The Fantasy Fan, Volume 1, Number 10, June 1934

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Title: The Fantasy Fan, Volume 1, Number 10, June 1934 - The Fan's Own Magazine
Author: Charles D. Hornig, - To be updated
Language: English
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10, JUNE 1934 ***

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 1
June, 1934
Number 10

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

OUR READERS SAY

"The May FANTASY FAN was just what its cover implied--peachy. It
had just the right proportion of interesting items. Schwartz and
Weisinger's column was just what was needed--most of their items were
new and original. Just that!"--Lester Anderson

"Lovecraft's article is getting to be interesting enough to read
through now, although I didn't think that it was very good during the
first few parts. The article on Wells was particularly good."--David
Stolaroff

"The May issue is, I must say, one of the best yet. 'Weird Whisperings'
and 'Science Fiction in English Magazines' did I especially enjoy
and am looking forward to the latter's promised column on African
stf."--Daniel McPhail

"I am glad to note that Lovecraft's monograph is appearing in larger
instalments. I hope that Baldwin will continue his 'Side Glances.' Glad
my article on M. R. James was approved by so many readers. Later on,
I hope to do some brief articles on other masters of the macabre and
fantastic."--Clark Ashton Smith

"'Phantom Lights' outshines and stifles the reputation of 'Birkett's
Twelfth Corpse.' But 'Dragons' destroys the illusion of 'Shadows.'
Orchids to 'The Flower God,' the best Annal to date, and one of the
choice stories that has appeared thus far in THE FANTASY FAN."--Robert
Nelson

"THE FANTASY FAN came yesterday and I enjoyed every page. The orange
stock paper improved the appearance greatly. The new type is excellent
also. The length of 'Our Readers Say' is just right. It should not be
too long."--Duane W. Rimel

"I have just completed a reading of the May issue of THE FANTASY FAN.
Lovecraft and Smith still stand out as my favorites. Some of the other
articles proved quite interesting, particularly 'Weird Whisperings' and
the two poems 'Shadows' and 'Dragons' were very enjoyable. The colored
'cover' marks another step forward. Keep up the good work."--H. Koenig

"The April issue of THE FANTASY FAN was fine! 'The Ancient Voice'
by Eando Binder was the best story that I have read in a good many
moons! And I don't mean maybe, either! Mr. Binder held me simply
spellbound from start to finish! Let's have many more like this superb
tale!"--Fred John Walsen

"The strength and beauty of Robert E. Howard's 'Gods of the North' in
your March issue has influenced me to mark it for frequent re-reading.
No other of his stories has appealed to me quite so strongly. I
hope that you can induce him to write more stories in the same
vein."--Chester D. Cuthbert

"Just received May FANTASY FAN and was agreeably surprised to see the
'cover.' That's one way of getting started on one. 'Weird Whisperings'
by those master newshawks was very fine. The high spots in the issue
were Barlow's Annals and 'Prose Pastels' by Smith. I never tire reading
either of these two authors. I enjoy all the poetry you print and
believe that you ought to have at least two pages of it."--F. Lee
Baldwin

"I am enclosing a dollar this time for a full year's subscription. I
find the little mag most interesting. Another thing I like about the
book is that the Readers' Sayso includes letters from authors--which
proves that they, too, read stories."--Gertrude Hemken

"I liked practically everything in the April issue of THE FANTASY FAN.
The letters in the lengthened 'Our Readers Say' were interesting, 'Side
Glances' was allright; you know I liked the feature story very much,
and I was interested in reading the views presented on the topic I
suggested, and the ads were good. So there!"--Forrest J. Ackerman

"I enjoy articles by Bob Tucker, Hoy Ping Pong, and Eando Binder's
recent weird narration was fine."--J. Harvey Haggard

"I devour your magazine like a dog does a bone, but I usually read
it first. The articles that appear beat anything ever written by
Shakespeare and makes the works of Poe, Wells, and Verne look
amateurish. Lovecraft, Smith, and Howard are the greatest writers
of all time, in any branch of literature. Of course, because of the
excitement my name would cause if it were printed in your magazine,
please do not publish this letter. Just be satisfied in knowing that
the greatest man in the world is one of your readers."--John de Rocka
Fella

Sorry, Johnny, old kid, but your letter has already gone to press and
it's too late to take it out now. I didn't read your last two sentences
until too late.

* * * * *

BOOKS OF THE WEIRD

by J. Harvey Haggard

"Drums of Dambala" by H. Bedford-Jones is a crackerjack of a weird
novel in case any of the rest of the fans haven't read it. As related
by that master raconteur, we have zombies, ju-ju dances, and lots of
thrilling action on that dark island of ancient magic, Haiti. "The
Story of Superstition," a non-fiction book dealing with the origin of
such quaint modern customs as throwing rice and laying corner-stones,
is another absorbing book. After reading it, you'll wonder if man has
wholly escaped from his belief in the supernatural after all. "Magic
Island," by Seabrook, is another non-fiction book that will thrill
you as much as the most imaginative tale. The author relates his
experiences in Haiti, in which he goes native with the bushmen and
witnesses the sacred dance never before beheld by white men.

