with a letter from H. P. Lovecraft

“ If I were writing an 'interplanetary' tale it would deal with beings organized very differently from mundane mammalia, and obeying motives wholly alien to anything we know upon Earth—the exact degree of alienage depending, of course, on the scene of the tale; whether laid in the solar system, or the utterly unplumbed gulfs still farther out—the nameless vortices of never-dreamed-of strangeness, where form and symmetry, light and heat, even matter and energy themselves, may be unthinkably metamorphosed or totally wanting. ”

“ These must be handled with unsparing realism (not catchpenny romanticism) , but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the threshold. ”

“ A joint letter, from "six California readers who are thrilled by your magazine," asks for more variety. "The historical weird story seems to be forgotten," write these readers from Los Angeles. "Did you ever have stories submitted with Napoleon or Washington or Cæsar as a ghost? Why not? These might be quite instructive at the same time, and remind us of historical events which we have forgotten since our school days. Too many of your newer writers seem to imitate Lovecraft, who is unique in his eery tales. Anybody trying to wield Lovecraft's thunder appears ridiculous. ”

“ Some of our correspondents are ecstatically delighted, some are only moderately satisfied, and some are woefully disappointed, with the magazine we're trying to edit. That doesn't irk us either. We shall never be troubled, in fact, so long as people write to us—either in praise or disparagement. ”

“ Francis Steven's tale, 'Sunfire,' in the July-August issue of WEIRD TALES. This is a good tale, so far, but I would like to make the following comment: I have always understood that the great desideratum in all story telling was an appearance or effect of realism, truth or plausibility, brought about by the adherence of statements as close to actual facts as possible. Now, after several hundred, or possibly several thousand, years of mining, a diamond of half a ton weight, as the diamond in your story, is manifestly absurd ”

“ I have purchased every issue of your magazine since it was begun, and I believe you are filling a position in the magazine field that has long needed filling. I was disappointed in not getting a complete July issue. Like some of the readers wrote in The Eyrie, I believe the first two issues of WEIRD TALES were the best. You are running a few stories every month that are as good as your first ones, but in the last two issues especially I have caught myself yawning when half way through several of them. ”

“ They like to read our sort of stories, and they like to write 'em. There is scarcely a day that we don't get at least one weird story written by a doctor. Doctors, it seems, encounter some weird adventures. ”

“ How many American readers outside the frankly 'high-brow' class, for example, would find any pleasure or coherent impression in Arthur Machen's 'The White People,' or in the fantastic passages of the same author's 'Hill of Dreams'? ”

“ And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness and fright."
Mr. Lovecraft you will observe, is quite as deft with poetry as he is with prose; and, as further evidence of this, we submit the prologue to a 300-line heroic poem of his that we may print some day:
"I am he who howls in the night ”