaurs fell and grappled with one +another on the lubricious earth. Two there were who fought for the +possession of a fried grasshopper; and three belabored each other's +heads with weighty stools. Some threw great platters of food from the +tables and demanded more wine. And the exhalation that arose from the +food and creatures became heavier; and the rejoicing and the swearing +and debating of tongues increased.</p> + +<p>There were huge mirrors of multiplied convexity in the vast room and +these seemed to enhance and sharpen the ebbing and flowing luminosity +from the immense wax lights and bright vases. The mirrors caused much +confusion among the inebriated and over-gorged creatures, for they +crashed and careened with one another against the mirrors and cut +themselves, and laughed and cursed at their own grotesque and misshapen +likenesses.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h3>SEABURY QUINN<br /> +A Brief Note</h3> + + +<p>While it is not generally known to his readers, many of whom believe +him to be a physician, Seabury Quinn, author of the Jules de Grandin +stories which have been popular with the readers of Weird Tales for +ten years, holds the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Laws, being +graduated from the National University Law School, Washington, D. C., +in 1910. From 1910 until his entry into the U. S. Army at the outbreak +of the World War (Second Lieutenant, Infantry attached Intelligence +Service) he practised law in the National Capital, specializing in +criminal and personal injury cases, in which he acted principally as +medico-legal consultant to other attorneys.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h3>ADVERTISEMENTS<br /> +Rates: one cent per word<br /> +Minimum Charge, 25 cents</h3> + +<p>Back Numbers of <i>The Fantasy Fan</i>: September, 1933, out of print; Oct., +Dec., 1933—Jan., Feb., Mar., May, June, Aug., Sept., Oct., 1934, 10 +cents each. Nov., 1933—Apr., July, 1934, 20 cents each.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>CLARK ASHTON SMITH presents THE DOUBLE SHADOW AND OTHER FANTASIES—a +booklet containing a half-dozen imaginative and atmospheric +tales—stories of exotic beauty, horror, terror, strangeness, irony and +satire. Price: 25 cents each (coin or stamps). Also a small remainder +of EBONY AND CRYSTAL—a book of prose-poems published at $2.00, reduced +to $1.00 per copy. Everything sent postpaid. Clark Ashton Smith, +Auburn, California.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>A. MERRITT'S New Fantasyarn, "The Drone," Donald Wandrei's short +weirdthriller, "The Chuckler," Francis Flagg's glamorous "Moon +Voyager's Speech," "The Horde of Elo Hava," by L. A. Eshbach. All for +10 cents! SFDCOff, 87-36—162nd Street, Jamaica, N. Y.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>WANTED: Announcement circulars of <i>Unusual Stories</i>; September 1933 +<i>Fantasy Fan</i>. 50 Cents each. S-F Syndicate, 509 West 26th St., Austin, +Texas.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>A CHRISTMAS GIFT! Why not give your fantasy-loving friends something +for Christmas that they will long remember? Give them a subscription to +THE FANTASY FAN! They will think of you as they receive their copies +each month of the year.</p> + +<div style='margin-top:1.5em;margin-bottom:1em;'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG BOOK OF THE FANTASY FAN, VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 1934 ***</div> + +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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