* * * * *

From Beyond

by H. P. Lovecraft

Horrible beyond conception was the change which had taken place in my
best friend, Crawford Tillinghast. I had not seen him since that day,
two months and a half before, when he had told me toward what goal
his physical and metaphysical researches were leading; when he had
answered my awed and almost frightened remonstrances by driving me
from his laboratory and his house in a burst of fanatical rage, I had
known that he now remained mostly shut in the attic laboratory with
that accursed electrical machine, eating little and excluding even the
servants, but I had not thought that a brief period of ten weeks could
so alter and disfigure any human creature. It is not pleasant to see a
stout man suddenly grown thin, and it is even worse when the baggy skin
becomes yellowed or greyed, the eyes sunken, circled, and uncannily
glowing, the forehead veined and corrugated, and the hands tremulous
and twitching. And if added to this there be a repellant unkemptness;
a wild disorder of dress, a bushiness of dark hair white at the roots,
and an unchecked growth of white beard on a face once clean-shaven,
the cumulative effect is quite shocking. But such was the aspect of
Crawford Tillinghast on the night his half coherent message brought me
to his door after my weeks of exile; such was the spectre that trembled
as it admitted me, candle in hand, and glanced furtively over its
shoulder as if fearful of unseen things in the ancient, lonely house
set back from Benevolent Street.

That Crawford Tillinghast should ever have studied science and
philosophy was a mistake. These things should be left to the frigid and
impersonal investigator for they offer two equally tragic alternatives
to the man of feeling and action; despair, if he fail in his quest,
and terrors unutterable and unimaginable if he succeed. Tillinghast
had once been the prey of failure, solitary and melancholy; but now I
knew, with nauseating fears of my own, that he was the prey of success.
I had indeed warned him ten weeks before, when he burst forth with his
tale of what he felt himself about to discover. He had been flushed and
excited then, talking in a high and unnatural, though always pedantic,
voice.

"What do we know," he had said, "of the world and the universe about
us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our
notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only
as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their
absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the
boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with a wider, stronger,
or different range of senses might not only see very differently the
things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy,
and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the
senses we have. I have always believed that such strange, inaccessible
worlds exist at our very elbows, _and now I believe I have found a way
to break down the barriers_. I am not joking. Within twenty-four hours
that machine near the table will generate waves acting on unrecognized
sense-organs that exist in us as atrophied or rudimentary vestiges.
Those waves will open up to us many vistas unknown to man, and several
unknown to anything we consider organic life. We shall see that at
which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears
after midnight. We shall see these things, and other things which no
breathing creature has yet seen. We shall overleap time, space, and
dimensions, and without bodily motion peer to the bottom of creation."

When Tillinghast said these things I remonstrated, for I knew him well
enough to be frightened rather than amused; but he was a fanatic,
and drove me from the house. Now he was no less a fanatic, but his
desire to speak had conquered his resentment, and he had written me
imperatively in a hand I could scarcely recognize. As I entered the
abode of the friend so suddenly metamorphosed to a shivering gargoyle,
I became infected with the terror which seemed stalking in all the
shadows. The words and beliefs expressed ten weeks before seemed bodied
forth in the darkness beyond the small circle of candle light, and I
sickened at the hollow, altered voice of my host. I wished the servants
were about, and did not like it when he said they had all left three
days previously. It seemed strange that old Gregory, at least, should
desert his master without telling as tried a friend as I. It was he
who had given me all the information I had of Tillinghast after I was
repulsed in rage.

Yet I soon subordinated all my fears to my growing curiosity and
fascination. Just what Crawford Tillinghast now wished of me I could
only guess, but that he had some stupendous secret or discovery to
impart, I could not doubt. Before I had protested at his unnatural
pryings into the unthinkable; now that he had evidently succeeded to
some degree I almost shared his spirit, terrible though the cost of
victory appeared. Up through the dark emptiness of the house I followed
the bobbing candle in the hand of this shaking parody of man. The
electricity seemed to be turned off, and when I asked my guide he said
it was for a definite reason.

"It would be too much.... I would not dare," he continued to mutter.
I especially noted his new habit of muttering, for it was not like
him to talk to himself. We entered the laboratory in the attic, and I
observed that detestable electrical machine, glowing with a sickly,
sinister violet luminosity. It was connected with a powerful chemical
battery, but seemed to be receiving no current; for I recalled that in
its experimental stage it had sputtered and purred when in action. In
reply to my question Tillinghast mumbled that this permanent glow was
not electrical in any sense that I could understand.

He now seated me near the machine, so that it was on my right, and
turned a switch somewhere below the crowning cluster of glass bulbs.
The usual sputtering began, turned to a whine, and terminated in
a drone so soft as to suggest a return to silence. Meanwhile the
luminosity increased, waned again, then assumed a pale, outre colour or
blend of colours which I could neither place nor describe. Tillinghast
had been watching me, and noted my puzzled expression.

