INTRODUCTION, by Shawn Garrett

Welcome to The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction MEGAPACK®! Wildside Press, in association with Mr. Price’s heirs, are dedicated to making the extensive body of work of this pulpsmith extraordinaire accessible once again to the public through our line of MEGAPACK® collections.

Edgar Hoffmann Price (July 3, 1898 – June 18, 1988) was born in Fowler, California. A graduate of West Point, he served in World War (followed by military duty in Mexico and the Philippines) and was a champion fencer and boxer—fellow pulp author Jack Williamson referred to him as “a real-life soldier of fortune.” Hoffmann was also something of a polymath—a Republican and a Buddhist, he was also an amateur Orientalist, and a student of the Arabic language.

Price’s first fiction sale was in 1924 to Droll Stories magazine and over the years he befriended, corresponded with, and personally met many authors of the pulp era including Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote hundreds of stories for many pulp magazines (including Weird Tales) in varied genres like horror, detective, adventure, fantasy and science fiction. Wildside Press is proud to make his work available to readers again. Due to the inaccessibility of much of Price’s work (he kept no manuscript archive and so we must resort to those original publication copies we can track down) we have decided to package the material into themed MEGAPACK®s, highlighting specific genres he worked in. Later volumes will be released as we gather further material (any collectors interested in aiding our endeavors by supplying photocopies from their collections are urged to contact Wildside at our website: http://wildsidepress.com/).

The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction MEGAPACK® contains fantasy tales (grouped at the beginning) and science fiction stories (at the end) covering a range of publication dates between 1927 to 1952 (excepting two later Chinese fantasy stories from 1971 and 1980, respectively). Many of Hoffman’s fantasy tales presented here are set in the Far East or Middle East, while most of his science-fiction would be better termed science-fantasy. Of specific note, we have included here “The Infidel’s Daughter”, an examples of a specific sub-set of stories Price composed involving the character Ismeddin—if you find it interesting, more can be found in the collection E. Hoffmann Price’s Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®.

We hope you enjoy these imaginative tales of far-off lands and times. Here is a list of other collections of Price’s work in the series (some already available, others out shortly):

E. Hoffmann Price’s Two-Fisted Detective MEGAPACK®

E. Hoffmann Price’s War And Western Action MEGAPACK®

E. Hoffmann Price’s Exotic Adventures MEGAPACK®

The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: E. Hoffmann Price

E. Hoffmann Price’s Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

E. Hoffmann Price’s Pierre d’Artois: Occult Detective & Associates MEGAPACK®

The E. Hoffmann Price Spicy-Adventure MEGAPACK®