Avon Fantasy Reader No. 12

About this issue

This anthology collects fantasy and weird fiction by established pulp writers, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. The featured story is Robert E. Howard's "The Blonde Goddess of Bal-Sagoth," a sword-and-sorcery tale set in pre-Roman times. The Celt Turlogh O'Brien, an outlaw aboard a French vessel, is captured after a violent storm throws his ship into conflict with Viking raiders led by the Saxon Athelstane. Both men survive shipwreck on an uncharted island. Additional contents include Clark Ashton Smith's "The Chain of Aforgomon" (lovers defying cosmic powers), Sax Rohmer's "In the Valley of the Sorceress" (an explorer violating an Egyptian tomb), Manly Wade Wellman's "The Kelpie," Miles J. Breuer's "The Captured Cross-Section," Lord Dunsany's "The Wonderful Window," Bassett Morgan's "Tiger Dust" (jungle intrigue), M.R. James's "An Episode of Cathedral History," and Walter Kubilius's "The Day Has Come."