The Fantasy Fan, Volume 1, Number 9, May 1934 The Fan's Own Magazine

Part Eight

Chapter 24,602 wordsPublic domain

by H. P. Lovecraft

The Gothic novel was now settled as a literary form, and instances multiply bewilderingly as the eighteenth century drew toward its close. "The Recess," written in 1785 by Mrs. Sophia Lee, has the historic element, revolving round the twin daughters of Mary, Queen of Scots; and though devoid of the supernatural, employs the Walpole scenery and mechanism with great dexterity. Five years later, and all existing lamps are paled by the rising of a fresh luminary of wholly superior order--Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, (1764-1823) whose famous novels made terror and suspense a fashion, and who set new and higher standards in the domain of the macabre and fear-inspiring atmosphere despite a provoking custom of destroying her own phantoms at the last through laboured mechanical explanations. To the familiar Gothic trappings of her predecessors, Mrs. Radcliffe added a genuine sense of the unearthly in scene and incident which closely approached genius; every touch of setting and action contributing artistically to the impression of illimitable frightfulness which she wished to convey. A few sinister details like a track of blood on castle stairs, a groan from a distant vault, or a weird song in a nocturnal forest can with her conjure up the most powerful images of imminent horror, surpassing by far the extravagant and toilsome elaborations of others. Nor are these images in themselves any the less potent because they are explained away before the end of the novel. Mrs. Radcliffe's visual imagination was very strong, and appears as much in her delightful landscape touches--always in broad, clamorously pictorial outline, and never in close detail--as in her weird phantasies. Her prime weaknesses, aside from the habit of prosaic disillusionment, are a tendency toward erroneous geography and history and a fatal predilection for bestrewing her novels with insipid little poems, attributed to one or another of the characters.

Mrs. Radcliffe wrote six novels: "The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne," (1789) "A Sicilian Romance," (1790) "The Romance of the Forest," (1792) "The Mysteries of Udolpho," (1794) "The Italian," (1797) and "Gaston de Blondeville," composed in 1802 but first published posthumously in 1826. Of these "Udolpho" is by far the most famous, and may be taken as a type of the early Gothic tale at its best. It is the chronicle of Emily, a young Frenchwoman transplanted to an ancient and portentous castle in the Apennines through the death of her parents and the marriage of her aunt to the lord of the castle--the scheming nobleman Montoni. Mysterious sounds, opened doors, frightful legends, and a nameless horror in a niche behind a black veil all operate in quick succession to unnerve the heroine and her faithful attendant Anette; but finally, after the death of her aunt, she escapes with the aid of a fellow-prisoner whom she has discovered. On the way home, she stops at a chateau filled with fresh horrors--the abandoned wing where the departed chatelaine dwelt, and the bed of death with the black pall--but is finally restored to security and happiness with her lover Valancourt, after the clearing-up of a secret which seemed for a time to involve her birth in mystery. Clearly, this is only the familiar material re-worked; but it so well re-worked that "Udolpho" will always be a classic. Mrs. Radcliffe's characters are puppets, but they are less markedly so than those of her forerunners. And in atmospheric creation she stands pre-eminent among those of her time.

Of Mrs. Radcliffe's countless imitators, the American novelist Charles Brocken Brown stands the closest in spirit and method. Like her, he injured his creations by natural explanations; but also like her, he had an uncanny atmospheric power which gives his horrors a frightful vitality as long as they remain unexplained. He differed from her in contemptously discarding the external Gothic paraphernalia and properties and choosing modern American scenes for his mysteries; but this repudiation did not extend to the Gothic spirit and type of incident. Brown's novels involve memorably frightful scenes, and excel even Mrs. Radcliffe's in describing the operations of the perturbed mind. "Edgar Huntly" starts with a sleep-walker digging a grave, but is later impaired by touches of Godwinian didacticism. "Ormond" involves a member of a sinister secret brotherhood. That and "Arthur Mervyn" both describe the plague of yellow fever, which the author had witnessed in Philadelphia and New York. But Brown's most famous book is "Wieland; or, the Transformation," (1798) in which a Pennsylvania German, engulfed by a wave of religious fanaticism, hears "voices" and slays his wife and children as a sacrifice. His sister Clara, who tells the story, narrowly escapes. The scene, laid at the woodland estate of Mittingen on the Schuykill's remote reaches, is drawn with extreme vividness; and the terrors of Clara, beset by spectral tones, gathering fears, and the sound of strange footsteps in the lonely house, are all shaped with truly artistic force. In the end, a lame ventriloquial explanation is offered, but the atmosphere is genuine while it lasts. Carwin, the malign ventriloquist, is a typical villain of the Manfred or Montoni type.

