The January 1925 issue of Weird Tales includes eight letters to the editor, these published in "The Eyrie." We should realize that a "letter" in Weird Tales wasn't necessarily a whole letter. Few writers had the privilege of having a whole letter printed in "The Eyrie." Far more often, a "letter" was an excerpt, sometimes long, more often short, but almost certainly not the whole thing.
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database lists seven writers of letters in that January issue of one hundred years ago. The missing name is that of Bessie Douglas of Portland, Maine. There is an extremely spare passage from her letter in "The Eyrie" of one hundred years ago. It's embedded in a paragraph regarding the type of story Weird Tales should publish:
Up to date, those who want horror stories have distinctly the advantage, but many of them qualify their demand for thrillers by saying that the horror stories must not be disgusting. Some of our readers want the magazine to drip with gore ("the scarier they are, the better I like them," writes Bessie Douglas, of Portland, Maine); but these are in a small minority. As near as the editor can make out from the expression of opinion so far received, the readers of Weird Tales don't want anything nauseating, and yet they do want to read eery, thrilling and bizarre tales of the Edgar Allan Poe type--tales such as they cannot get in any other magazine. But the question is still open. Weird Tales belongs to you, the readers, and your opinions will be eagerly welcomed. [Boldface added.]
Women can be hard to find in public records and old newspapers, but I found a Miss Bessie Douglas of Portland, Maine, a seamstress and possibly a singer or musician. We might not know her identity, but we can at least add Bessie Douglas' name to the list of people who wrote to "The Eyrie."
By the way, did you notice what Farnsworth Wright wrote?
"Weird Tales belongs to you, the readers [. . .] ."
I wish that were still true.
Original text copyright 2025 Terence E. Hanley
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