"Do you know what that is?" he whispered, "_that is ultra-violet_." He
chuckled oddly at my surprise. "You thought ultra-violet was invisible,
and so it is--but you can see that and many other invisible things
_now_.

"Listen to me! The waves from that thing are waking a thousand sleeping
senses in us; senses which we inherit from aeons of evolution from the
state of detached electrons to the state of organic humanity. I have
seen _truth_, and I intend to show it to you. Do you wonder how it
will seem? I will tell you." Here Tillinghast seated himself directly
opposite me, blowing out his candle and staring hideously into my eyes.
"Your existing sense-organs--ears first, I think--will pick up many
of the impressions, for they are closely connected with the dormant
organs. Then there will be others. You have heard of the pineal gland?
I laugh at the shallow endocrinologist, fellow-dupe and fellow-parvenu
of the Freudian. That gland is the great sense organ of organs--_I have
found out_. It is like sight in the end, and transmits visual pictures
to the brain. If you are normal, that is the way you ought to get most
of it.... I mean get most of the evidence _from beyond_."

I looked about the immense attic room with the sloping south wall,
dimly lit by rays which the every-day eye cannot see. The far corners
were all shadows, and the whole place took on a hazy unreality which
obscured its nature and invited the imagination to symbolism and
phantasm. During the interval that Tillinghast was silent I fancied
myself in some vast and incredible temple of long-dead gods; some
vague edifice of innumerable black stone columns reaching up from a
floor of damp slabs to a cloudy height beyond the range of my vision.
The picture was very vivid for a while, but gradually gave way to a
more horrible conception; that of utter, absolute solitude in infinite,
sightless, soundless space. There seemed to be a void, and nothing
more, and I felt a childish fear which prompted me to draw from my
hip pocket the revolver I always carried after dark since the night I
was held up in East Providence. Then, from the farthermost regions of
remoteness, the _sound_ softly glided into existence. It was infinitely
faint, subtly vibrant, and unmistakably musical, but held a quality
of surpassing wildness which made its impact feel like a delicate
torture of my whole body. I felt sensations like those one feels when
accidentally scratching ground glass. Simultaneously there developed
something like a cold draught, which apparently swept past me from the
direction of the distant sound. As I waited breathlessly I perceived
that both sound and wind were increasing; the effect being to give me
an odd notion of myself as tied to a pair of rails in the path of a
gigantic approaching locomotive. I began to speak to Tillinghast, and
as I did so all the unusual impressions abruptly vanished. I saw only
the man, the glowing machine, and the dim apartment. Tillinghast was
grinning repulsively at the revolver which I had almost unconsciously
drawn, but from his expression I was sure he had seen and heard as much
as I, if not a great deal more. I whispered what I had experienced and
he bade me remain as quiet and receptive as possible.

"Don't move," he cautioned, "for in these rays _we are able to be seen
as well as to see_. I told you the servants left, but I didn't tell you
_how_. It was that thick-witted housekeeper--she turned on the lights
downstairs after I had warned her not to, and the wires picked up
sympathetic vibrations. It must have been frightful--I could hear the
screams up here in spite of all I was seeing and hearing from another
direction, and later it was rather awful to find those empty heaps of
clothes around the house. Mrs. Updike's clothes were close to the front
hall switch--that's how I know she did it. It got them all. But so
long as we don't move we're fairly safe. Remember we're dealing with a
hideous world in which we are practically helpless.... _Keep still!_"

The combined shock of the revelation and of the abrupt command gave
me a kind of paralysis, and in my terror my mind again opened to the
impressions coming from what Tillinghast called "_beyond_." I was now
in a vortex of sound and motion, with confused pictures before my eyes.
I saw the blurred outlines of the room, but from some point in space
there seemed to be pouring a seething column of unrecognizable shapes
or clouds, penetrating the solid roof at a point ahead and to the right
of me. Then I glimpsed the temple-like effect again, but this time the
pillars reached up into an aerial ocean of light, which sent down one
blinding beam along the path of the cloudy column I had seen before.
After that the scene was almost wholly kaleidoscopic, and in the jumble
of sights, sounds, and unidentified sense-impressions I felt that I was
about to dissolve or in some way lose the solid form. One definite
flash I shall always remember. I seemed for an instant to behold a
patch of strange night sky filled with shining, revolving spheres,
and as it receded I saw that the glowing suns formed a constellation
or galaxy of settled shape; this shape being the distorted face of
Crawford Tillinghast. At another time I felt huge animate things
brushing past me and occasionally _walking or drifting through my
supposedly solid body_, and thought I saw Tillinghast look at them as
though his better trained senses could catch them visually. I recalled
what he had said of the pineal gland, and wondered what he saw with
this preternatural eye.