(Next month Mr. Lovecraft takes up "The Apex of the Gothic Romance.")

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SIDE GLANCES

by F. Lee Baldwin

Frank B. Long, Jr. has studied at New York University and Columbia College. Writing is his sole occupation and he lives with his father and mother, the former being a dentist. Long Jr. is 31.

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E. Hoffman Price is 35, a World War veteran, a West Pointer, and a former cavalry officer; also superintendant of an acetylene gas machinery plant until 2 years ago. He now has a garage in Pawhuska, Okla., and writes fiction at leisure.

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WEIRD WHISPERINGS

by Schwartz and Weisinger

Seabury Quinn has been so busy with his magazine, _Casket and Sunnyside_, that he hasn't written a story since last September--which is bad news for the Jules de Grandin enthusiasts.... Jack Holt will star in a weird picture of voodooism, taken from the story "Haiti Moon," and titled for screen purposes, "Black Moon".... Donald Wandrei will break into print in _Weird Tales_ again with "The Destroying Horde".... His brother Howard, who is also an excellent illustrator, is due in _Weird_ also with "The Vine Terror".... Elliott O'Donnell's weird ghost stories are broadcast every Wednesday evening over the WEAF NBC chain.

H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, though living on opposite sides of the continent, are intimate friends.... Incidently, one of the characters in Lovecraft's bizarre "Whisperer in Darkness" was named Klar-Kashton.... Eli Colter, popular weird author, is a woman!... And Mary Elizabeth Counselman, _Weird's_ new sensational author is only 19!... C. L. Moore, who is creating a hit with the 'Northwest' Smith stories in W T, is also a woman!... There have been three unsuccessful attempts to plagiarise Arthur J. Burks' "Vale of the Corbies," an old _Weird Tales_ yarn of his.... Incidentally, Burks' "Bells of Oceana," the recent _Weird_ reprint, is actually based on the tingling of bells that Burks heard on one of his trans-Atlantic voyages.

Robert E. Howard sustained some very painful injuries, severe cuts, crushings and wrenchings in an auto accident a few months ago, when he and two friends ran into a dark-painted and almost invisible flagpole in the center of a poorly lighted village square. It would have killed anybody less tough than Howard, but what with his iron-clad constitution, our favorite slaughter specialist has recovered from his injuries and is virtually as good as ever.... Hugh Davidson, author of the recent _Weird Tales_ serial, "The Vampire Master," is the pseudonym for a well known WT author who has had more than 30 stories published there!... Paul Ernest's forthcoming serial in _Weird_ describes a journey thru space that takes millions of years, and tells what the time travelers find here on their return.

Seabury Quinn got $17 for English reprint rights to his "House of Phipps".... But didn't get a cent for his most famous story, "The Phantom Farmhouse," published in WT when they were bankrupt.... August W. Derleth's recently published novel, "Murder Stalks the Wakely Family" was written on a bet that he couldn't write it in seven days.... He did!... Edmond Hamilton's own favorite stories are "The Monster-God of Mamurth" and "Pigmy Island".... David H. Keller's is "The Thing in the Cellar".... H.P. Lovecraft chooses "The Colour Out of Space".... Clark Ashton Smith picks "The Double Shadow".... And Donald Wandrei maintains that "The Red Brain" is his best.... Williamson cops the June WT cover.... "Trail of the Cloven Hoof" gets the July cover.... We'll be back next month....

