Avon Fantasy Reader No. 4
Edited by Donald A. Wollheim
Avon Book Company
1947
1^st Printing

     One annoying feature of the Reader is the lack of credits. Wollheim's introduction to each issue gives some clues, as do the individual intros to each story and the copyright information, but we really don't know when, or where, stories first appeared. In regards to the covers, no artist credits are given at all. It would have been nice to know whose work to look for where, or, in the case of this cover, whose work to avoid.
     Like the previous issues, this one has a good mix of authors and styles. P. Schuyler Miller is nearly forgotten today and his "The Arrhenius Horror" is a good representation of 1930s SF. C.A. Smith also makes a stab at SF, although he gets bogged down in his own colorful prose. Nelson Bond (better known as Nelson S. Bond) adds a tale that is borderline SF, but affective nonetheless.
     Hodgson, James, Bradbury and Burke all contribute horror stories of varying degrees and styles and Lord Dunsany, with "The Hoard of the Gibbelins" creates a fairy tale worthy of the original tales by the Brothers Grimm. There is also a new story, a very short SF tale by A.E. Van Vogt entitled "Defense."
     Cover non-withstanding, another winning issue, although, unlike its predecessors, the stories fall more easily into separate genres.