Suddenly I myself became possessed of a kind of augmented sight. Over
and above the luminous and shadowy chaos arose a picture which, though
vague, held the elements of consistency and permanence. It was indeed
somewhat familiar, for the unusual part was superimposed upon the usual
terrestrial scene much as a cinema view may be thrown upon the painted
curtain of a theater. I saw the attic laboratory, the electrical
machine, and the unsightly form of Tillinghast opposite me; but of all
the space unoccupied by familiar objects not one particle was vacant.
Indescribable shapes both alive and otherwise were mixed in disgusting
disarray, and close to every known thing were whole worlds of alien,
unknown entities. It likewise seemed that all the known things entered
into the composition of other unknown things, and vice versa. Foremost
among the living objects were inky, jellyish monstrosities which
flabbily quivered in harmony with the vibrations from the machine.
They were present in loathsome profusion, and I saw to my horror that
they _over-lapped_; that they were semi fluid and capable of passing
through one another and through what we know as solids. These things
were never still, but seemed ever floating about with some malignant
purpose. Sometimes they appeared to devour one another, the attacker
launching itself at its victim and instantaneously obliterating the
latter from sight. Shudderingly I felt that I knew what had obliterated
the unfortunate servants, and could not exclude the things from my mind
as I strove to observe other properties of the newly visible world that
lies unseen around us. But Tillinghast had been watching me, and was
speaking.

"You see them? You see them? You see the things that float and flop
about you and through you every moment of your life? You see the
creatures that form what men call the pure air and the blue sky? Have I
not succeeded in breaking down the barrier; have I not shown you worlds
that no other living men have seen?" I heard his scream through the
horrible chaos, and looked at the wild face thrust so offensively close
to mine. His eyes were pits of flame, and they glared at me with what I
now saw was overwhelming hatred. The machine droned detestably.

"You think those floundering things wiped out the servants? Fool, they
are harmless! But the servants _are_ gone, aren't they? You tried to
stop me; you discouraged me when I needed every drop of encouragement I
could get; you were afraid of the cosmic truth, you damned coward, but
now I've got you! What swept up the servants? What made them scream so
loud?... Don't know, eh! You'll know soon enough. Look at me--listen to
what I say--do you suppose there are really any such things as time
and magnitude. Do you fancy there are such things as form or matter. I
tell you, I have struck depths that your little brain can't picture.
I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity and drawn down demons from
the stars.... I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to
world to sow death and madness.... Space belongs to me, do you hear?
Things are hunting me now--the things that devour and dissolve--but
I know how to elude them. It is you they will get, as they got the
servants.... Stirring, dear sir? I told you it was dangerous to move,
I have saved you so far by telling you to keep still--saved you to see
more sights and to listen to me. If you had moved, they would have been
at you long ago. Don't worry, they won't _hurt_ you. They didn't hurt
the servants--it was the _seeing_ that made the poor devils scream so.
My pets are not pretty, for they come out of places where aesthetic
standards are--_very different_. Disintegration is quite painless, I
assure you--_but I want you to see them_. I almost saw them, but I knew
how to stop. You are not curious? I always knew you were no scientist.
Trembling, eh. Trembling with anxiety to see the ultimate things I have
discovered. Why don't you move, then? Tired? Well, don't worry, my
friend, _for they are coming_.... Look, look, curse you, look ... it's
just over your left shoulder...."

What remains to be told is very brief, and may be familiar to you from
the newspaper accounts. The police heard a shot in the old Tillinghast
house and found us there--Tillinghast dead and me unconscious. They
arrested me because the revolver was in my hand, but released me in
three hours, after they found that it was apoplexy which had finished
Tillinghast and saw that my shot had been directed at the noxious
machine which now lay hopelessly shattered on the laboratory floor. I
did not tell very much of what I had seen, for I feared the coroner
would be skeptical; but from the evasive outline I did give, the doctor
told me that I had undoubtedly been hypnotised by the vindictive and
homicidal madman.

I wish I could believe that doctor. It would help my shaky nerves if
I could dismiss what I now have to think of the air and the sky about
and above me. I never feel alone or comfortable, and a hideous sense
of pursuit sometimes comes chillingly on me when I am weary. What
prevents me from believing the doctor is this one simple fact--that the
police never found the bodies of those servants whom they say Crawford
Tillinghast murdered.

* * * * *

WEIRD WHISPERINGS

by Schwartz & Weisinger

Otis Adelbert Kline died from an operation two years ago!... That is,
the doctors declared that he was dead.... Fortunately, an adrenalin
injection saved him.... Seabury Quinn's next Jules de Grandin novelette
will attempt to justify incest between brother and sister.... Quinn,
who gets most of his plots while shaving, is also working on a
book-length novel, "a sort of lost world affair".... When A. Merritt
finished reading "Thirsty Blades" by Kline and Price, he said, "I
wish I had written that story".... _Ten Story Book_ edited by Harry
Stephen Keeler, once put out an all weird issue.... Robert E. Howard
occasionally does boxing yarns for _Sport Stories_.

