Abraham Merritt, 

a forgotten master of Fantasy and lost world adventure.

                                                      

Hi folks!

Mr. Abraham Merritt

     I’m going a tad bit off topic this week in covering an author who is not a writer of horror stories. I figure though, that since horror and fantasy are kissing cousins you’ll all give me a bit of leeway.

     What got me going in this direction is that a few weeks ago I made one of the best deals that I’ve ever made on Ebay. I won a complete set of “A. Merritt” books published by Avon Books back in the 1970s. I paid $15.15 for the set and they are all in fine condition. I already had 5 of these editions but I won’t complain about having a few doubles at this price.

     “Abraham Merritt” was a big deal who was continuously in print from the 1920s up until the beginning of the 1980s. I read that as of 1981 he had sold more than 10,000,000 copies! Over 5,000,000 of these were in Avon editions alone.

And this is from a man who only wrote on the side and who’s complete output is only 81/2 novels and a few short stories.

     Mr. Merritt is most well known for his fantasy/lost world adventure stories. To be lazy, I could describe his writing and stories as Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Robert E. Howard meets C.L. Moore meets H. P. Lovecraft meets Leigh Brackett. It’s not that he was inspired by these folks. All of these esteemed writers, aside from Burroughs, were partially inspired and influenced by Mr. Merritt. His stories appear at first look to be simple pulp escapism. This is not the case though. He elevated fantasy fiction up to the level of literature with out ever sacrificing the amount of entertainment that they delivered. Even when describing lost worlds, brave heroes and heroines, fantastic beings and creatures, tragedy, excitement and lastly, grand adventure did Mr. Merritt ever condescend to his readers. This stuff is truly pulp goodness written by an adult for adults. His writing is dense, but hat’s what makes it so rewarding. During his lifetime, Mr. Merritt was the highest paid newspaper editor in America and only wrote as a side profession. His stories and novels were serialized in the highest paying fiction markets of the day. This was from the late 19-teens up into the 1930s. The later reprints of these stories in book form were also world wide best sellers. I wish I knew why these wonderful stories fell out of grace with new young readers. Something happened to the reading tastes a little over 30 years ago that seems to have resigned them to the dust bin of genre writing. I’ve seen some bloggers and reviewers complain that the writing is too dense or that the stories are too old fashioned. I can’t pass judgement on the density of the writing since this is the kind of stuff I learned to read from. Of course these stories are old fashioned and slightly sexist. They were written in another world than ours. That doesn’t make them bad or poor. It makes them different. It seems that many younger readers are quick to pass judgement on anything that doesn’t fit the politically correct, post modern narrative. I think that it’s their loss though. I wish that I was talented enough of a writer to even begin to describe how powerful and moving these novels are. Especially “The Face in the Abyss”, ”The Moon Pool”, “Dwellers in the Mirage” and “The Metal Monster”.  These novels are fantasy adventure on a level that wasn’t seen before or since. That’s why the man sold 10 million+ books!  I’ll be adding some links to his writings that are still in print at the bottom of this post.

Now let’s talk about this last series of Merritt books from Avon. Avon Publishing was practically the sole publisher of Mr. Merritt’s writings. Avon published the paperbacks from the late 1940s all the way up until the early 1980s. They even published an “A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine” for a few years. Avon claims to have sold more than 5,000,000 Merritt editions. I guess Mr. Merritt was good business for Avon.

     The editions that Avon published during the 1970s were that rare and wonderful combination of a great author, great cover artists and perfect book design. That is a very special thing when it happens. These volumes all had a wonderful uniform look that made them recognizable from a mile away to even reader with poor eyesight.  They all sport Mr. Merritt’s name at the top in a huge arch with the title directly underneath in a large oval field. This is all in the foreground of some of the most amazing cover art that I’ve ever seen. 2 covers were done by “Stephen Fabian”. Two were done by “Rodney Mathews”. Sadly, I don’t’ know who did the other four. It’s a terrible shame that who ever painted the cover to “Dwellers in the Mirage” didn’t get credit in the book. I find that every one of these covers is so fitting to the subject matter that it is obvious that who ever was in charge of this series took their work very seriously. I think that it’s awful that you don’t see this kind of care being put into books these days. The layout of these covers alone is art in itself.

