SOURCE: "The Wondersmith" (The Atlantic Monthly, October 1859)  by Fitz-James O'Brien

DESCRIPTION: "The box contained a quantity of exquisitely carved wooden manikins of both sexes, painted with great dexterity so as to present a miniature resemblance to Nature. They were, in fact, nothing more than admirable specimens of those toys which children delight in placing in various positions on the table, -- in regiments, or sitting at meals, or grouped under the stiff green trees which always accompany them in the boxes in which they are sold at the toy-shops. The peculiarity, however, about the manikins of Herr Hippe was not alone the artistic truth with which the limbs and the features were gifted; but on the countenance of each little puppet the carver's art had wrought an expression of wickedness that was appalling. Every tiny face had its special stamp of ferocity. The lips were thin and brimful of malice; the small black bead-like eyes glittered with the fire of a universal hate. There was not one of the manikins, male or female, that did not hold in his or her hand some miniature weapon. The little men, scowling like demons, clasped in their wooden fingers swords delicate as a housewife's needle. The women, whose countenances expressed treachery and cruelty, clutched infinitesimal daggers, with which they seemed about to take some terrible vengeance. " ("The Wondersmith" by Fitz-James o'Brien)

NOTES: The manikins of the Wondersmith, Herr Hippe, are killer dolls driven by captured souls. The souls are of evil individuals so that when the manikins are powered up they kill with abandon. The souls are provided by the fortuneteller Madame Filomel. The weapons of the manikins are dipped in Macousha poison. this poison is made in Guiana. It is so deadly that whoever makes it dies, killing everything in a wide circle around the hut. The poison is dabbed onto the miniature weapons. Hippe and his three accomlices are all evil Gypsies who plan to sell the toys to Christian children at Christmas. They try out the manikins on birds in a pet store. Unfortunately for the villains they get drunk and the bottle with the souls breaks open. The killer manikins destroy their creators.

HISTORY: This story is interesting on many fronts. On the one hand it may be the first killer toy story, before Algernon Blackwood's "The Doll", before Sarban's "The Doll-Maker", before A. Merritt's novel-length Burn, Witch, Burn, which certainly borrowed its plot and ideas. On the other hand it is a perfect example of racist writing depicting Gypsies as evil homicidal maniacs. Not published in some toe-rag of a pulp magazine but in The Atlantic Monthly, that most staid of American journals.