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YOUR VIEWS

"Mr. Lovecraft has stated very lucidly and succinctly the essential value and validity of the horror story as literary art, and there is no need to recapitulate his conclusions. It has often occurred to me that the interest in tales of horror and weirdness is a manifestation of the adventure impulse so thoroughly curbed in most of us by physical circumstances. In particular, it evinces a desire--perhaps a deep-lying spiritual need--to transcend the common limitations of time, place, and matter. It might be argued that this craving is not, as many shallow modernists suppose, a desire to escape from reality, but an impulse to penetrate the verities which lie beneath the surface of things; to grapple with, and to dominate, the awful mysteries of mortal existence. The attitude of those who would reprehend a liking for horror and eeriness and would dismiss it as morbid and unhealthy, is simply ludicrous. The true morbidity, the true unhealthiness, lies on the other side."--Clark Ashton Smith

"Down through the ages from the birth of romance, and the first emergence of story-telling, comes the horror tale. An inheritance from the age of the birth of romance, a legacy from our savage forefathers whose lives were saturated with spirits and beings, is our attraction to the horror tale. I do not think that people read them because they are an art; the reading public's first desire is to be entertained, and in many cases, this is the first and last aim of reading them. Entertainment!--of the same sort their forefathers had who crouched around primitive fires, surrounded by invisible conflicting elementals and unearthly personalities--a heritage from the past! First of all it must be entertaining, and to be truly entertaining, it must be 'genuine' and 'powerful', as Mr. Lovecraft says, and in this sense it will be classified as an art."--J. Harvey Haggard

"I should say that weird fans who have a taste in liking the outre in literature have a superior taste, rather than a morbid one, a sign of an inquiring mind, that is not satisfied with Wild West, Gangster, or sickly mediocre love stories. But to explore the hidden corners of things, whether it be the universe, the mind, or the supernatural, is proving that one's mind is not smug or narrow. If this be madness, insanity, or morbidity, glory in it, you weird and fantasy fans."--Natalie H. Wooley

"There are at least three weird story authors I could list as my favorites ... Merritt, Lovecraft, Smith. The only way I can settle the problem as to which of these three is my favorite is to say that I choose Clark Ashton Smith because of the quantity of consistent high-quality stories he puts out. His stories are readable, and I might go so far as to say, livable. The quality of making his yarns livable to the reader is an outstanding one."--Kenneth B. Pritchard

We would like to know your views on any phase of weird fiction. After all, this is _your_ magazine and we want your opinions to be put before other fans. However, we must ask you to limit your comments to less than 100 words, due to the small space available.

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The Flower God

by R. H. Barlow

Annals of the Jinns--6

Alair, the ruler of Zaxtl, sent a present unto his enemy, the neighboring King Luud. Now such an act was unlike Alair, and had not pleasant omens. For more than a decade they had waged bitter warfare, and therefore Luud was not a little surprised to see the crimson lotus on a field of _argent_ displayed before his gates. The messengers came unguarded in their glittering robes, and when the portcullis was withdrawn, they ascended the steps before the throne and made obeisance. The guards of Luud would have fain drawn wary swords, but the king signalled withdrawal, that he might hearken onto the emissaries.

Their gift was brought in by swarthy slave men. It proved a mani-colored flower of alien aspect, whose aromatic perfumes spread langorously through the room. Alair had sent no message save to state cryptically that here was the ruler of plants, the Flower-God, and Luud preferred not to ask the reason for this strange and lovely gift. So it was he made a long and eloquent speech of surpassing insincerity, claiming friendship between the countries, and when they had left, he set artizans constructing a dais. When this had been done, the Flower-God was set upon it in a jewel-encrusted trough; where he might lift his eyes from affairs of state and gaze upon it. And it was admired by the entire court. Only Gra, the counsellor, would have been unwilling to accept it, but he was not heeded.

But the land soon found there was something amiss, for gossip spread thru-out that a madness had come upon the king. He would lock himself in with the flower for days in succession and be oddly exhilarated upon resuming his customary life. Whispers were that he was drugged or hypnotized by the strange plant, that he performed odd and ancient rites before it--rites that were not good and were avoided by even necromancers. Truly, he had developed an abnormal passion for it, and there were obviously mysterious happenings afoot. In time, he was observed to make unwise decisions after he had been alone with the Flower-God, and he would pause in the midst of trite affairs and go over to it, lovingly strolling the tendrils and closing his eyes as if listening. But there was nothing audible save the rustle of the vibrant petals.

The country did not improve through these unusual activities. Affairs assumed a turbulent state; lawlessness prevailed. After a time, the traitorous openly denounced Luud, and there were few who did not sympathize. Those bolder even went so far as to suggest that Alair, the adjacent ruler, rule in his stead. But the king seemed entirely apathetic regarding this, or anything save the Flower-God and its unholy lure.

Meanwhile, Alair waited, smiling.

