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Acolyte, v. 1, issue 4, Summer 1943
Page 30
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way--for the sake of controversy, have you read the April [[underline]]Unknown Worlds[[end underline]] containing Fritz Leiber's novel, CONJURE WIFE? I nominate it one of the finest fantasies ever written...any time, anywhere. It seems to open up an entirely new [[underline]]modern[[end underline]] approach to mantic arts. Also pleasing to me was Henry Kuttner's recent opus (in [[underline]]Asf[[end underline]])...MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES. Two yarns far divorced from the hackneyed stuff so prevalent nowadays. I direct your attention to these items because I feel fantasy needs the stimulation of fresh material. I think there is no need to feel that fine work stopped when Lovecraft died and Smith dropped out of WT. Some of these younger disciples (Kuttner and Leiber particularly) are turning out powerful material. It deserves recognition as such. ROBERT BLOCH -oOo- Harold Wakefield got the jump on me with his column [[underline]]Little Known[[end underline]] Fantaisistes. For a long time I have planned a similar series of articles for my FAPA magazine, [[underline]]The Reader and Collector[[end underline]], but just couldn't find the time to assemble all the data. Le Fanu was a happy selection for opening the series; I only wish Wakefield had covered a little more ground. For instance, how many people think of Le Fanu when the books [[underline]]Jane Eyre[[end underline]] and [[underline]]Wuthering Heights[[end underline]] are mentioned? Very few, I'll wager. And yet the Bronte gals were greatly influenced by Le Fanu's books, particularly [[underline]]The Purcell Papers[[end underline]], published in the Dublin University Magazine. How many people think of Le Fanu when reading Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood? Again, very few. And yet his Dr. Hesselius was the forerunner of Machen's Dr. Raymond and Blackwood's Dr. Silence. H. C. KOENING -oOo- Now in active planning for the Arkham House fantasy library are the following titles: JUMBEE AND OTHER UNCANNY TALES, by Henry S. Whitehead ($3.00); THE MOON POOL AND OTHERS, an omnibus by A. Merritt ($5.00); THE BEST FROM WEIRD TALES, 20 to 30 tales representing the best from 1923 to 1943 ($3.00). If reader support merits it, we will get out one of these books before the year's end (in addition to BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP), and the other two next year; but if not, we'll do only one in 1944, and no more this year. (If I may interrupt, please note the Arkham House advertisement on the next page, and act accordingly---any of you folks who feel that four issues of my smudged mimeography are worth 35[[cent symbol]] have no excuse for not having all these books in your collections. FTL.) According to my present estimate, after rereading almost all the Whitehead tales, JUMBEE AND OTHER UNCANNY TALES will contain the following stories: MRS. LORRIQUER, THE BLACK BEAST, CASSIUS, THE GREAT CIRCLE, SEVEN TURNS IN A HANGMAN'S NOOSE, THE CUNNING OF THE SERPENT, HILL DRUMS, SWEET GRASS, THE SHADOWS, BLACK TANCREDE, THE TREE-MAN, JUMBEE--an even dozen, and, I think, his very best stories. The only hitch in the program re Whitehead is this: we can't contact anyone for permission, we don't know his heirs, etc., and so far I've not succeeded in getting access to mss. of unpublished stories--I simply cannot contact anyone. (Another interruption: if any of you folks can give any information that will help out, please send it at once. FTL) AUGUST DERLETH -oOo- I enjoy Arthur Machen because he was a great master of English prose, as great as he was ill-treated, and my co-religionist. I rate his essays above his stories, without disparaging the latter. In his polemical writings he proved himself the greatest satirist since Swift, and more sincere than he. His burning indignation was directed not against the human race, but against its detractors and oppressors. Machen has been fairly consistently misunderstood by his chief American admirers. Sensualists have considered him a sensualist (he was certainly no prude) not seeing that his sensualism, like that of -- 30 --
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way--for the sake of controversy, have you read the April [[underline]]Unknown Worlds[[end underline]] containing Fritz Leiber's novel, CONJURE WIFE? I nominate it one of the finest fantasies ever written...any time, anywhere. It seems to open up an entirely new [[underline]]modern[[end underline]] approach to mantic arts. Also pleasing to me was Henry Kuttner's recent opus (in [[underline]]Asf[[end underline]])...MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES. Two yarns far divorced from the hackneyed stuff so prevalent nowadays. I direct your attention to these items because I feel fantasy needs the stimulation of fresh material. I think there is no need to feel that fine work stopped when Lovecraft died and Smith dropped out of WT. Some of these younger disciples (Kuttner and Leiber particularly) are turning out powerful material. It deserves recognition as such. ROBERT BLOCH -oOo- Harold Wakefield got the jump on me with his column [[underline]]Little Known[[end underline]] Fantaisistes. For a long time I have planned a similar series of articles for my FAPA magazine, [[underline]]The Reader and Collector[[end underline]], but just couldn't find the time to assemble all the data. Le Fanu was a happy selection for opening the series; I only wish Wakefield had covered a little more ground. For instance, how many people think of Le Fanu when the books [[underline]]Jane Eyre[[end underline]] and [[underline]]Wuthering Heights[[end underline]] are mentioned? Very few, I'll wager. And yet the Bronte gals were greatly influenced by Le Fanu's books, particularly [[underline]]The Purcell Papers[[end underline]], published in the Dublin University Magazine. How many people think of Le Fanu when reading Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood? Again, very few. And yet his Dr. Hesselius was the forerunner of Machen's Dr. Raymond and Blackwood's Dr. Silence. H. C. KOENING -oOo- Now in active planning for the Arkham House fantasy library are the following titles: JUMBEE AND OTHER UNCANNY TALES, by Henry S. Whitehead ($3.00); THE MOON POOL AND OTHERS, an omnibus by A. Merritt ($5.00); THE BEST FROM WEIRD TALES, 20 to 30 tales representing the best from 1923 to 1943 ($3.00). If reader support merits it, we will get out one of these books before the year's end (in addition to BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP), and the other two next year; but if not, we'll do only one in 1944, and no more this year. (If I may interrupt, please note the Arkham House advertisement on the next page, and act accordingly---any of you folks who feel that four issues of my smudged mimeography are worth 35[[cent symbol]] have no excuse for not having all these books in your collections. FTL.) According to my present estimate, after rereading almost all the Whitehead tales, JUMBEE AND OTHER UNCANNY TALES will contain the following stories: MRS. LORRIQUER, THE BLACK BEAST, CASSIUS, THE GREAT CIRCLE, SEVEN TURNS IN A HANGMAN'S NOOSE, THE CUNNING OF THE SERPENT, HILL DRUMS, SWEET GRASS, THE SHADOWS, BLACK TANCREDE, THE TREE-MAN, JUMBEE--an even dozen, and, I think, his very best stories. The only hitch in the program re Whitehead is this: we can't contact anyone for permission, we don't know his heirs, etc., and so far I've not succeeded in getting access to mss. of unpublished stories--I simply cannot contact anyone. (Another interruption: if any of you folks can give any information that will help out, please send it at once. FTL) AUGUST DERLETH -oOo- I enjoy Arthur Machen because he was a great master of English prose, as great as he was ill-treated, and my co-religionist. I rate his essays above his stories, without disparaging the latter. In his polemical writings he proved himself the greatest satirist since Swift, and more sincere than he. His burning indignation was directed not against the human race, but against its detractors and oppressors. Machen has been fairly consistently misunderstood by his chief American admirers. Sensualists have considered him a sensualist (he was certainly no prude) not seeing that his sensualism, like that of -- 30 --
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