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Reader and Collector, v. 2, issue 3, September 1941
Page 7
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7. OF BOOKS AND THINGS As a relief, perhaps a welcome one, from my ramblings about the de-luxe books of fantasy in my collection, I would like to reprint an article written some years ago for "The Fantasy Fan". This article, slightly revised and brought up to date, recently appeared in "Reverie" a National Amateur Press Magazine. THE INTELLECTUAL SHOCKER The collecting of weird and fantastic stories is a fascinating pursuit. Locating first editions of some of out well-known authors affords considerable thrill, but the real kick comes when one discovers a comparatively little known author of weird stories or re-discovers an old and forgotten one. I experienced such a thrill when I came across a book written by an Englishman named Charles Williams. My appetite was whetted, and I didn't rest content until I had located and obtained all of his other novels. To the best of my knowledge, Williams appears to be practically unknown in this country. As a matter of fact, with one exception, I had to send to England for first editions of his works. In view of this, a few lines regarding Williams and his books may prove of interest to other readers and collectors. Sooner or later, the inveterate reader of weird and fantastic fiction becomes surfeited with stories of one pattern. Some years ago, one of the magazines devoted to books recommended to readers who found themselves in such a predicament a sure cure-- "the intellectual shocker." It is the type of story the average reader of fiction will overlook, and even the habitual reader of fantasy is quite likely to ignore it. Rider Haggard is not widely read by the present generation and yet his immortal She and Ayesha are perhaps the most notable examples of the pure type of the intellectual horror tale. All readers of weird fiction have read Merritt's Burn, Witch, Burn but how many read his never-to-bo-forgotten fantasy classic The Moon Pool when it was first published.Mulwer-Lytton's Zononi is rarely heard of nowadays and Arnold's Phra, the Phoenician has long been out of date. The Were-wolf of Paris by Guy Endore received a generous amount of publicity but The Man from Limbo by the same author and a good example of the intellectual shocker, slipped by practically unnoticed. Charles Williams is one of the modern writers of the intellectual horror story. He was born in England in 1886 and was educated at St. Albans and University College, London. He is an authority on Shakespearian literature and poetry, and has written a fairly long list of books, most of them dealing with poetical subjects. In 1930, however, he wrote his first novel, War in Heaven, and it proved to be one of the finest high-brow horror stories written in recent years. It is woven around a struggle for the "Graal," a battle between the forces of good and evil. It has all the elements of a real mystery story combined with the occult and the horror of the supernatural.
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7. OF BOOKS AND THINGS As a relief, perhaps a welcome one, from my ramblings about the de-luxe books of fantasy in my collection, I would like to reprint an article written some years ago for "The Fantasy Fan". This article, slightly revised and brought up to date, recently appeared in "Reverie" a National Amateur Press Magazine. THE INTELLECTUAL SHOCKER The collecting of weird and fantastic stories is a fascinating pursuit. Locating first editions of some of out well-known authors affords considerable thrill, but the real kick comes when one discovers a comparatively little known author of weird stories or re-discovers an old and forgotten one. I experienced such a thrill when I came across a book written by an Englishman named Charles Williams. My appetite was whetted, and I didn't rest content until I had located and obtained all of his other novels. To the best of my knowledge, Williams appears to be practically unknown in this country. As a matter of fact, with one exception, I had to send to England for first editions of his works. In view of this, a few lines regarding Williams and his books may prove of interest to other readers and collectors. Sooner or later, the inveterate reader of weird and fantastic fiction becomes surfeited with stories of one pattern. Some years ago, one of the magazines devoted to books recommended to readers who found themselves in such a predicament a sure cure-- "the intellectual shocker." It is the type of story the average reader of fiction will overlook, and even the habitual reader of fantasy is quite likely to ignore it. Rider Haggard is not widely read by the present generation and yet his immortal She and Ayesha are perhaps the most notable examples of the pure type of the intellectual horror tale. All readers of weird fiction have read Merritt's Burn, Witch, Burn but how many read his never-to-bo-forgotten fantasy classic The Moon Pool when it was first published.Mulwer-Lytton's Zononi is rarely heard of nowadays and Arnold's Phra, the Phoenician has long been out of date. The Were-wolf of Paris by Guy Endore received a generous amount of publicity but The Man from Limbo by the same author and a good example of the intellectual shocker, slipped by practically unnoticed. Charles Williams is one of the modern writers of the intellectual horror story. He was born in England in 1886 and was educated at St. Albans and University College, London. He is an authority on Shakespearian literature and poetry, and has written a fairly long list of books, most of them dealing with poetical subjects. In 1930, however, he wrote his first novel, War in Heaven, and it proved to be one of the finest high-brow horror stories written in recent years. It is woven around a struggle for the "Graal," a battle between the forces of good and evil. It has all the elements of a real mystery story combined with the occult and the horror of the supernatural.
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