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Fantasy Fan, v. 1, issue 3, November 1933

Page 34

34
The Fantasy Fan
November, 1933
SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE
by H.P. Lovecraft
(Copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook) 
Part Two
Because we remember pain and the menace of death more vividly than pleasure, and because our feelings toward the beneficent aspects of the unknown have from the first been captured and formalised by conventional religious rituals, it has fallen to the lot of the darker and more maleficent side of cosmic mystery to figure chiefly in our popular supernatural folklore. The tendency, too, is naturally enhanced by the fact that uncertainty and danger are closely allied; thus making any kind of an unknown world, a world of peril and evil possibilities. When to this sense of fear and evil the inevitable fascination of wonder and curiosity is superadded, there is born a composite body of keen emotion and imaginative provocation whose vitality must of necessity endure as long as the human race itself. Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds or strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.
With this foundation, no one need wonder at the existence of a literature of cosmic fear. It has always existed, and always will exist; and no better evidence of its tenacious vigour can be cited than the impulse which now and then drives writers of totally opposite leanings to try their hands at it in isolated tales, as if to discharge from their minds certain phantasmal shapes which would otherwise haunt them. Thus did Dickens write several eerie narratives; Browning the hideous poem, "Childe Roland"; Henry James, "The Turn of the Screw"; Dr. Holmes, the subtle novel "Elsie Venner"; F. Marion Crawford, "The Upper Berth" and a number of other examples; Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, social worker, "The Yellow Wall Paper"; whilst the humorist, W.W. Jacobs, produced that able melodramatic bit called "The Monkey's Paw."
(Continued next month)

SEQUELS--BY POPULAR DEMAND
by Walt Z Russjuchi
Part three - Conclusion
Science Wonder Stories (now Wonder Stories) published a 2-part serial by Edwards in 1930, "A Rescue from Jupiter" and its sequel, "The Return from Jupiter" appeared the following year.
Many characters have been so liked that their author creators have written a number of sequel-stories around them in which they are plunged into a series of adventures. The most popular are Keller's Taine of San Francisco, Meek's Dr. Bird, Quinn's Jules de Grandin, Gilmore's Hawk Carse, Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter, Wright's Commander Hanson, and Fezandie's Dr. Hackensaw.
Of course, it is realized that only the surface of this subject has been skimmed, but if the reader is further interested in sequels, he may idle away many an interesting hour considering why stories have sequels, and what stories should have them.

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34 The Fantasy Fan November, 1933 SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE by H.P. Lovecraft (Copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook) Part Two Because we remember pain and the menace of death more vividly than pleasure, and because our feelings toward the beneficent aspects of the unknown have from the first been captured and formalised by conventional religious rituals, it has fallen to the lot of the darker and more maleficent side of cosmic mystery to figure chiefly in our popular supernatural folklore. The tendency, too, is naturally enhanced by the fact that uncertainty and danger are closely allied; thus making any kind of an unknown world, a world of peril and evil possibilities. When to this sense of fear and evil the inevitable fascination of wonder and curiosity is superadded, there is born a composite body of keen emotion and imaginative provocation whose vitality must of necessity endure as long as the human race itself. Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds or strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse. With this foundation, no one need wonder at the existence of a literature of cosmic fear. It has always existed, and always will exist; and no better evidence of its tenacious vigour can be cited than the impulse which now and then drives writers of totally opposite leanings to try their hands at it in isolated tales, as if to discharge from their minds certain phantasmal shapes which would otherwise haunt them. Thus did Dickens write several eerie narratives; Browning the hideous poem, "Childe Roland"; Henry James, "The Turn of the Screw"; Dr. Holmes, the subtle novel "Elsie Venner"; F. Marion Crawford, "The Upper Berth" and a number of other examples; Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, social worker, "The Yellow Wall Paper"; whilst the humorist, W.W. Jacobs, produced that able melodramatic bit called "The Monkey's Paw." (Continued next month) SEQUELS--BY POPULAR DEMAND by Walt Z Russjuchi Part three - Conclusion Science Wonder Stories (now Wonder Stories) published a 2-part serial by Edwards in 1930, "A Rescue from Jupiter" and its sequel, "The Return from Jupiter" appeared the following year. Many characters have been so liked that their author creators have written a number of sequel-stories around them in which they are plunged into a series of adventures. The most popular are Keller's Taine of San Francisco, Meek's Dr. Bird, Quinn's Jules de Grandin, Gilmore's Hawk Carse, Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter, Wright's Commander Hanson, and Fezandie's Dr. Hackensaw. Of course, it is realized that only the surface of this subject has been skimmed, but if the reader is further interested in sequels, he may idle away many an interesting hour considering why stories have sequels, and what stories should have them.