Avon Fantasy Reader No. 12
Edited by Donald A. Wollheim
Avon Novels Inc.
1950
1st Printing
After last issues experiment, this issue returns with a vengence, featuring not only the authors one would associate with The Reader, but also an excellent crosssing of genres. As an added bonus, none of the stories in this issue were published before 1942.
The Howard story features one of his lesser known character, Turlogh O'Brien, a Celtic barbarian. Not Conan, but fun stuff none the less and what one would expect from Howard. The stories by Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith and M.R. James also are what one would expect from these authors as well.
There are also some unexpected gems in this issue as well. The Sax Rohmer piece, "In the Valley of the Sorceress" is another of Rohmer's Egyptian tales and may have been his 3rd published story. Manly Wade Wellman makes his first appearance in The Reader with "The Kelpie", one of my favorite Wellman tales. A jungle tale by Bassett Morgan (an author with whom I am not familiar) and science fiction tales by Miles J. Breuer and Walter Kubilius (another unjustly forgotten author) round out the issue.