The Arkham Sampler, Spring 1948

Arkham Sampler, Spring 1948 This quarterly literary magazine features weird fiction and scholarly commentary on the Lovecraft circle. The lead story, "A Damsel with a Dulcimer" by Malcolm Ferguson, concerns Hilaire MacLeod, a British officer recovering from typhoid fever in India, who experiences persistent dream-visions of a sinister landscape with an upas tree and two pale, otherworldly figures plotting to implant malignant seeds in European minds. The dreams reference Coleridge's unpublished notes on the upas tree, suggesting MacLeod may be glimpsing another reality. After visiting Coleridge's birthplace in Devon, MacLeod experiences an elaborate vision of a marble palace beside a turbulent river, where he encounters a princess and her Abyssinian handmaiden Ina. Discovered by the ruling Khan, he must escape the palace. The issue also includes Clark Ashton Smith poetry and articles on the Cthulhu Mythos, Lovecraft biography, and contemporary weird fiction criticism.