The cover for the July, 1969 issue of Magazine of Horror is by Robert Schmand. It’s not as stylish as the Virgil Finlay covers of the past two issues, but it’s suitably gruesome.

The Editor’s Page
In a review of Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner in Fantasy and Science Fiction, Judith Merril asks “Is it possible for a writer in one culture fully and adequately to project the mores and emotional responses of realistic human beings in a (realistically) different environment?” Robert A.W. Lowndes devotes this issue’s column to answering that question. In short, he believes “realism” is nearly unattainable in fiction, regardless of the subject one writes about, because the writer’s perception of reality is not necessarily accurate, and neither is the reader’s. He uses a presentation of Macbeth as an example. Most of the audience found the scene of Lady Macbeth sleepwalking very real, except for a doctor who had dealt extensively with somnambulists. It seems that Lowndes is suggesting that authors should aim for “believability” rather than “realism”.

“The Nameless Mummy” by Arlton Eadie
(first publication: Weird Tales, May 1932)
The Helmstone Museum has recently acquired a number of artifacts from ancient Egypt. The museum’s curator, Peter Venn, discovers an unopened mummy case with a Latin inscription. While examining it, he is visited by an incredibly beautiful woman with a knowledge of Egyptology greater than his own. She insists that they open the case together after hours, and she will tell him “such a story as human ears have never listened to before.” Turns out she’s Cleopatra, and inside the case is the body of Mark Antony. She discovered the secret of immortality in a hidden cave beneath the Great Pyramid. At this point it’s clear that a large amount of this story was lifted from H. Rider Haggard’s She: an immortal woman so beautiful all men fall in love with her laments her dead lover for millennia… If you remove the elements of She from this story, you wouldn’t have much left. The ending is different enough, though.

“Raymond the Golden” by David H. Keller, M.D.
We’re on the third “Tale from Cornwall” and we still haven’t had one that takes place in Cornwall yet! Shortly after the events of the previous story, the family adopted the name Hubelaire and relocated from Armorica to Cornwall. They remain there for nearly 450 years, before war and pestilence forces them away. They settle on the Isle of Lundy in the Hungry Sea, where they live peacefully for 30 years until the Rathlings invade. A truce was declared, which the brutal Rathlings violate. Nearly all the Hubelaires are cruelly put to death, but the last of them, Raymond the Golden, is granted a reprieve for three days. He uses this time to comfort his flaxen-haired lover. Thereafter she gives birth to two sons. One she names Raymond, the other, dark and dwarfish of stature, she names Doom. When they grow to adulthood they vow to punish the Rathlings, and Doom lives up to his name.

“The Phantom Drug” by A.W. Kapfer
(first publication: Weird Tales, April 1926)
This is the one and only published story by Kapfer. A scientist receives a shipment of strange drugs from India which supposedly “have the power of transforming the mind of a human into the body of an animal.” He gives a dose to a rabbit, which immediately begins to bounce around like a monkey. The scientist’s closest friend, and old and crippled man named Rodney, wants to take the drug himself so he can once more move freely. “The rabbit had been controlled by a monkey’s mind; what happened to the rabbit’s mind? It was only logical to suppose that they had been exchanged and that some monkey in far-off India had been hopping about like a rabbit during the transition.” That hardly sounds logical to me, but what do I know? They go forth with the experiment, proving me wrong, but the results are disastrous.

The Reckoning
The first installment of “The Devil’s Bride” was the most popular story in issue 26 by far, followed by “The Oak Tree” by David H. Keller and “Cliffs That Laughed” by R.A. Lafferty. “The White Dog” by Feodor Sologub and “Flight” by James W. Bennett and Soon Kwen-Ling tied for fourth place, while “The Milk Carts” by Violet A. Methey came in last. Lowndes notes that Lafferty’s story earned a number of “outstanding” votes and well as “dislikes,” which he expected. I would have thought it would get far more dislikes.

