“Dear Mr. Baird: May I congratulate you as a delighted reader of your excellent magazine? You can not wish more for its success than I do, for I have long felt the need of such a periodical. So much of the mental feed given us by other editors is fit only for infants. We red-blooded men want something that stirs the sterner emotions. We want to be scared stiff. Too many of us think nothing can make us afraid; your stories will fill us with terror. Some of us are too lazy and sleep more than we should; your tales will keep us awake more of the time and thus give us more pep and vim, and makes our lives worth living.
“Most of the stories in your first number are excellent; some few rather indifferent. To my mind the best were ‘The Dead Man’s Tale,’ ‘Ooze,’ ‘The Extraordinary Experiment of Dr. Calgroni’ (although the transferring of a brain from one person to another was done some time ago in another story) and ‘The Skull.’ ‘Hark! the Rattle!’ I thought a trifle too rhetorical and exclamatory; ‘Nimba, the Cave Girl’ not properly a weird tale; ‘The Ghost Guard’ not quite convincing; and ‘The Sequel’ no improvement on Poe.
“But these are my own personal likes and dislikes; I have no doubt that many others of your readers preferred the very tales that did not impress me. On the whole, you are to be felicitated on your venture, and I hope that WEIRD TALES will enjoy enormous sales. If most people think as I do, it will.”
Analytical, too, is Miss Violet Olive Johnson, who writes to us from Portland, Oregon:
“I think ‘The Accusing Voice’ is of the best, because the denouement is so unexpected, yet so logical. I liked ‘Hark! the Rattle’ on account of its touch of fantasy. ‘The Dead Man’s Tale’ was a masterpiece, I thought. And it’s right in line with modern spiritualism, too. It conveys quite a definite lesson in regeneration, even if it does deal with a disembodied spirit. I agree with Anthony M. Rud, in The Eyrie, that such a magazine as WEIRD TALES is not only clean, but contains the ingredients of wholesome, moral lessons. And it certainly is unique and hair-raising. I didn’t experience a dull moment!”
At the risk of emulating the talented authors of patent medicine almanacs and overlapping the space vouchsafed The Eyrie, we must quote a few brief excerpts from a few of the letters we got in that second grab:
“... Some of the tales made me shiver when I read them here alone at night.... Two things in particular I like about your magazine: the very large number of short stories and the fact that there is only one serial.... But there is one thing I don’t favor: the sensational, blood-and-thunder titles of some of the stories. Something like ‘The Accusing Voice,’ ‘The Place of Madness,’ ‘The Weaving Shadows,’ is ‘woolly’ enough for most of us, I should say. ‘The Skull,’ ‘The Ghoul and the Corpse,’ ‘The Grave,’ are all too—you see what I mean?”—F. L. K., Indianapolis.
“I have just finished the first installment of ‘The Thing of a Thousand Shapes.’ It is fine, and any one who has a good imagination should not ‘start it late at night.’ I want to congratulate you on your fine magazine.”—Victor Wilson, Hazen, Pa.
“... Just finished reading the first number, and I agree with Mr. Anthony M. Rud that this magazine should be welcomed by the public. I have often wondered why it was that the ordinary magazine would not publish out-of-the-ordinary stories—that is, stories of the occult or weird.... One thing I know: the name of Edgar Allen Poe will live long after the names of some of the writers of commonplace fiction are forgotten.”—J. O. O’C., Raleigh, N. C.
“... May I add my congratulations on the success of your work which resulted in that first number of WEIRD TALES? To choose a name for a new magazine and then live up to that name so thoroughly is hardly ever done so well. I shall look for future numbers of the magazine with interest.”—R. M., St. Petersburg, Fla.