Avon Fantasy Reader No. 2
Edited by Donald A. Wollheim
Avon Book Company
1947
1st Printing
In his introduction "The Strange Case of Lemuel Jenkins" by Philip M. Fisher, Jr. (a chilling tale about invisibility which appears in this issue), Wollheim mentions that in the early 1900s many magazines would categorize fantasy stories as "different" to alert the reader that these stories were not "straight" fiction. He then goes on to say that he particularly enjoys "off-trail" stories and enjoys being able to print them.
This interest in "off-trail" stories seems to be Wollheim's underlying vision for the Fantasy Reader. The majority of stories that appear in the early numbers of the Reader are, at times, hard to categorize by genre, or are little known gems that had not seen print for many years, often because the bulk of a particular author's output was associated with a different genre.
This issue features the first appearances of David H. Keller and Robert E. Howard to the Reader. Howard, who wrote stories in most all pulp genres, is represented by a Kull tale (Kull being Howard's barbaric character who preceded Conan). The Keller piece, who was best know for SF, but was equally adept at horror, is a cautionary SF tale originally printed in 1928 that still rings true today. Both authors were very popular and one is surprised that their names are not on the front cover. Guy Endore, Fletcher Pratt (with Laurence Manning), and S. Fowler Wright round out the issue, along with Robert W. Chamber's "The Yellow Sign" from The King in Yellow, which Wollheim lauds and I still find to be a bore.