“The Rope” by Robert Greth
Colonel von Beck, a German officer stationed in the Libyan desert during World War II, has uncovered a plot to assassinate Rommel. The informer, a beggar, carries with him a length of rope which “seemed to possess a sinister life of its own.” The beggar guards it jealously, stating “The rope’s a devil, Colonel, it attracts like a wanton, and I’m powerless to resist.” The next day the beggar is found dead, having hanged himself with the rope. Von Beck, feeling the same unnatural fascination for the object, takes the rope into his possession, and soon finds himself in a similar predicament as the beggar.

“A Revolt of the Gods” by Ambrose Bierce
(first publication: The Wasp, April 24, 1886)
The first sentence of this three-page story is “My father was a deodorizer of dead dogs, my mother kept the only shop for the sale of cats’-meat in my native city.” So we know right off the bat this one’s going to be silly. There’s not much (cats’-)meat to this story, but it made me laugh as it was supposed to, so I can’t complain.

“The Devil’s Bride” (part three of three) by Seabury Quinn
(first publication: Weird Tales, June and July 1932)
Grigor Bazarov, a high priest of the Satanic cult that abducted Alice Hume, is apprehended and sentenced to death for murder. Jules de Grandin is a witness to the execution. However, shortly thereafter Alice is captured once again—by Bazarov! De Grandin and his men track her to Sierra Leone, where the Yezidees stage a grandiose spectacle, intending to wed Alice to their demonic master. De Grandin and company thwart the cultists easily—too easily, I thought. This was anticlimactic compared to the more exciting confrontation at the end of part two. I wouldn’t call it a disappointment, but I expected something better.

“Not Only in Death They Die” by Robert E. Howard
I’m no poetry connoisseur, so rather than comment I’ll let you read it yourself.

Inquisitions
The review column this time around is much longer than last issue’s. Nightmares and Daydreams, a collection by Nelson Bond released by Arkham House, did not win over Lowndes. “What we have here, for the most part, is very cleverly contrived stories, expertly designed to catch people who have very little imagination.” Lowndes finds Index to the Weird Fiction Magazines by T.G.L. Cockroft and H.P. Lovecraft: A Portrait by W. Paul Cook more worthwhile. Recent issues of fanzines Science Fiction Review (formerly titled Psychotic), Speculation and Locus are briefly covered and recommended.

It Is Written…
In issue 26 a reader wondered why L. Sprague de Camp stated in the introduction to several of the Lancer Conan books that many stories published in Weird Tales were, in his words, “ephemeral trash.” De Camp replies: “I arrived at that opinion about ‘ephemeral trash’ after reading, a few years ago, through a nearly complete file of WTs for the 1928-1940 period… in searching for stories to anthologize. Wright did print a great many stories of a very standardized, predictable type of creepy-crawly, almost any one of which could have been retitled The Thing in my Coffin.” Lowndes agrees, adding, “There’s another title that can fit a discouragingly large number of the stories: Oh Dear God, No! I’m Dead!” Elsewhere, Richard Grose writes in to criticize Clark Ashton Smith’s illustrations, praise his sculptures, and psychoanalyze the other two big writers from Weird Tales.

Readers’ Preference Page
My ballot ranking the stories of the issue from best to worst:

(1) Raymond the Golden
(2) The Devil’s Bride (conclusion)
(3) A Revolt of the Gods
(4) The Nameless Mummy
(4) The Phantom Drug
(4) The Rope

The last three stories on the list were all so-so, none really better than another. No serials next issue, but there will be a novelette (“The Case of the Sinister Shape” by Gordon MacCreagh) and a short novel (“Guatemozin the Visitant” by Arthur J. Burks).

Previous issues reviewed on the DMR Blog:
Magazine of Horror No. 14 (Winter 1966/67)
Magazine of Horror No. 26 (March 1969)
Magazine of Horror No. 27 (May 1969)