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 Pirate Story Megapack

      The Sea-Story Megapack

      SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

      The Edward Bellamy Megapack

      The First Reginald Bretnor Megapack

      The Fredric Brown Megapack

      The Ray Cummings Megapack

      The Philip K. Dick Megapack

      The Randall Garrett Megapack

      The Second Randall Garrett Megapack

      The Edmond Hamilton Megapack

      The C.J. Henderson Megapack

      The Murray Leinster Megapack

      The Second Murray Leinster Megapack

      The Martian Megapack

      The A. Merritt Megapack*

      The Andre Norton Megapack

      The H. Beam Piper Megapack

      The Pulp Fiction Megapack