The Eyrie in the First Issue

"The Eyrie" was the letters column in Weird Tales and was there from the first issue. The first installment opens with a kind of fanfare. The author of it called himself merely "The Editor." We can assume that Edwin Baird wrote it. I wouldn't rule out, though, that Otis Adelbert Kline or even Farnsworth Wright lent a hand.

The first letter in the first issue of Weird Tales was by Anthony M. Rud. He wrote before the magazine had gone to press. That makes me think that Rud was involved with the magazine at the outset. At the very least, he acted as a kind of talent scout or agent or maybe just a messenger to other writers, especially writers in the South. In the run-up to the publication of the first issue, Rud was in Alabama. Of his intentions on behalf of the new magazine, he wrote:

     It's a corking title, and it will get all the boosting I can give. Herewith a clipping of my last platform appearance. I told 'em of the coming magazine, and that it offered a field of reading unique. At Atlanta and Montgomery, where I speak later in the winter, I'll give the sheet a hand. I have two more dates in Mobile, and I’ll mention your project.

There was a lot of chummy kind of writing in those days, writing that may not be exactly to our tastes, but at least we have something from the men who were there.

The second letter was from Willard E. Hawkins, who wrote the first story to appear in Weird Tales, "The Dead Man's Tale." In his letter, he explained how he had written his story. The letters column closes with a request for comments by readers. Those would surely follow.

In his introduction to "The Eyrie," the editor wrote:

If the letters we have already received, and are still receiving (weeks before the magazine goes to press), are an augury of success, then WEIRD TALES is on the threshold of a tremendously prosperous career. Some of these letters are accompanied by subscriptions, others request advertising rates and specimen copies; all predict great things for us and express enthusiastic anticipation of "something different" in magazine fiction.

We're now at the end of the first one hundred years of Weird Tales. Although "The Unique Magazine" came close to perishing at the end of its first year, it ran for thirty-one years in its first incarnation, was revived several times in the 1970s and '80s, and has now been revived again. Marvin Kaye called it "The Magazine That Never Dies." Lots of other magazines have in the past 100 years, but Weird Tales lives on.

The first heading of "The Eyrie," March 1923.

Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley