Weird Tales, Volume 1, Number 3, May, 1923: The Unique Magazine

This is the third issue of Weird Tales, the pulp magazine that essentially invented modern fantasy and supernatural horror. Dated May 1923, it captures the genre in its raw, unpolished, absolutely vital early form. The standout is A.G. Birch's "The Moon Terror," a two-part serial that pits astronomer Dr. Ferdinand Gresham against ancient sorcerers called the Seuen-H'sin while mysterious radio signals and catastrophic earthquakes threaten Earth. Rounding out the issue are tales of haunted houses, jungle beasts, death cells, whispering things, and one very strange plant. Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Victorian ghost story "The Haunted and the Haunters" provides a bridge to earlier gothic traditions. These are stories written without apology, without refinement, with pure narrative adrenaline on cheap paper. Within a few years, this magazine would launch H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Here, you can see the machine being built while it still runs on raw fuel.