[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
FINALE
This, the February 1935 number, is the last issue of THE FANTASY FAN.The life of TFF has extended over exactly one and a half years—sinceSeptember 1933, and during that time we have learned that there are notenough lovers of weird fiction who are interested enough in the subjectto pay for a fan magazine. We may call it an experiment that failed.We have done everything in our power to keep TFF from going on therocks, but our worst fears have been realized. Our printer, a fantasyfan himself, gave his services for an amount far below that charged byothers so that TFF could exist from the first, but a steady increasein well-paying jobs has deprived him of the time he usually devoted toprinting it.
Our greatest regret is the necessity of breaking off H. P. Lovecraft's"Supernatural Horror in Literature" in the middle of it. Dozens ofshort stories, poems, weird articles and columns will have to bereturned to the authors. Writers who would like their unpublishedmaterial to be turned over to the editors of Fantasy Magazine shouldadvise us of it, all other contributions to be mailed back before Mayfirst.
Subscribers can help us and themselves at the same time if they willaccept back numbers of TFF in payment for the future issues that theycannot receive. This will lighten the burden upon the editor who hasalready lost a couple of hundred dollars in the venture, and willprovide readers with the issues they missed or duplicates of those theyhave. In the latter case, they will find that back issues of TFF aresteadily increasing in value. The first issue, September 1933, whichis out of stock long ago, now markets for a value between 50 cents and$1. per copy. Prices of back numbers are as follows: Oct., Dec., 1933,Jan., Feb., Mar., June, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec., 1934, Jan.,Feb., 1935—10 cents each; Nov., 1933, Apr., May, 1934—20 cents each;Sept., 1933, July, 1934—out of stock. We would appreciate it if youwill take your refund in back issues, which, as we said, will soonprove of considerable value. Subscribers who would not like to do thiswill receive a refund in cash, charging them ten cents for each numberreceived in their subscriptions. All returns will be made before Mayfirst.
So, good-bye, friend reader—it's been nice to have met you!
SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE
by H. P. Lovecraft
(copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook)
Part Seventeen
Many of Hawthorne's shorter tales exhibit weirdness, either ofatmosphere or of incident, to a remarkable degree. "Edward Randolph'sPortrait," in "Legends of the Province House," has its diabolicmoments. "The Minister's Black Veil" (founded on an actual incident)and "The Ambitious Guest" imply much more than they state, whilst"Ethan Brand"—a fragment of a longer work never completed—rises togenuine heights of cosmic fear with its vignette of the wild hillcountry and the blazing, desolate lime-kilns, and its delineationof the Byronic "unpardonable sinner," whose troubled life ends witha peal of fearful laughter in the night as he seeks rest amidst theflames of the furnace. Some of Hawthorne's notes tell of weird tales hewould have written had he lived longer—an especially vivid plot beingthat concerning a baffling stranger who appeared now and then in publicassemblies, and who was at last followed and found to come and go froma very ancient grave.
But foremost as a finished, artistic unit