Anton's Last Dream by Edwin Baird

A brief tale of the dismal success of a scientist's experiment. Anton's Last Dream by Edwin Baird. That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

Another podcast, another debut—this time for author Edwin Baird. Best known as the first editor of Weird Tales magazine, Baird helped launch the iconic American fantasy and horror pulp, whose first issue was dated March 1923 and hit newsstands on February 18 of that year.

However, Weird Tales got off to a rocky start. Plagued by financial difficulties, the magazine struggled, and Baird was dismissed after just one year at the helm. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886, Baird published four short stories during his lifetime—three before Weird Tales and one in the very magazine that let him go.

Yet perhaps his most enduring legacy lies in his editorial decisions. As the magazine’s founding editor, Baird was among the first to publish the work of a now-legendary author: H.P. Lovecraft. And if you’ve heard our earlier episodes, you’ll recall that Lovecraft was a tireless letter writer. Thankfully many of his letters were preserved, including this one to Baird.

Shortly after the first issue of Weird Tales was published Lovecraft let himself be persuaded to send Edwin Baird five manuscripts. This is a portion of the letter Lovecraft sent, “My Dear Sir: Having a habit of writing weird, macabre, and fantastic stories for my own amusement, I have lately been simultaneously hounded by nearly a dozen well-meaning friends into deciding to submit a few of these Gothic horrors to your newly-founded periodical. The decision is herewith carried out. Enclosed are five tales written between 1917 and 1923.

I have no idea that these things will be found suitable, for I pay no attention to the demands of commercial writing. My object is such pleasure as I can obtain from the creation of certain bizarre pictures, situations, or atmospheric effects; and the only reader I hold in mind is myself.

My models are invariably the older writers, especially Poe, who has been my favorite literary figure since early childhood. Should any miracle impel you to consider the publication of my tales, I have but one condition to offer; and that is that no excisions be made. If the tale can not be printed as written, down to the very last semicolon and comma, it must gracefully accept rejection.”

So there you have it, a little piece of science fiction history thanks to Weird Tales editor Edwin Baird.

Published in Weird Tales Magazine in May 1937 on page 607, Anton's Last Dream by Edwin Baird…

Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, A Certain Young Man Finds Dying a Profitable Business. The secret of one of the strangest professions in the world. An Adventure of a Professional Corpse - The Artificial Honeymoon by H. Bedford–Jones.

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