Farnsworth Wright says the best stories he's printed in _Weird Tales_
are (not in the order listed): "The Stranger from Kurdistan" by Price,
"The Phantom Farmhouse" by Quinn, "The Outsider" by Lovecraft, "The
Werewolf of Ponkert" by Munn, "The Shadow Kingdom" by Howard, "The
Canal" by Worrell, "The Wind that Tramps the World" by Owen.... Eli
Colter's full name is Elizabeth Colter.... Victor Rousseau's is Victor
Rousseau Emanuel.... Murray Leinster's is Will Fitzgerald Jenkins....
Ralph Milne Farley's is Roger Sherman Hoar.... Farnsworth Wright
has had several stories and poems published under the nom-de-plume
of Francis Hard.... Desmond Hall, associate editor of _Astounding
Stories_, admits having had a story published in _Weird Tales_ under a
pseudonym, but won't divulge which one.

"The Vengeance of Fi Fong," another tale of brain transplantation by
Bassett Morgan, will soon appear in _Weird Tales_.... Also scheduled
for early appearances are "Old Sledge" by Paul Ernst and "Distortion
out of Space" by Francis Flagg.... Otis Adelbert Kline's _Weird
Tales_ story of some years back, "The Bird People," was based on the
_Amazing Stories_ Cover Contest.... Jack Williamson wrote "Born of the
Sun" after an argument with Edmond Hamilton, in which the former has
maintained that no idea was too impossible to make convincing in a
story.... Arthur J. Burks began his career in _Weird Tales_ under the
name of Estil Critchie because, he explains, "I was ashamed of being
associated with the stigma of being known as a writer".... An interview
with Burks, by your scribes, appeared in the April issue of _Author &
Composer_.

E. Hoffmann Price has moved to Oklahoma where he is using his executive
ability and mechanical skill as partner in a garage business.... He
will soon take to the road in his 1928 Ford Juggernaut and will visit
Robert E. Howard in Cross Plains, Texas, and Clark Ashton Smith in
Auburn, California.... Farnsworth Wright once gave an account of his
pet peeve: "My pet peeve is stories that get the character in a very
interesting dilemma and lead the reader to expect an ingenious solution
of the story only to have the story end with the statement, 'then he
woke up and found it was a dream.' Readers have a right to expect the
author will offer an interesting denouement, but instead he says 'April
Fool'."

* * * * *

The Little Box

by R. H. Barlow

Annals of the Jinns--7

On the planet called Loth, in the Seventh City, there lived a
semi-savage known as Hsuth. He had been captured in his youth by the
fearless raiders of Phargo, but popular demand later caused the release
of all the beings that once formed an interesting collection of the
larger animals. So it was that one might have had for a neighbor
anything from one of the reddish parrot-people from the far-away
isle of Hin to a pale blue octopus-thing from the dried sea-bed of
Innia. Hsuth, it is to be stated, was neither, being merely one of the
common-place brown tailed men from Leek. He was, as are most savages,
very inquisitive, and one day after returning from the ridna-zat works
(wherein were manufactured first class ornaments to be worn in the
nose) he espied a small black box in the window of a money-lender--a
box whose curious carvings and tightly closed lid brought up many
questions. When the dealer refused to open it for him his curiosity was
doubly whetted, so that he purchased it (after unavoidable delay and
expected haggling) thereby parting with the earnings of a week.

Returning home with his prize he managed to slip past a street-brawl
and get inside his house--a three-towered affair resembling an
ill-fitted layer cake, each successive story being smaller than the one
upon which it reposed.

Bolting the door he then tried to force the lid open. But it resented
this move on his part, and showed it by pinching his finger violently.
This caused him to fling it against the wall. It came to the floor
with a dull thud and the top fell off after a moment's silence. A
squeaky voice issued from the interior. "--press the control marked A
and the machine will come to him no matter where it is. I am making
three boxes similar to this and hope that someone will gain some
benefit, for I haven't. Anyone finding this is directed to press the
control marked A and the machine will come to him no matter where it
is iammakingthree-e-e-E-EEE Yah psuhutthush!" declared the little box.
As Hsuth did not understand what was said, it is to be feared the
directions were lost upon him, yet some demon directed his finger to
the control marked A. Perhaps it was because all the other buttons were
hopelessly jammed into the wood.

Nothing happened, and Hsuth disappointedly threw the box through the
window where it landed upon the head of a prominent citizen, causing
that worthy unwonted irritation.

And Hsuth forgot about the box and the fraudulent control marked A,
not knowing that ten million miles away the machine was battering
ceaselessly at its bonds, striving to escape and answer the
long-awaited call--which it never quite managed to do.

But the Leerians gathered round with frightened eyes to watch the
reanimation of the god of the forefathers on that far continent, and
offered up sacrifices in the form of decrepit inhabitants and those who
would have had them doubt their deity.

* * * * *

PROSE PASTELS

by Clark Ashton Smith

_III. The Muse of Hyperborea_

Too far away is her wan and mortal face, and too remote are the snows
of her lethal breast, for mine eyes to behold them ever. But at whiles
her whisper comes to me, like a chill unearthly wind that is faint from
traversing the gulfs between the worlds, and has flown over ultimate
horizons of ice-bound deserts. And she speaks to me in a tongue I have
never heard but have always known; and she tells of deathly things and
of things beautiful beyond the ecstatic desires of love. Her speech is
not of good or evil, nor of anything that is desired or conceived or
believed by the termites of earth; and the air she breathes, and the
lands wherein she roams, would blast like the utter cold of sidereal
space; and her eyes would blind the vision of men like suns; and her
kiss, if one should ever attain it, would wither and slay like the kiss
of lightning.

