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COPYRIGHT INFO
The Abraham Merritt Megapack is copyright © 2014 by Wildside Press LLC. All rights reserved. For more information, contact the publisher through wildsidepress.com or the Wildside Press Forums.
NOTE
Language has not been updated for “political correctness” and some stories may contain language which some might find offensive. Please note that languages change and evolve, and what was acceptable in the time of original publication may prove offensive to some today.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
Abraham Grace Merritt (1884–1943)—known by his byline, A. Merritt, or more recently Abraham Merritt—was an American magazine editor and a writer of fantastic fiction. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in 1999, its fourth class of two deceased and two living writers.
Merritt’s writings were heavily influenced by H. Rider Haggard, Robert W. Chambers, Helena Blavatsky, and Gertrude Barrows Bennett (writing as Francis Stevens). His stories typically revolve around conventional pulp magazine themes: lost civilizations, hideous monsters, etc. His heroes are gallant Irishmen or Scandinavians, his villains treacherous Germans or Russians, and his heroines often virginal, mysterious and scantily clad.
What sets Merritt apart from the typical pulp author, however, is his lush, florid prose style and his exhaustive (at times exhausting) penchant for adjective-laden detail. Merritt’s fondness for micro-description nicely complements the pointillistic style of Hannes Bok’s illustrations. Bok was a fan of his work and completed some of Merritt’s incomplete stories after Merritt’s death. (Those collaborations are not included in this volume, however.)
Merritt’s first fantasy story was published in 1917, “Through the Dragon Glass” in the November 14 issue of Frank Munsey’s All-Story Weekly. Other short stories and serial novels followed in the Munsey magazines All-Story, Argosy All-Story, and Argosy.
Merritt also contributed to the round robin story The Challenge from Beyond with H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, and Frank Belknap Long.
The Fox Woman and the Blue Pagoda (1946) combined an unfinished story with a conclusion written by Merritt’s friend Hannes Bok. The Fox Woman and Other Stories (1949) collected the same fragment, minus Bok’s conclusion (this is the version included in The A. Merritt Megapack), with Merritt’s short stories. The book The Black Wheel was published in 1948, after Merritt’s death; it was written by Bok using previously unpublished material as well.
My thanks to Wikipedia for supplying much of this info.
A note to the culturally sensitive: Merritt was writing in a much less enlightened age, and some of his works contain racism and racist stereotypes. Please read them with a view toward the time in which they were written and the markets in which they appeared. (You have been warned!)
—John Betancourt
Publisher, Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
ABOUT THE MEGAPACKS
Over the last few years, our “Megapack” series of ebook anthologies has proved to be one of our most popular endeavors. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”
The Megapacks (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt, Mary Wickizer Burgess, Sam Cooper, Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Bonner Menking, Colin Azariah-Kribbs, Robert Reginald. A. E. Warren, and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!).
A NOTE FOR KINDLE READERS
The Kindle versions of our Megapacks employ active tables of contents for easy navigation…please look for one before writing reviews on Amazon that complain about the lack! (They are sometimes at the ends of ebooks, depending on your reader.)
RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?
Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the Megapack series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://movies.ning.com/forum (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).
Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.
TYPOS
Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.
If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [email protected] or use the message boards above.
THE MEGAPACK SERIES
MYSTERY
The Achmed Abdullah Megapack
The Charlie Chan Megapack*
The Craig Kennedy Scientific Detective Megapack
The Detective Megapack
The Father Brown Megapack
The Girl Detective Megapack
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack
The First Mystery Megapack
The Penny Parker Megapack
The Philo Vance Megapack*
The Pulp Fiction Megapack
The Raffles Megapack
The Victorian Mystery Megapack
The Wilkie Collins Megapack
GENERAL INTEREST
The Adventure Megapack
The Baseball Megapack
The Cat Story Megapack
The Second Cat Story Megapack
The Third Cat Story Megapack
The Third Cat Story Megapack
The Christmas Megapack
The Second Christmas Megapack
The Classic American Short Stories Megapack, Vol. 1.
The Classic Humor Megapack
The Dog Story Megapack
The Doll Story Megapack
The Horse Story Megapack
The Military Megapack
The