So in closing I want you to take a look at these covers, drink in their beauty, and appreciate the care, time and talent that went in to putting the series together. We will never see this kind of publishing artistry ever again.

UPDATE: 3 November
Mark Cannon of Canberra Australia sent me the following information....
 
"British artist Patrick Woodroffe did the "Dwellers in the Mirage" and "Seven Footprints to Satan" covers. I have a UK edition of "Dwellers" which also uses this cover. He also did the covers for Futura editions of "Satan" (with a different and much wilder cover) and "Burn Witch, Burn", and another edition of "The Ship of Ishtar".

Woodroffe illustrated huge number of British SF< Fantasy & Horror paperbacks, along with record covers, in the 1970s."

THANKS MARK!!

Here is the E-text to the fantasy/SF round robin that Mr. Merritt contributed to. It's a 20th century who's who of the fantastic!

The Challenge from Beyond By C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft,Robert E.Howard, and Frank Belknap Long

Stephen Fabian's offical home page.

Rodney Matthew's offical home page.

 Take care and thanks for stopping by.

Doug

Here's the scans of the editions in my collection.
And thanks to Bill Crider for turning me onto "Photoscape".
Now I can do these cool wrap around scans.



Cover By Stephen Fabian.

Another Fabian cover.

Rodney Matthews!

More Rodney Matthews!

A lovely Ken Barr cover. the original recently sold for $970!

Patrick Woodroffe

Les Edwards

   Another one by Patrick Woodroffe!   Aint this one of the most amazing things that you've ever seen!

Here are my other Merritt's in my collection. These are nice but come no where near the later editions as far as beauty goes.

Here's some links Merritt books that are still in print!


"The Moon Pool"
"The Metal Monster"
"The Ship of Ishtar"


The film "Devil Doll" was based on Mr. Merritt's "Burn Witch! Burn!"

Hallowe’en Horrors (Halloween Horrors)

Edited by Alan Ryan

Sphere Books. 1988

Charter Books 1986

                                                                   My UK copy.

                                                                 The US edition.

“Hallowe’en Horrors” editied by the late  Alan Ryan is the oldest Halloween theme anthology and it’S from only 1988. So I’m once pushing the boundaries of what I consider “Vintage” again. But considering that Halloween themed anthologies are scarcer than Skanks Teeth I thinks it’s safe to stretch my definitions a little bit this time. I read this jut last year for the first time and found it to me a pretty satisfying, if grisly, collection of Halloween stories. What I fond to be interesting about Mr. Ryan’s anthology is how grim and grisly the selection of stories is. There’s nary a drop of whimsy in this collection. The closest any of them come to being “traditionally spooky” is Ramsey Campbell’s “Apples”. And that’s simply because no children die in it. Dead kids makes some of the stories hard going emotionally. Aside from that every story fits it’s Halloween theme perfectly. Get it if you can find it!

Blurb from the back cover….

“HALLOWE'EN - A TIME FOR PUMPKIN LANTERNS AND TRICK OR TREAT, FOR HOT SPICED DRINKS AND PARTY LAUGHTER. FOR SOME. BUT NOT FOR ALL. FOR THOSE LONELY SOULS HALLOWE'EN IS A NIGHT OF NECROMANCY AND BONE-CHILLING FEAR, WHEN THE WILD OCTOBER WIND CANNOT QUITE MASK THE HIGH, KEENING SCREAM OF TERROR, WHEN THE ANCIENT EVILS ARISE ONCE MORE FROM THE UNDERWORLD TO LURE THE UNWARY TO THEIR DARK AND TERRIBLE DEATHS ...”

