We, too, have often wondered why other magazines shun the sort of stories that we gladly accept; and it is not unlikely that if Poe were living today he would find no market for his work except in WEIRD TALES. The reason for this we do not know (and we don’t know that we care a damn), but we do know this: In editing WEIRD TALES we follow no precedent, bow to no custom, honor no tradition. When we took this job we chucked all those things in the waste-basket and told the janitor to dump them in the rubbish heap. We started out to blaze a new path in magazine literature, and we’re going to do it, or die in the effort.
And while we’re on this topic we must quote a few lines in a letter from Professor George W. Crane of the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University:
“Dear sir: I am writing to express my keen appreciation of WEIRD TALES. I read some months ago that it was to be published soon, and I looked forward with great interest toward reading the first number. It answers a definite lack in modern magazine fiction, and one which is wholesome.
“The type of story which you feature is not immoral, but is very stimulating, and forms a pleasing diversion to me from heavier and more abstract material. Mr. Rud’s tale, ‘Ooze,’ is extremely bizarre, and I am recommending it to my colleague in the faculty of the Department of Zoology. I will predict, from the analysis of human interests, that WEIRD TALES will have a tremendous success.”
We need only add that Professor Crane is a gifted prophet; for his prediction is rapidly being fulfilled.
Equally germane to the subject we’re discussing is the following letter from Edward Schultz, 335 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, New York:
“Dear sir: I have had the pleasure of very recently discovering your delightful publication, WEIRD TALES. I do not know whether it is the first issue or not, but I do know that I shall never miss a future issue if the March number is any standard of those to follow. Of about twenty or more periodicals to which I subscribe, WEIRD TALES is the only one that I somehow find time to read from cover to cover.
“Being a great admirer of the late Edgar Allen Poe, whose works I have read many times over, I was more than agreeably surprised to find his matchless style abound in WEIRD TALES.
“Allow me to congratulate you on your innovation, which I shall heartily recommend to my friends. But please keep it as it is—keep out plain and overworked stuff about detectives, wild west, etc. There are a great number of us who want weirdness to the nth power in our recreational reading. I shall eagerly look forward to the April issue.”