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Pan Demos, v. 1, issue 2, March 1949
Page 7
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SOME NOTES ON THE BACKGROUND OF THE FOX WOMAN by Paul Dennis O'Connor The idea to publish the unfinished Merritt novels was conceived by Kannes Bok at one of my usual Sunday afternoon dinner parties for artists, writers and theater folk in my Bohemian New York apartment. Donald Wollheim and his wife, Elsie, Hannes, and Alyce Dailey -- sister of Dan Dailey, the popular movie star, and myself were the chief participants in the after-dinner discussion about fantasy and fantasy publications. At Hannes' suggestion, which had been met with considerable enthusiasm by all of us, I contacted Mrs. Merritt at her office on the following day by telephone. She had remembered Hannes' work in the fantasy illustration, as Merritt himself had preferred Bok's work over Finlay's, and once said so to Mary Gnaedinger, editor of Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels, at a time when he had asked for Hannes' illustrations for "The Metal Monster" instead of Finlay, of whose work he considered too bubbly and indefinite. Arrangements were made for the incompleted works to be delivered into my hands on the following day. Both manuscripts were in that first parcel, the Fox Woman and the Black Wheel. Later, Mrs. Merritt's agents forwarded to us the two fragments, "When Old Gods Wake", and "The White Road", the first of which appeared recently in the Avon Fantasy Reader series. These last two were merely 1500 words and as we had no idea as to Merritt's original intentions we rejected the idea of publication of all four pieces as completed works to be finished by Bok. We did not wish to do as one other publisher, who took seven paragraphs of a very famous writer's work and built a full length novel out of it. Originally we were to found a company with three members, with myself acting as Hannes' agent, as a protective measure. Hannes was to receive 200 percent of the said com- 7
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SOME NOTES ON THE BACKGROUND OF THE FOX WOMAN by Paul Dennis O'Connor The idea to publish the unfinished Merritt novels was conceived by Kannes Bok at one of my usual Sunday afternoon dinner parties for artists, writers and theater folk in my Bohemian New York apartment. Donald Wollheim and his wife, Elsie, Hannes, and Alyce Dailey -- sister of Dan Dailey, the popular movie star, and myself were the chief participants in the after-dinner discussion about fantasy and fantasy publications. At Hannes' suggestion, which had been met with considerable enthusiasm by all of us, I contacted Mrs. Merritt at her office on the following day by telephone. She had remembered Hannes' work in the fantasy illustration, as Merritt himself had preferred Bok's work over Finlay's, and once said so to Mary Gnaedinger, editor of Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels, at a time when he had asked for Hannes' illustrations for "The Metal Monster" instead of Finlay, of whose work he considered too bubbly and indefinite. Arrangements were made for the incompleted works to be delivered into my hands on the following day. Both manuscripts were in that first parcel, the Fox Woman and the Black Wheel. Later, Mrs. Merritt's agents forwarded to us the two fragments, "When Old Gods Wake", and "The White Road", the first of which appeared recently in the Avon Fantasy Reader series. These last two were merely 1500 words and as we had no idea as to Merritt's original intentions we rejected the idea of publication of all four pieces as completed works to be finished by Bok. We did not wish to do as one other publisher, who took seven paragraphs of a very famous writer's work and built a full length novel out of it. Originally we were to found a company with three members, with myself acting as Hannes' agent, as a protective measure. Hannes was to receive 200 percent of the said com- 7
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