Had not the venerable Chancellor, Gra, chosen to intervene, the land would have fast gone to ruin. But he was wise, and took heed of the ultrasensual lure the blossom held for his ruler. Therefore, he saw the futility of attempting to restrain or interfere in any ordinary manner, and consequently resolved upon action that would forever break the reign of the unholy plant. In fine, he determined to destroy the Lord of Flowers.

Having made his plans, the following day he noiselessly entered the throne-room, with a long grim knife concealed beneath his scarlet robe. The king did not heed him, for he was enthralled, beyond human affairs. But the plant sensed the presence of the intruder, and perhaps it half-knew his purpose, for the fleshy leaves writhed animatedly, and the green spines stood erect. Yet it did not arouse the entranced supplicant, and the hundred little viper tongues could not ward off the blows of the blade that Gra wielded so judiciously. The swollen blossom was rent and gashed in numberless places before the emperor became aware of it. It was too late then, for great yellow drops of sickening ickor slowly coursed down the drooping vines and the bloom itself was purpling fast.

Then it was the king staggered a moment and stared long at his Chancellor in a dazed manner. And Gra was thankful, for the light of madness was dying out, even as the plant faded.

The Flower-God was dead.

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PROSE PASTELS

by Clark Ashton Smith

_2. The Mirror in the Hall of Ebony_

From the nethermost profund of slumber, from a gulf beyond the sun and stars that illume the Lethean shoals and the vague lands of somnolent visions, I floated on a black unrippling tide to the dark threshold of a dream. And in this dream I stood at the end of a long hall that was ceiled and floored and walled with sable ebony, and was lit with a light that fell not from the sun or moon nor from any lamp. The hall was without doors or windows, and at the further extreme an oval mirror was framed in the wall. And standing there, I remembered nothing of all that had been; and the other dreams of sleep, and the dream of birth and of everything thereafter, were alike forgotten. And forgotten too was the name I had found among men, and the other names whereby the daughters of dream had known me; and memory was no older than my coming to that hall. But I wondered not, nor was I troubled thereby, and naught was strange to me: for the tide that had borne me to this threshold was the tide of Lethe.

Anon, though, I knew not why, my feet were drawn adown the hall, and I approached the oval mirror. And in the mirror I beheld the haggard face that was mine, and the red mark on the cheek where the one I loved had struck me in her anger, and the mark on the throat where her lips had kissed me in amorous devotion. And, seeing this, I remembered all that had been; and the other dreams of sleep, and the dream of birth and of everything thereafter, alike returned to me. And thus I recalled the name I had assumed beneath the terrene sun, and the names I had borne beneath the suns of sleep and of reverie. And I marvelled much, and was enormously troubled, and all things were most strange to me, and all things were as of yore.

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THE WEIRD TALE

(A Diaglogue)

by Robert Nelson

Gerald: So you say that science fiction has fallen into decay?

Sidney: Precisely. By its own outlandish and inflated ridiculousness it has been reduced to the tedium and monotony of everyday life.

Gerald: Oh, but you make me laugh, Sidney! What of weird fiction? How can any one endure these everlastingly infernal vampire stories with their borish waving of crosses to defy and fight off the vampire! I dare say that if I should fling a putrid tomato at one of the accursed things it would run helter-skelter!

Sidney: It is very true. Vampire stories are a bit worn, and deserve to have gone out of existence long ago. But it is the weird tale, Gerald, the sort of tale as produced by Lovecraft and Smith, that truly makes weird literature something far more noble and beautiful than most modern fiction, with its silly tea-lady romances, modern love, and high society twaddle.

For an illustration of weird fiction, Gerald, let us take Clark Ashton Smith's most superb tale, "The Double Shadow." Here we have one of the most beautiful weird tales in the English language. When we read it we experience the sensation of a sweeping and stirring symphony. We read of Pharpetron, "the last and most forward pupil of the wise Avyctes," and how he and his master live in the marble house above the "loud, ever-ravening sea." We see the wind-swept sea, the white towers, the eerie demonisms and necromancies, the Double Shadow. It creates for us a life which we would wish to live, and fills us with a sense of eternal, majestic beauty of which we have been ignorant. All of this is so beautifully weird. Is not this more appealing than science fiction?

Gerald: Of course it all depends upon the individual. But I suppose the weird and macabre is more appealing, and rightfully, perhaps, it is. But you mentioned and inferred that the weird tale, as executed by Lovecraft and Smith, is the most worthwhile of the whole. Personally, I like Robert E. Howard the best of them all.