 CONTENTS

 HE'LL COME KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR - ROBERT R MCCAMMON

 EYES - CHARLED L GRANT

 THE NIXON MASK - WHITLEY STRIEBER

 THE SAMHAIN FEIS - PETER TREMAYNE

TRICKSTER - STEVE RASNIC TEM

MISS MACK - MICHAEL MCDOWELL

 HOLLOW EYES - GUY N SMITH

THE HALLOWEEN HOUSE - ALAN RYAN

 THREE FACES OF THE NIGHT - CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

PUMPKIN - BILL PRONZINI –

LOVER IN THE WILDWOOD - FRANK BELKNAP LONG

APPLES - RAMSEY CAMPBELL

 PRANKS - ROBERT BLOCH

Now let’s take a look at the stories……

“HE'LL COME KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR” by ROBERT R MCCAMMON.

A working class family finds out that maybe the new job with a promotion and getting an affordable home in the new sub-division doesn’t come with out sacrifices, especially on Halloween.   I enjoyed this one. Sometimes an unpleasant ending is just what the doctor ordered.

“EYES” by CHARLES L GRANT.

Only the late Charles Grant can combine incredible Halloween atmosphere and mood with heart breaking loss, regret and punishment. This story is a perfect example of what Mr. Grant meant by describing his style as “quiet horror”.  Saying that I enjoyed this one would be a lie. Considering it deals with the abuse and subsequent death of a boy with Downs Syndrome makes it too sad and painful to be considered enjoyable. Still, it’s an amazing and powerful story that will stay with you for a long time.

“THE NIXON MASK” by WHITLEY STRIEBER.

 This is Mr. Streiber’s take Halloween paranoia in the Nixon Whitehouse. This is a wonderfully weird story of how Richard and Pat Nixon have to deal with “Trick or Treaters” and the significance of not letting your mask slip and showing fear to outsiders. I’m not sure, but I think this is actually about the loss of control and how we try to hide the loss. I didn’t like this one a lot, but it is bizarre enough to keep your interest.

“THE SAMHAIN FEIS” by PETER TREMAYNE .

A little boy in Ireland moves with his widowed mother in a remote house in the mountains and meets an invisible friend named “Sam”. I’m assuming that you can figure out where this one is going.  It’s well written with a strong sense of place, but it’s a “been there, done that” kind of story.

“TRICKSTER” by STEVE RASNIC TEM.

    I liked this one a lot. It’s definitely a Halloween story, but with a modern urban and not traditional setting. A man is haunted by both his dead/missing trickster brother and the dysfunctional relationship they shared.  I loved this story. It’s a modern and non-traditional story that manages to still be 100% Halloween with great mood and an unsettling ending that gets under your skin. Not the easiest read in the book, but well worth it.

“MISS MACK” by MICHAEL MCDOWELL.

This is a great story that could have appeared in a later edition of “Weird Tales”.

It tell the story of a very deep friendship between two female teachers in a small southern town clear How “deep” the friendship actually is, is never made clear and is totally beside the point. What is important is how a jealous rival responds to the relationship between the two women. What makes matters worse it the jealous mans mother is a witch. This is one of those stories where bad things happen to good people and there are some fates that are worse then death. It’s scary , sad and actually keeps you hoping right up to the bitter end.

“HOLLOW EYES” by GUY N SMITH.

    This one is a goodie! I man goes searching Halloween night for his arrant teen age daughter who’s run away with her delinquent boyfriend. He soon discovers that what used to be considered teen age seasonal hijinks have taken a very nasty and deadly turn.  I would have been disappointed if this one didn’t have an awful end.

“THE HALLOWEEN HOUSE” by ALAN RYAN.

A group of teenagers decided to visit a local haunted house on Halloween and run into something straight out of one of Manly Wade Wellman’s “Silver John” stories.

This one is a great “spooky” Halloween story.

“THREE FACES OF THE NIGHT” by CRAIG SHAW GARDNER.

