A. MERRITT'S FANTASY MAGAZINE

Illo for "Three Lines of Old French"

Getting your name on a magazine is a kudo few writers get. When you say Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine you know EQ was something back in the day. Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey, Mary Higgins Clark, Alfred Hitchcock and Isaac Asimov all can claim this honor. One other author who was so important to American Fantasy also got his own mag, A. Merritt (1884-1943). A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine ran for five issues from Dec-1949 to Oct-1950.

Topper for The Ninth Life by Jack Mann

Merritt's reputation as a writer of Fantasy was based on a series of stories and novels from 1917 to 1948, beginning with the instant classic "Through the Dragon Glass" to posthumous collaborations with Hannes Bok like "The Fox Woman"/"The Blue Pagoda" (1946) and The Black Wheel (1948). His tales were published in the weeklies like Argosy and All-Story and were not many (compared with writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs or Zane Grey) for he wrote in his spare time while working as an editor at The American Weekly. He wrote what he wanted and at the pace he wanted. He influenced the next generation of writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, C. L. Moore and Richard Shaver. In 1938, readers of Argosy voted him their favorite writer of all-time. Two of his novels were filmed by Hollywood.

Illo for The Ninth Life

The magazine that bore his name was a third attempt to capitalize on his fame. The first was Famous Fantastic Mysteries (1939-1953) and the second, Fantastic Novels (1940-1950), both using Merritt reprints. Edited by Mary Gnaedinger, with covers by Norman Saunders and Peter Stevens, interiors by Virgil Finlay, the magazine revived Merritt's best works as well as other reprints that showed a similar love of the fantastic. Only the decline and final extinction of the Pulps ended Merritt's magazine along with the rest of the Munsey line.

Issue 1 (December 1949)

Creep, Shadow! By A. Merritt
"Footsteps Invisible" by Robert Arthur

Issue 2 (February 1950)

The Smoking Land by Max Brand
"Three Lines of Old French" by A. Merritt
"The Seal Maiden" by Victor Rouseeau

Issue 3 (April 1950)

The Ninth Life by Jack Mann
"The Little Doll Died" by Theodore Roscoe

Issue 4 (July 1950)

The Face In The Abyss by A. Merritt
"The Green Flame" by Eric North

Issue 5 (October 1950)

The Elixir of Hate by George Allan England
"The Devil-Fish" by Elinore Cowan Stone
"Racketeers in the Sky" by Jack Williamson

Fantasy critics, quite rightfully, go on about the importance of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in the 1960s but I think they often under-value A. Merritt's importance in American Fantasy circles in the 1920-50s. Without Merritt you don't have Lovecraft's Deep Ones, for instance. You don't get the fruit-caky fun of C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith. Merritt's presence is subtle, for he never had slavish pastichers like Howard or HPL. He was the biggest thing in the Pulps until giants like Heinlein and other later SF writers would replace him.

Topper for The Smoking Land by Max Brand