But, hearing her far, infrequent whisper, I behold a vision of vast
auroras, on continents that are wider than the world, and seas too
great for the enterprise of human keels. And at times I stammer forth
the strange tidings that she brings: though none will welcome them,
and none will believe or listen. And in some dawn of the desperate
years, I shall go forth and follow where she calls, to seek the high
and beautific doom of her snow-pale distances, to perish amid her
indesecrate horizons.

* * * * *

Tell your friends about TFF

* * * * *

SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE

Part Nine

by H. P. Lovecraft

IV. The Apex of Gothic Romance

Horror in literature attains a new malignity in the work of Matthew
Gregory Lewis, (1773-1818) whose novel "The Monk" (1795) achieved
marvelous popularity and earned him the nickname of "Monk" Lewis. This
young author, educated in Germany and saturated with a body of wild
Teuton lore unknown to Mrs. Radcliffe, turned to terror in forms more
violent than his gentle predecessor had ever dared to think of, and
produced as a result a masterpiece of active nightmare whose general
Gothic cast is spiced with added stores of ghoulishness. The story
is one of a Spanish monk, Ambrosio, who from a state of over-proud
virtue is tempted to the very nadir of evil by a fiend in the guise
of the maiden Matilda; and who is finally, when awaiting death at
the Inquisition's hands, induced to purchase escape at the price of
his soul from the devil, because he deems both body and soul already
lost. Forthwith the mocking Fiend snatches him to a lonely place,
tells him he has sold his soul in vain since both pardon and a chance
for salvation were approaching at the moment of his hideous bargain,
and completes the sardonic betrayal by rebuking him for his unnatural
crimes, and casting his body down a precipice whilst his soul is
borne off forever to perdition. The novel contains some appalling
descriptions such as the incantation in the vaults beneath the convent
cemetery, the burning of the convent, and the final end of the wretched
abbot. In the sub-plot where the Marquis de las Cisternas meets the
spectre of his erring ancestress, The Bleeding Nun, there are many
enormously potent strokes, notably the visit of the animated corpse to
the Marquis's bedside, and the cabalistic ritual whereby the Wandering
Jew helps him to fathom and banish his dead tormentor. Nevertheless,
"The Monk" drags sadly when read as a whole. It is too long and too
diffuse, much of its potency is marred by flippancy and by an awkwardly
excessive reaction against those canons of decorum which Lewis at first
despised as prudish. One great thing may be said of the author; that
he never ruined his ghostly visions with a natural explanation. He
succeeded in breaking up the Radcliffian tradition and expanding the
field of the Gothic novel. Lewis wrote much more than "The Monk." His
drama, "The Castle Spectre," was produced in 1798, and he later found
time to pen other fiction in ballad form--"Tales of Terror," (1799)
"Tales of Wonder," (1801) and a succession of translations from Germany.

Gothic romances, both English and German, now appeared in multitudinous
and mediocre profusion. Most of them were merely ridiculous in the
light of mature taste, and Miss Austen's famous satire "Northanger
Abbey" was by no means an unmerited rebuke to a school which had
sunk far toward absurdity. This particular school was petering out,
but before its final subordination there arose its last and greatest
figure in the person of Charles Robert Maturin, (1782-1824) an obscure
and eccentric Irish clergyman. Out of an ample body of miscellaneous
writing which includes one confused Radcliffian imitation called "The
Fatal Revenge; or, The Family of Montorio," (1807) Maturin at length
evolved the vivid horror-masterpiece of "Melmoth, the Wanderer," (1820)
in which the Gothic tale climbed to altitudes of sheer spiritual fright
which it had never known before.

