Page:Weird Tales v02n04 (1923-11).djvu/86



T HAS been said—truthfully, we think—that if any editor knew exactly what everybody wants to read he could speedily attain for his magazine a tremendous circulation. But no editor knows. It's largely guesswork—this matter of publishing what people want.

Ourself, we get a staggering amount of manuscripts of every conceivable sort; and we frankly confess that half the time we're uncertain which ones to refuse and which to accept. At this moment we are confronted by such a dilemma in the shape of a story that has us (in a manner of speaking) all up in the air.

This story presents an interesting problem. We don't know what to do with it. We don't know whether it's a masterpiece of weird literature, or a new interpretation of the Einstein Theory, or a puzzle picture, or what it is. And so we're going to submit it to our readers. We're going to print the letter that accompanied the manuscript; and we ask you to read this letter, and then (remembering that the manuscript is written in the same matchless style) tell us whether or not you want us to print the story. Here's the letter:

So there you are! If you like the letter you'll surely like the story. We promise you that. And if you want the story you shall have it.

Another remarkable feature of this extraordinary yarn is that you may start reading it at any point and lose none of its charm. You can read it forward, or backward, or either way from the middle—and you'll never know you're off the track. A most unusual tale!

We discovered this, inadvertently, when we first opened the manuscript and began on the first sentence of the top page and read steadily through to the last sentence of the bottom page, and then, chancing to notice the number thereon, we found, to our amazement, that we'd read the thing backward! The pages had been transposed, so that the last page was first and the first page last, and we'd read the whole blooming thing upside down without ever knowing the difference. That's the sort of story it is.

What say? Would you care to see this treasure? If so, speak up, and we'll start it serially in our next issue.

HAT matter disposed of, we'll look through our correspondence and see what our readers are saying about us. We always enjoy letters like this from Homer O. Peterson of Delaware, Ohio—short and snappy and to the point:

Cecil John Eustace of the Bank of Montreal, St. Catharines, Ontario, has a happy way of summing up his likes and dislikes thus:

"Dear Editor: I have just finished reading the August copy of WEIRD TALES, and I want to tell you how much your effort in producing such a magazine as this is appreciated. It is just the thing that a large section of the reading public has always wanted, a good collection of unusual and weird stories. It is the first copy that I have seen in Canada, and I hope we get plenty more. I agree with W. T. F. about the covers, as I think that many more people would buy WEIRD TALES if they were not scared off it by the cover.