The Men from Ariel was published in conjunction with the appearance of Donald A. Wollheim as Guest of Honor at Boskone XIX. This book contains ten Wollheim stories, including his first and last published stories and some pieces that have never previously been printed. Among these are:
"Miss McWhortle's Weird", a cautionary tale about the weird fate that may come to an editor who too freely alters an author's work;
"Colt Cash Cache", one of the many Westerns by Wollheim unknown to most readers of SF;
"Ishkabab" — the British Empire tries a final conquest and finds it has bitten off more than it can chew;
"The Horror out of Lovecraft", a pastiche of the many cliches of weird fantasy.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- The Man from Ariel [his first published work]
- The Lost Poe
- Who's There
- Ishkabab
- The Horror out of Lovecraft
- The Hook
- Still Life
- Colt Cash Cache
- Miss McWhortle's Weird
- The Rules of the Game [his last published work before full-timing editing and publishing]
![[Don Wollheim photo]](images/Wollheim-Don-400.JPG)
Donald A. Wollheim
Don Wollheim has been active in the field of science fiction for nearly half a century. His first story, "The Man from Ariel", was published in the January 1934 edition of Wonder Siories. He attended the first science fiction convention ever held and was on the original committee of the first Worldcon. In the 1940's he became a full-time SF professional, editing the first two published anthologies of science fiction and working first for Avon Books and then for Ace, where he spent two decades as editor while selling quantities of short stories, many, of them under the pseudonym of David Grinnell. In 1974 he founded DAW Books, the first paperback publisher devoted exclusively to SF, where he has published the first novels of Tanith Lee, C. J. Cherryh, and others among the most outstanding writers of the 70's, and several of the series best-loved by SF readers.
The Men from Ariel was published in a limited edition of 1000 copies (numbered 201-1200) in dustjackets and 200 boxed, autographed copies (numbered 1-200) containing the cover painting as a tipped-in plate and with dustjacket furnished.
Printing History
Hardcover state, 5-1/4" x 7-1/4", 116 pp., ISBN: 0-915368-19-6, 800 copies, $7.80 prepublication and at the convention, $13.00 afterwards, February 1982
Boxed state, 5-1/4" x 7-1/4", 116 pp., ISBN 0-915368-81-1, 200 copies boxed, numbered and signed by the author and artist, specially bound with dust jacket, the cover painting is bound in as a frontispiece, $13.80 pre-publication and at the convention, $23.00 afterwards. The boxed state sold out at the convention. out of print!
LC 81-86242