* * * * * THE END OF "SCOOPS" Hugo Gernsback recently received the following letter from L. B. Silvester, the founder of "Scoops," the first English all-stf magazine that we've been hearing so much about. "In October of last year, I got at the board of Messrs. C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd., of London, one of our big publishing houses. With your magazine as an example, I strove to convince the powers that be. They finally made a compromise--they would turn out an ambiguous sort of cheap weekly which could assume definite adult or juvenile characteristics upon receipt of those indications which a few months of circulation would give. "A putrid sort of thing suffering under the name of SCOOPS was what resulted. Together, Mr. F. Hadyn Dimock and myself tried to do what was right and what the board wanted at the same time. I wrote a story and some short articles every week; he did the editing. Finally we got the board's consent for this form, but it was too late. The frivolous name condemned it and the fact that in fifteen weeks it had picked up a reputation for blood-and-thunder which it could never have lived down. We asked for more money to re-launch it in the form we had first visualized, but we were refused! The paper had failed. Britain's first and only scientifiction paper had failed within four months of its inception, and this in face of the fact that nowadays science has an interest, to some extent, for everyone, and is to be found on the screen and stage, and in the daily press." * * * * * WITHIN THE CIRCLE by F. Lee Baldwin R. H. Barlow is a very talented youth. He is a pianist, painter, sculptor in clay, landscape gardener and book collector. He has completed a clay bas-relief of Cthulhu and a statuette of Ganesa, the Hindoo Elephant God. One of his favorite bindings for his books is snake skin. He shoots many snakes around his home in Florida and tans the skin. "The Last Hieroglyph" by Clark Ashton Smith, which is scheduled in WT is the last of a series of stories of the fabulous land of Zothique. The first of the series was "The Empire of Necromancers." WT has on hand another story of Zothique--"The Dark Eidolon".... William Crawford, Editor of Marvel Tales, holds for publication "The Coming of the White Worm." It may be issued in a separate booklet. This is the first chapter of The Book of Eibon. Do you remember Loretta Burrough who wrote "Creeping Fingers"? She has a yarn titled "What Waits in Darkness" slated for a future WT. H. P. Lovecraft is touring the South. He is making Savannah, St. Augustine, Charleston, and other places that were founded in the _early_ days of this country, and also visiting R. H. Barlow of De Land, Fla. Clark Ashton Smith wrote and published at 17 a book of poems called "The Star Trader." * * * * *