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Spacewarp, v. 5, issue 2, whole no. 26, May 1949
Page 15
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FILE THIRTEEN by Redd Boggs 2215 Benjamin St., N.E. Minneapolis 18, Minnesota OPEN LETTER TO AUGUST DERLETH. Dear Auggie: Perusal of the new Arkham House catalog suggests to what extreme lengths you semi-pro fantasy publishers have gone to obtain book rights to the worthwhile and preservable fiction in the yellowing pages of the pulps. From a cringing glance at the titles you have announced for publication in various Arkham House collections in 1949 and later, it is evident that you have sewed up the rights to more pulp stuff than the most ardent "aficionado" ever expected -- or desired -- to see between hard covers. Verily, it seems to this fan that you publishers have left little more than fillers and the poems of the Planet Prince in the back files of my favorite magazines. Anthologies and various collections from your press, as wel as Shasta, Hadley, Prime Press, Fantasy Press, and others, have exhausted the supply of the best work of Heinlein, Keller, Williamson, Stuart, Geosmith, Weinbaum, C.A. Smith, Doc Smith, and of course H.P.L. -- in fact, all the reprintable work of those writers who are commonly adjudged to be the giants of the pulp fantasy field. There are damn few good stories -- the so-called "classics" -- left to "book". And yet, your catalog announces an ever-swelling flood of books to come from your presses for the next few years. In my modest way, Mr. Derleth, I think that I'm as rabid a fan as the fantasy field can boast at the present time. I am loyal to my favorite literature to the point of absurdity. I have been known to exhibit signs of epilectics when you divide your own literary works (which are not my particular favorites) into two categories: serious work and fantasy. When the torrent of fantasy books was signaled in 1939 with the publication of The Outsider and Others, I vowed to obtain all the fantasy books you published. Of course, at the time, this vow entailed the purchase of only a few HPL omni-volumes, but when Fantasy Press and others joined you, I loyally purchased their offerings as far as my budget would allow. Sure, I bought lots of cruddy stuff, nicely bound between hard covers, but I didn't too badly, because in most books there was something good to balance the bad, or else the stories were nostalgically remembered stories from earlier and less lush years of fantasy. But until the arrival of your catalog I scarcely realized to what ungodly things you semi-pro boys are stooping. The pulp stories you are hard-covering in 1949 and later are, to put it bluntly, a pile of crap. When a rabid fantasite like myself feels inclined to call the pulp stuff you are immortalizing in book form "a pile of crap," I sincerely feel it is time that you, as a businessman and as a person of literary tastes, take stock of Operation Arkham House. Let's take a look at some of the fiction you plan to reprint in Arkham House volumes. Well, of course, there's Fritz Leber's novel, Gather, Darkness! Frankly, although I've tried several times, I've been unable to finish this serial in Astounding, but it was highly praised when it first came out, and is adjudged a favorite on many lists of "best stories" I've
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FILE THIRTEEN by Redd Boggs 2215 Benjamin St., N.E. Minneapolis 18, Minnesota OPEN LETTER TO AUGUST DERLETH. Dear Auggie: Perusal of the new Arkham House catalog suggests to what extreme lengths you semi-pro fantasy publishers have gone to obtain book rights to the worthwhile and preservable fiction in the yellowing pages of the pulps. From a cringing glance at the titles you have announced for publication in various Arkham House collections in 1949 and later, it is evident that you have sewed up the rights to more pulp stuff than the most ardent "aficionado" ever expected -- or desired -- to see between hard covers. Verily, it seems to this fan that you publishers have left little more than fillers and the poems of the Planet Prince in the back files of my favorite magazines. Anthologies and various collections from your press, as wel as Shasta, Hadley, Prime Press, Fantasy Press, and others, have exhausted the supply of the best work of Heinlein, Keller, Williamson, Stuart, Geosmith, Weinbaum, C.A. Smith, Doc Smith, and of course H.P.L. -- in fact, all the reprintable work of those writers who are commonly adjudged to be the giants of the pulp fantasy field. There are damn few good stories -- the so-called "classics" -- left to "book". And yet, your catalog announces an ever-swelling flood of books to come from your presses for the next few years. In my modest way, Mr. Derleth, I think that I'm as rabid a fan as the fantasy field can boast at the present time. I am loyal to my favorite literature to the point of absurdity. I have been known to exhibit signs of epilectics when you divide your own literary works (which are not my particular favorites) into two categories: serious work and fantasy. When the torrent of fantasy books was signaled in 1939 with the publication of The Outsider and Others, I vowed to obtain all the fantasy books you published. Of course, at the time, this vow entailed the purchase of only a few HPL omni-volumes, but when Fantasy Press and others joined you, I loyally purchased their offerings as far as my budget would allow. Sure, I bought lots of cruddy stuff, nicely bound between hard covers, but I didn't too badly, because in most books there was something good to balance the bad, or else the stories were nostalgically remembered stories from earlier and less lush years of fantasy. But until the arrival of your catalog I scarcely realized to what ungodly things you semi-pro boys are stooping. The pulp stories you are hard-covering in 1949 and later are, to put it bluntly, a pile of crap. When a rabid fantasite like myself feels inclined to call the pulp stuff you are immortalizing in book form "a pile of crap," I sincerely feel it is time that you, as a businessman and as a person of literary tastes, take stock of Operation Arkham House. Let's take a look at some of the fiction you plan to reprint in Arkham House volumes. Well, of course, there's Fritz Leber's novel, Gather, Darkness! Frankly, although I've tried several times, I've been unable to finish this serial in Astounding, but it was highly praised when it first came out, and is adjudged a favorite on many lists of "best stories" I've
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