The Garden of Fear
Robert E. Howard
and Others
William L. Crawford
1945
1st Printing
Here is an oddity. While many of us are familiar with self-published small press magazines, it is not often to run across one that pre-dates the 60s. Due to the limitations of printing technology and the cost of production, very few independent projects were possible before the advent of the mimeograph machine. Here, however, we have a publication that dates not only from 1945, but also features a number of popular authors in a format that more resembles something out of the later fanzine era.
A bit of research has found that this magazine (booklet?) was published by William L. Crawford, who had been the editor of the pulp magazine Marvel Tales. I have yet to discover the whys and wherefores of this experiment, but the entire contents, except for the Lovecraft story, were all stories that Crawford had published in Marvel Tales (see list below).
The Howard story, which originally appeared in Marvel Tales in 1934, concerns a winged survivor of an ancient race who resides in a valley that time has seemingly overlooked. The Lovecraft tale is quite short, overly poetic and rather a bore. Of the other stories contained in the volume, I know nothing, so I can't really comment on them, although David H. Keller was an excellent author when he was on top of his game.
CONTENTS
- The Garden of Fear by Robert E. Howard
- The Man with the Hour Glass by L. A.(Lloyd Arthur) Eshbach
- Celephais by H. P. Lovecraft
- Mars Colonizes by Miles J. Breuer, M.D.
- The Golden Bough by David H. Keller, M.D.