Sidney: My dear boy, all three are great writers. We know that, but it cannot be denied that Smith is a truer artist, and that makes him the greatest. Oh, Gerald, if more people could only appreciate and understand the significance of the weird tale! And if scribes could only emulate Smith or Lovecraft or Howard! If they would only strive for originality and beauty! But no! We poor and insignificant readers of the weird tale must continue to be plagued with time-worn vampires, witches, rituals, and other weird senilities!

Gerald: Well, why don't you try to write a weird tale, Sidney? You seem to know all its merits and demerits.

Sidney: Well, because I--er--well, I just haven't the time.

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If you have any articles about weird or science fiction which you think might interest the readers of TFF, send them in, we'll be glad to look them over.

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SHADOWS

by William Lumley

There's a city wrought of shadows That I glimpse at fall of night, And its streets are filled with phantoms Flitting furtively from sight.

They are of no stable semblance That our fancy might devise, But a baleful light is burning In their slanting, almond eyes.

Every brow is pale and misty, With a thin-lipped mouth beneath, And the grinding jaws are ratlike-- Set with long and pointed teeth.

Neither rage nor ancient evil Nor a curse bequeaths its stain, But each face is wryly twisted In a silent grin of pain.

Not a sign of hope or hatred In that dull grimace is blent-- Like the fishes four accursed, With their pain they are content.

Mother of all elder anguish, Mighty, sinister and fair, Great Cathay, with woes of aeons In the burdens that you bear,

Tell me of your wrath-built Babel Piled up from a primal day; Tell me, too, when late-learned mercy Shall the shadows sweep away!

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DRAGONS

by A. Nonymous

The lashing winged bodies, serpent-tailed Of curious slimy monsters brilliant scaled Writhe joyously amidst the foaming surf Of surging oceans yet unsailed.

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INHERITED MEMORY

(A True Experience)

by Kenneth B. Pritchard

Unexplored cells of the brain are the links to the past. So have written some of the authors of the day in their science fiction. How far from the truth, or how near, are they? Bear with me and you shall see, although you may not believe what I am about to tell you.

It occurred during my first trip to the Adirondack mountains in New York State. I was with my parents going to visit relatives there. I was about six or seven years of age.

My mother had not been up there for a number of years; indeed, it was years before I was born that she had gone there. Never, in the intervening years, had a trip been made, and I had no conception whatever of how the place looked.

We finally arrived at our destination.

Imagine, if you can, my surprise when I saw the house to which we were going. I said to my mother in some disappointment, "We've been here before!"

It came as a distinct shock when she replied; "No you haven't been here before. This is the first time we have ever brought you up this far."

I had recognized the house, the big tree next to it, the porch, and much of the interior. I had never seen the place in my life, yet it was entirely natural to my senses that I knew it!

Does not this make it appear that sight of the past is inherited from one generation to the next--perhaps, even into the future, so that what seems to be coincidental in vision is merely the breaking into the thread of the unknown tapestry of life? Who has the answer?

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ABOUT H. G. WELLS

by Daniel McPhail

A short while ago, H. G. Wells had a dream of the future which inspired the writing of his new semi-fantasy book, "The Shape of Things to Come." It is an outline of the next century and a half, forecasting a World State eventually after destructive wars. Published by Macmillan.

Wells writes in an almost invisible small hand.

A slightly demented person has been suing him for a decade, charging that he stole his "Outline of History" from an unpublished manuscript of his. Wells has had all the bills to pay, to say nothing of the annoyance.

Wells and Arthur Machen were both asked to contribute to an abortive magazine published in the '90s, and in one of the few issues appeared Wells' "The Cone"--Machen's didn't get in because the magazine expired. Wells' "The Time Machine," and Machen's effective horror story, "The Three Imposters" were both quite in the limelight at the time. The short lived magazines were somewhat of a forerunner of the modern weird magazines. Machen was the subject of many amusing attacks, more fully reported in his autobiographical "Far Off Things" and "Things Near and Far," even being accused of being deliberately unpleasant by some prudish ladies' magazine for his "Great God Pan."

The three H. G. Wells stories featured in Weird Tales during 1925 and 1926 were reprints, though not mentioned as such when published. They were written about a quarter of a century before.

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