"Melmoth" is the tale of an Irish gentleman who, in the seventeenth
century, obtained a preternaturally extended life from the Devil at
the price of his soul. If he can persuade another to take the bargain
off his hands, and assume his existing state, he can be saved; but
this he can never manage to effect, no matter how assiduously he
haunts those whom despair has made reckless and frantic. The framework
of the story is very clumsy; involving tedious length, digressive
episodes, narratives within narratives, and laboured dovetailing
and coincidences; but at various points in the endless rambling,
there is felt a pulse of power undiscoverable in any previous work
of this kind--a kinship to the essential truth of human nature, an
understanding of the profoundest sources of actual cosmic fear, and a
white heat of sympathetic passion on the writer's part, which makes
the book a true document of aesthetic self-expression rather than a
mere clever compound of artifice. No unbiased reader can doubt that
with "Melmoth" an enormous stride in the evolution of the horror-tale
is represented. Fear is taken out of the realm of the conventional and
exalted into a hideous cloud over mankind's very destiny. Maturin's
shudders, the work of one capable of shuddering himself, are of the
sort that convince. Mrs. Radcliffe and Lewis are fair game for the
parodist, but it would be difficult to find a false note in the
feverishly intensified action and high atmospheric tension of the
Irishman whose less sophisticated emotions and strain of Celtic
mysticism gave him the finest possible natural equipment for his task.
Without a doubt, Maturin is a man of authentic genius, and he was so
recognized by Balzac, who grouped "Melmoth" with Moliere's "Don Juan,"
Goethe's "Faust," and Byron's "Manfred" as the supreme allegorical
figures of modern European literature, and wrote a whimsical piece
called "Melmoth Reconciled," in which the Wanderer succeeds in passing
his infernal bargain on to a Parisian bank defaulter, who in turn
hands it along a chain of victims, until a gambler dies with it in
his possession, and by his damnation ends the curse. Scott, Rossetti,
Thackeray and Baudelaire are other titans who gave Maturin their
unqualified admiration, and there is much significance in the fact that
Oscar Wilde, after his disgrace and exile, chose for his last days in
Paris the assumed name of "Sebastian Melmoth."

(continued next month)

* * * * *

WITHIN THE CIRCLE

by F. Lee Baldwin

Two different issues of _Weird Tales_ are labelled Volume 19, Number 3.
(Look on Index Page.)

E. Hoffmann Price is touring the Southwest and is planning to call on
Robert E. Howard, dip into Mexico, stop at Clark Ashton Smith's and
finally wind up in San Francisco. His beloved rugs are with him.

"The Curse of Yig" by Zealia Brown Reed has been reprinted in the S & B
(London) "Not at Night" anthology a few years ago.

Forrest Ackerman on binding stf: "--Place together evenly all pages to
be bound into one booklet; with thumbtack, press two holes thru pages,
holes being as far apart as the wire clips removed from original copies
of magazines containing the stories or parts of serial; push clip thru
these two holes near top of magazine and bend together at back, then
repeating operation near bottom. Story is now clipped together. Backs
and covers can now easily be put on by use of adhesive paper.--Does
that help you?"

"The Horror in the Museum," by Hazel Heald is scheduled for reprinting
this year.

Here's one about Edgar Allan Poe: Mrs. Whitman, poetess, suggested that
Poe remove the last stanza from his poem "Ulalume" as she thought it
detracted from the work. He did, and there are very few of the younger
Poe admirers who have seen it. Modern standard Editions don't contain
this bit; it is only the older ones that do.

Howard Wandrei, Don's brother, is a weird painter of the most unusual
order. His work is far beyond that of any weird illustrator employed by
magazines, in my opinion.... Have a look some time you Editors who want
to be surprised! Howard illustrated Donald's "Dark Odyssey."

Here are the stories in the "Randolph Carter Series" by H. P.
Lovecraft. They were written as follows: "Statement of Randolph Carter"
(1919), "The Silver Key" (1926), "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"
(1926-7, unpublished), and the collaboration with E. Hoffmann Price,
"Through the Gates of the Silver Key".... "At the Mountains of Madness"
was written in the Spring of 1831 and "The Shadow over Innsmouth" was
written in November of the same year. His latest tale is "The Thing on
the Doorstep" written in August, 1933.

For those who would like to read some of the classics of weird fiction
try "John Silence" by Algernon Blackwood, "The Willows" by the same
author (found in "The Best Ghost Stories" edited by Bohun Lynch), "The
Three Imposters" by Arthur Machen (Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, N. Y.),
"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James (found in "The Two Magics" by
the same author), "The White People" by Arthur Machen (found in "The
House of Souls" published by Alfred A. Knopf), and "Portrait of a Man
With Red Hair" by Hugh Walpole (found in a public library).

* * * * *

SCIENCE FICTION IN ENGLISH MAGAZINES

Series Six

by Bob Tucker

Volume 1, numbers 12, 13, 14 and 15, of _Scoops_ contains a great
variety of stf. "The Humming Horror" (interplanetary); "The Black
Vultures" (air pirates); "Devilman of the Deep" (sea monster);
"Cataclysm" (another Armageddon, with the survivors going to Mars);
"The Poison Belt" (Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle's tale); "Scouts of Space"
(interplanetary space pirates); "The Metal Dictator" (robot ruler
plot); "The March of the Beserks" (scientist creates monsters who
revolt); "Invaders from Time" (time travelling tale by our own John
Russell Fearn); and "S O S from Saturn" (interplanetary).

In addition, _Scoops_ maintains several departments, and a readers
page, among which are: "To the Planets," a weekly column by P. E.
Cleator, who is President of the British Interplanetary Society. This
column reports latest news flashes of rocketeers and interplanetary
projects all over the world. Two other departments called "Here's a
Scoop" and "Modern Marvels" list the latest inventions, scientific
discoveries, etc. Another column, "Can it be Done?" presents an
illustration of some badly needed device or invention, and asks readers
to try to invent them. The readers page occupies the back cover at
present and quite a few good arguments are put up. It needs some
American letters though, so get busy Mr. Ackerman and Mr. Darrow!

