manner had not only fulfilled the injunction of the Cadi but had also kept his bargain with the ghoul by providing the required number of corpses.

WE'LL BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW

by Mortimer Weisinger

That Penn State Froth, the official comic magazine for Penn University, recently burlesqued Amazing Stories.

That Charles Willard Diffin composes his stuff on a dictaphone.

That the A. in A. Hyatt Verrill's name stands for Alpheus.

That Jack Williamson is the only writer who ever copped a cover for each part of a serial.

That it's ironic that the letters in Verne's name, rearranged, spell 'never.'

That P. S. Miller is a descendant of Alexander Hamilton.

That Wonder Stories is the only s-f mag on file in the New York Public Library.

That the reason the first eleven issues of Amazing Stories were printed on heavy paper was because the publishers wanted to give the fans "a big package for their money."

That, with the exception of his first story, Hamilton has never had a story refused by Weird Tales. And even the first was accepted after rewriting.

That William Briggs MacHarg and Edwin Balmer (the creators of Luther Trant) are brothers-in-law.

That Wonder Stories paid over seven cents a word for Charles Tanner's story "The Color of Space."

That Forrest J. Ackerman used to correspond regularly with 115 fans.

That Jack Williamson is a cowboy.

That Charles Cloukey was fifteen years old when he sold his first story.

That the mystery novel, "The 13th Murder," refers to Amazing Stories and Weird Tales as "detective and mystery fiction"—and they ring Saturn!

That the story, "Warriors of Space," featured in the first issue of Science Wonder Stories, was a sequel to "The World in the Balance," in an old Argosy.

That Hugo Gernsback conducted a contest in Science & Invention to obtain a name for his projected magazine—named Amazing Stories after the winner was announced.

That P. Schuyler Miller had a B.S. and an M.S. degree before he was 21.

MY SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION

by Forrest J. Ackerman

Part Five

More for my own satisfaction than anything else, is the second part of this last division of my collection; "stills." These are scenes from a score of fantasy pictures ranging in size from 5" × to 11" × 14", and in subjects from prehistoric monsters of 10,000,000 years ago to exploring interplanetary parties of the future. There are many scenes from "Metropolis" of the vast, shining electricity, of the inside furnishings of the buildings, of the costumes of the people of that time; and there are pictures of the machinery to run the city, the underground world, the robotrix, the televisors. From "King Kong" I have 9 stills: a brontosaurus, an allosaur about to eat a man, Kong on exhibition in New York, in the jungle with the girl, smashing in a building, atop the Empire State, etc.

Secured from 'Frankenstein' are pictures of the monster, and his making in the laboratory. "Just Imagine" offers scenes of heaven-scraped New York in 1980, of the rocket for Mars, of the nifty little earthplanes. I have seven interesting pictures from "The Most Dangerous Game." Laboratories and the death ray of "The Mask of Fu-Manchu" are included. From Wells' "Island of Lost Souls" there are photos of the evoluted animals of a hundred thousand years hence; ape-men, the panther-woman, wolf-creatures, etc. "High Treason" offers numerous stills: television, the European city, war in 1940, a dance hall of seven years ahead, the English Channel sub-sea express, a broadcasted trial, and more. "The Mummy" is shown returning to life, prehistoric monsters from "The Mystery of Life" are present. Machinery, experiments, scientists—all from the stf-detective tale, "Doctor X." I also have several stills from "By Rocket to the Moon," such as those showing the model rocket and its trip—also pictures of Mars, Saturn, the end of the world, and an ethership from "Our Heavenly Bodies" a scene from "The Lost World," "The Stellar Express," and many others.

[In part six, next month, Mr. Ackerman concludes his interesting article.]

HOW TO COLLECT FANTASY FICTION

by Julius Schwartz

Part Five—Conclusion

Fantasy booklets have appeared at lesser intervals. Amazing Stories put out Landell Bartlet's "Vanguard of Venus" in 1928. Gernsback has put out 18 science fiction booklets, of which only the last six are now in print. He likewise issued a reprint of Garret Smith's "Between Worlds". Mimeographed booklets were put out by Carl Swanson (Edmond Hamilton's "The Metal Giants", a reprint) and by the Fantasy Fiction Publications ("Guests of the Earth" by Hugh Langley). The Arra Printers have put out A. Merritt's "Thru the Dragon Glass," "The Cavemen of Venus," "The Price of Peace," and Dr. Keller's "Wolf Hollow Bubbles."

This article wouldn't be complete without mention of the hard-covered fantasies. It's a hopeless task to try and muster even a tenth of all the fantasy books. The best way to go about it, however, is to "haunt" the second-hand book stores and scrutinize any book whose title sounds promising or inviting.

There's one tantalizing feature connected with the collection of fantastic fiction: your collection will Never be complete! But this misfortune has one commendable merit. The collector's interest in Fantasy fiction will never wane.

The End

SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE

Part Four

by H. P. Lovecraft

(copyright 1927, by W. Paul Cook)

II The Dawn of the Horror Tale

As may naturally be expected of a form so closely connected with primal emotion, the horror tale is as old as human thought and speech themselves.

Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races, and is crystalized in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings. It was, indeed, a prominent feature of the elaborate ceremonial magic, with its rituals for the evocation of demons and spectres which flourished from prehistoric times, and which reached its highest development in Egypt and the Semetic nations. Fragments like the Book of Enoch and the Claviculae of Solomon well illustrate the power of the weird over the ancient Eastern mind, and upon such things were based enduring systems and traditions, whose echoes extend obscurely even to the present time. Touches of this transcendental fear are seen in classic literature and there is evidence of its still greater emphasis in a balled literature which paralleled the classic stream, but vanished for lack of a written medium. The Middle Ages, steeped in fanciful darkness, gave it an enormous impulse toward expression; and East and West alike were busy preserving and amplifying the dark heritage, both of random folklore and of academically formulated magic and cabalism, which had descended to them. Witch, werewolf, vampire, and ghoul brooded ominously on the lips of bard and grandam, and needed but little encouragement to take the final step across the boundary that divides the chanted tale or song from the formal literary composition. In the Orient, the weird tale tended to assume a gorgeous colouring and sprightliness which almost transmuted it into sheer phantasy. In the West, where the mystical Teuton had cone down from his black Boreal forests and the Celt remembered strange sacrifices in Druidic groves, it assumed a terrible intensity and convincing seriousness of atmosphere which doubled the force of its half-told, half-hinted horrors.

Much of the power of Western horror-lore was undoubtedly due to the hidden but often suspected presence of a hideous cult of nocturnal worshipers whose strange customs—descended from pre-Aryan and pre-agricultural times when a squat race of Mongoloids roved over Europe with their flocks and