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"The Door into Infinity" a 1938 novelette by Edmond Hamilton.

Hamilton was a prolific writer for the pulp magazines of the early 20th century; this short work was first published in the weird fiction pulp Weird Tales. It mixes the science-fiction-influenced cosmic horror that was popular in that magazine with the orientalism and east-end of London setting that would have been familiar to the wider readership of popular fiction of that era. Hamilton was at this time already popular as an author of space operas in other pulps and would later move on to writing for DC Comics.

"Where leads the Door?"

"It leads outside our world."

"Who taught our forefathers to open the Door?"

"They Beyond the Door taught them."

"To whom do we bring these sacrifices?"

"We bring them to Those Beyond the Door."

"Shall the Door be opened that They may take them?"

"Let the Door be opened!"
 * (Read on...)

One of four featured texts in October 2012