This has to be the most ambitious story in the collection. A young man has a Halloween encounter with a Warlock neighbour which changes his life. This one is just to weird to even bother describing. Let’s just say he becomes a force of evil and leave it at that.

“PUMPKIN” by BILL PRONZINI.

If your hired hands advise you to leave the evil pumpkin alone and to let it simply rot on the vine, then maybe you should listen to them. This is a very simple, but effective Halloween shocker. I enjoyed it.

“LOVER IN THE WILDWOOD” by FRANK BELKNAP LONG.

An old woman in a nursing home convinces her care giver to sneak her out of the home on Halloween night so that she can meet her lover for one last tryst. This one is a surprisingly sweet and touching story written by pulp meister Long. It’s a wonderfully written story.

“APPLES” by  RAMSEY CAMPBELL.

“Apples” is a wonderful non-cryptic Halloween story about a group of kids who steal some apples out of their weird old neighbors garden and the crazy shit that goes down on Halloween as he take supernatural revenge.  This story shows what I love so much abour most of Mr. Campbell’s writing. It’s also the only other story next to “Lover in the Wildwood” that doesn’t end in God awful horror and death.

“PRANKS” by ROBERT BLOCH.

“Pranks” is the kind of Robert Bloch story that has all of his strengths and none of his weaknesses. There are no stupid puns or black humour in the story. Think of it as really good EC horror with out any of the gallows humor or eye winking.  Trick or Treat goes horribly wrong for 13 children and their parents.  If you have children then this one will be keeping you up nights!

I think the “Hallowe’en Horrors” is a very solid anthology of Halloween stories that never stray from the theme. I strongly recommend that you seek out this book and buy if you can find an affordable copy.

Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Doug

P.S.

Here's a new Halloween Anthology that's still in Print!

 "HALLOWEEN"

It reprints many of the stories that appeared earlier in the classic and sadly out of print "October Dreams".

There’s a signpost up ahead - your next stop, the OCTOBER COUNTRY!

THE OCTOBER COUNTRY … that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coalbins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…Ray Bradbury.

Not that anyone is asking, but if you would ask me, I would say that the late RayBradbury is the one author most identified with the month of October.  And now that October is upon us I figured that it’s time for a little bit more Bradbury.

October is in it own way the perfect month. Where as I think that September and November are “tainted” months. September “taint” summer nor fall and November “taint” autumn nor winter. October has warm sunny days with crisp cool nights. The daytime skies have a blue that is almost painful. The leaves are showing their colors and Halloween is on its way. This is the season of the witch, the unexpected. We hope that maybe a little bit of magic and wonder might peek from behind the curtain that is reality as we know it. It shows us that even dying can have its own beauty as nature prepares for the end of life’s cycle as the death of winter approaches. And Mr. Brabury understood this perfectly.  

Mr. Bradbury was always a stylist. What many might not know is that he was a writer of horror stories before he became the RAY BRADBURY who most readers know. His earliest stories appeared in “Weird Tales” magazine back in the 1940s and these were mostly horror stories. Not your typical horror stories, but horror stories none the less. Many of these early stories have been collected in tow volumes. The U.S. edition is still in print under the title “The October Country”. The UK edition appeared under the title of “The Small Assassin”, with a small but significant change in the contents which I’ll list below. These stories were first reprinted in the collection “Dark Carnival” from “Arkham house publishing”.

“SomethingWicked This Way Comes” is a novel of fantasy and horror about an evil magic carnival that visits a small Midwestern town during the last week of October.

“TheHalloween Tree” is Mr. Bradbury’s love letter to Halloween, friendship and the end of childhood. It deals with a magical journey through history (and the origins of Halloween) taken by a group of boys’ to save the life of a dying friend and the sacrifices that must be made for the sake of love and friendship.

