Robert E. Howard to Weird Tales, Mar 1932

by Robert Ervin Howard

Congratulations on the appearance and excellence of the current Weird Tales. The make-up and all the illustrations are unusually good, and the contents are of remarkably uniform merit. That is what struck me—the high standard of all the stories in the issue. If I were to express a preference for any one of the tales, I believe I should name Derleth's Those Who Seek—though the stories by Smith, Long, Hurst and Jacobi could scarcely be excelled. In the latter's tale especially there are glimpses that show finely handled imagination almost in perfection—just enough revealed, just enough concealed. Smith's sweep of imagination and fantasy is enthralling, but what captivates me most is the subtle, satiric humor that threads its delicate way through so much of his work—a sly humorthat equals the more sublte touches of Rabelais and Petronius. Yes, I consider the current magazine uniformly fine, of an excellance suprizing considering the fact that neither Lovecraft, Quinn, Hamilton, Whitehead, Kline nor Price was represented.