Page:Weird Tales volume 28 number 02.djvu/112



OU, the readers of, will notice that this issue is dated August-September, instead of merely August. The change in dating is made in accordance with the current trend in magazine dating, so that Weird Tales will be on sale during the month preceding the date printed on the cover. Our next issue (October) will appear on the stands the first of September; so there will be no break in continuity. All subscriptions will be automatically extended one month.

As this issue goes to press, we are saddened by the news of the sudden death of Robert E. Howard at Cross Plains, Texas. Mr. Howard for years has been one of the most popular magazine authors in the country. He was master of a vivid literary style and possessed an inexhaustible imagination. His poems were works of sheer genius. His fictional characters—the dour Puritan adventurer and redresser of wrongs, Solomon Kane; the ancient battle-chief King Kull from the shadowy kingdoms of the dawn of history; the doughty barbarian soldier of fortune, Conan—were so convincingly and vividly drawn that they seemed to step out from the printed page and grip the sympathies of the readers. It was in that the cream of his writing appeared. Mr. Howard was one of our literary discoveries. He made his literary debut in of July, 1925, while he was still a student in the University of Texas. Since then sixty works from his hand have appeared in this magazine. Prolific though he was, his genius shone through everything he wrote, and he did not lower his high literary standard for the sake of mere volume. Red Nails, his current serial in Weird Tales, is the last of the stories about Conan, though several of Mr. Howard's stories with other heroes will appear in this magazine. His loss will be keenly felt.

Robert A. Madle, of Philadelphia, writes: "The June was another ace issue. Everything composing it was good. The cover was the weirdest Margaret Brundage ever did. The Count looks as weird and uncanny as Dracula himself. Loot of the Vampire was an excellent piece of fantastic fiction. Thorp McClusky surely has 'what it takes.' His first story ranks as my favorite in the current issue. Hugh Davidson's House of the Evil Eye closely follows Mr. McClusky's yarn. I recognized Doctor Dale as one of the chief characters of The Vampire-Master, published a few years back. The other stories were all good, especially Black Canaan."

Wilfred Wright, of Toronto, writes: "All stories in the current issue show the usual fine literary style, although this issue is markedly lacking in weirdness. I await with keen interest your readers' comment on Seabury Quinn's Strange Interval—a splendid horror story of unrefined brutality; but remembering this author's de Grandin yarns one must forgive the lapse from weirdness. While I enjoyed it immensely, and would unhesitatingly give it first place, it automatically disqualifies itself, and Burks' The Room of Shadows gets the call, followed closely by Hamilton's Child of the Winds. The Graveyard Rats by Kuttner was the most gruesome weird tale this year. Generally WT progresses splendidly over the many years I have been a reader, and I wish you continued success."