Both “The Halloween Tree” and “The October Country”  are full of wonderful illustrations and have covers done by the incredible Mr. Joseph Mugnaini. These books show the magic of the perfect writer working with the perfect illustrator. Both of these men compliment each other immensely. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Mugnaini’s cover to “The October Country” is single greatest book cover ever.

"From the Dust Returned" is a collection and expansion on the "Elliott Family" stories which were first introduced in the classic Halloween stroy "The Homecoming" . The Elliott's were the original inspiration for "Charles Adams" "Family"!

And lastly, “The October Country”, “Something Wicked This Way Comes” and “The Halloween Tree” are all still in print!! So order them now in time for Halloween!

Here are the edtions that I own.

 

 

“The October Country” contents: (copied from the Wikipedia)

"The Dwarf"

The owner of a Hall of Mirrors and a young carnival-goer observe a dwarf who uses the mirrors to make himself seem taller.

"The Next in Line"

A couple staying in a small Mexican town comes across a cemetery which holds a shocking policy regarding the interred whose families cannot pay.

"The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse"

A thoroughly dull man becomes the new avant garde craze precisely because he is boring.

"Skeleton"

A man becomes convinced his skeleton is out to ruin him, and consults an unorthodox specialist.

"The Jar"

A poor farmer buys a jar with something floating in it for twelve dollars and it soon becomes the conversation piece of the town. However his wife begins to realize that she cannot stand the jar or him.

"The Lake"

A man revisits his childhood home and recalls a friend who drowned in a lake during childhood.

"The Emissary"

A sick boy who cannot go outside has only two connections to the world, his dog and a woman who lives in the neighborhood. However the neighbor dies and the dog inexplicably runs off.

"Touched With Fire"

Two old men make it their mission to push fulfillment on unhappy people. They unsuccessfully try to do so with a woman whose story ends bloodily. It was first published under the title "Shopping for Death".

"The Small Assassin"

A woman becomes convinced her newborn baby is out to kill her.

"The Crowd"

A man discovers something odd about the crowds that form around accidents.

"Jack-in-the-Box"

A boy lives with his mother in a vast secluded mansion. She raises him to be God after telling him his father, the original God, was killed by beasts outside.

"The Scythe"

A man comes into possession of a powerful scythe and a wheat field. He discovers that the task of reaping is more than meets the eye.

"Uncle Einar"

One of two stories in this collection to feature members of the Elliott family, a collection of movie monsters and immortal beings. This story focuses on a character named Uncle Einar, who tries to find a way into the skies after damaging his biological radar.

"The Wind"

A former travel writer becomes mortally afraid that the winds he has defied around the world are gathering to kill him.

"The Man Upstairs"

A young boy suspects the man renting the upper room of his house to be more than a man.

"There Was an Old Woman"

There was an old woman who defied death for years. Death tricked her one day and stole her body but she wasn't going to let that stop her.

"The Cistern"

A woman describes to her sister how magical the land beneath the sewer must be, where lovers are reunited in death, torture and anguish.

"Homecoming"

The main story concerning the Elliott family. It concerns their return to the ancestral home in Illinois for a gathering, and is seen through the eyes of Timothy, a mortal child left on their doorstep who longs to be like them. Einar from "Uncle Einar" figures prominently. The story later formed the basis for the 2001 novel From the Dust Returned, which also incorporated the "Uncle Einar" story in its narrative.

"The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone"

Fans track down a writer who chose to withdraw into seclusion and cease writing, and get his story from him.

 

“The Small Assassin” contents:

 

    "The Small Assassin"

    "The Next in Line"

    "The Lake"

    "The Crowd"

    "Jack-in-the-Box"

    "The Man Upstairs"

    "The Cistern"

    "The Tombstone"

    "The Smiling People"

    "The Handler"

    "Let’s Play 'Poison'"

    "The Night"

    "The Dead Man"

 

The Trailer to Dosney's adaption of "Something Wicked his Way comes"

 

And here's a clip from "The Cartoon Network's" adaption of "the Halloween Tree" narrated by Leonard Nimoy!

 

Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Doug