Several requests have been received for information on this magazine,
so here it is: _Scoops_ is published weekly at 18 Henrietta St.,
London, WC2, England. Yearly subscription price is 13s, or about $3.40.
Remittance can be made in American postal money orders. English money
values are not steady, in regards to American money, so the $3.40 may
be either more, or less, when you subscribe. _Scoops_ contains, on an
average, 28 pages. It has a cover in two or three colors, depicting
some scene from a story, or some scientific feat. The size of the
magazine is 9 X 12 inches, and has small type, thus quite a lot of
reading matter is put out, considering its small price of about 6 cents
for a copy.

You can either subscribe for three months, six months, or a year. The
three month price is three shillings and three pence. Six months is
just double that. One year is 13 shillings. [We hope to present another
article in this series very soon. Perhaps even as early as next month.]

* * * * *

Science Fiction Fans
join the
Science Fiction League
For details, see the current issue of
_Wonder Stories_

* * * * *

BELOW THE PHOSPHOR

by Robert Nelson

The swaying corpse upon the wall
Grows rotten with the waning light;
And crawling shadows of the night
Lie on the body like a pall.

Dead spirits dance upon the slope;
Blatant are bat-things overhead;
But now the revenants have fled,
The glad fantasias yet grope.

Only the ghouls are gently stirred
By tainted gusts lost from the gale;
And in the faun-infested vale
Wild screeches of a fiend are heard.

Impending o'er the noisome spawn,
In glaucous haze the Phosphor steals--
Thence to Azrael's eyes reveals
The wrestling wraiths on death's dark lawn--

Fast scaling up the ebon sky
To cull and slay the gnawing blight,
All cool of the corpse's mute delight,
Or if the baneful fiend should die.

* * * * *

THE FAVORITE WEIRD TALES OF

AUGUST W. DERLETH

(Courtesy of H. Koenig)

The Willows A. Blackwood
The Inhabitant of Carcosa A. Bierce
The Yellow Sign R. W. Chambers
The Upper Berth F. Marion Crawford
The Monkey's Paw W. W. Jacobs
A View from a Hill M. R. James
Seaton's Aunt W. de la Mare
The House of Sounds M. P. Shiel
Dream of Armageddon H. G. Wells
Shadows on the Wall Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

* * * * *

YOUR VIEWS

[Readers are invited to make free use of this department. However, we
must ask you to be brief, due to the limited space available.]

"If the devil suddenly materialized, horns, tail, hooves, brimstone
and all, sneaking in at the midnight hour and sat down beside one
of us ordinary disbelieving mortals--well, that's my own idea of a
good weird story! Most stories react upon one rather distantly. They
communicate merely a distant mental fear, and not a physical fear. If
I were to choose the most entertaining book I have ever read, I would
unquestionably name 'Seven Footprints to Satan' by A. Merritt. Just
as unhesitatingly I would name him as the insuperable weird writer,
since I have never experienced the physical fleshly cowardice of the
preternatural, either in actual life or in imaginative reconstruction
of fiction, more vividly than when I contacted Lucifer in person in
that book. What is the best weird fiction narrative ever penned? Vote
one from yours truly goes to 'Seven Footprints to Satan'."--J. Harvey
Haggard

"Seabury Quinn is my favorite author for his clever little brain-child,
Jules de Grandin. Bless his li'l heart--the monsieur can combine
humor with work before one can bat an eyelash. Pouff!--the mystery is
solved. The very manner the author uses in his writings suits me best
of all--one is held in suspense until almost the end when a few brief
explanations solve the whole riddle."--Gertrude Hemken.

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENTS
Rates: one cent per word
Minimum Charge, 25 cents

* * * * *

BOOKS, Magazines, bought, sold. Lists 3 cts. Swanson-ff, Washburn, N. D.

* * * * *

CLARK ASHTON SMITH present THE DOUBLE SHADOW AND OTHER FANTASIES--a
booklet containing a half-dozen imaginative and atmospheric
tales--stories of exotic beauty, glamor, 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.

* * * * *

Back Numbers of _The Fantasy Fan_: September, 20 cents (only a few
left), October, November, December, January, February, March, April, 10
cents each.

* * * * *

Classics of science fiction from old Argosies, Amazings, Wonders,
Astoundings, Black Cats, etc. Isidore Manzon-ff, 684 Flushing avenue,
Brooklyn, New York.

* * * * *

The Editor will pay good prices for some very old issues of Weird
Tales. If interested, send list and prices wanted.

* * * * *

Fantasy
Magazine

Features Articles, Stories, and Poetry
by the foremost science and weird
fiction authors. The oldest _fan_ magazine
for lovers of fantasy fiction.

$1.00 a year, sold by subscription
only, not found on newsstands.

Science Fiction Digest Company
87-36--162nd Street
Jamaica, New York

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Fantasy Fan, Volume 1, Number 10, June 1934 - The Fan's Own Magazine" ***

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