A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950

About this issue

This October 1950 issue of A. Merritt's Fantasy (Volume 2, Number 1) contains three fantasy stories. George Allan England's "The Elixir of Hate" depicts Dr. Dennison caught in "tenuous claws of creeping death" seeking escape from unparalleled human cruelty. Jack Williamson's "Racketeers in the Sky" features Dr. Bull, a portly patent-medicine quack whose cosmic swindle earns him a reckoning with death. Elinore Cowan Stone's "The Devil-Fish" follows Salisbury's struggle within a world of medico-scientific advancement against "civilized savagery." The editorial includes biographical sketches of England (1880–1936), a Harvard graduate and prolific fantasy writer, and Williamson (born 1908), raised in Mexico, a psychology student and wartime weather forecaster now writing science fiction. The issue announces the next installment will serialize A. Merritt's "The Snake Mother" sequel and include a Max Brand story.