The "Not at Night" Centenary

In October 1925, the first of a new series of weird stories appeared in the form of a volume edited by Christine Campbell Thomson entitled Not at Night (London: Selwyn & Blount). It contained fifteen stories, mostly by authors unknown then and unknown today (the exceptions being Frank Belknap Long and Greye La Spina). All of the stories were originally printed in Weird Tales magazine in the U.S., in issues dating from November 1924 through September 1925. 

Not at Night was unusually successful, and it had six printings in its first year, and more subsequently.  Also, it inspired a further ten volumes in the series (not just from Weird Tales, but using many sources), and a final "Not at Night" Omnibus in 1937, which presented the editor's selection from previous volumes. The omnibus also included a short introduction (dated February 1936) by Thomson in which she described the origin of the first volume.

The idea had been conceived on the top of a bus (they were open-decked buses in those days) just as it pulled away from its Oxford Circus stop about six o'clock one evening, I was on that bus with the Director of Selwyn & Blount, Ltd. He was, I remember, lamenting, like every other publisher, that he wanted something new and couldn't find it . . . and something popular. I believe that he claims the bright moment when Not at Night took birth, but I think it was a case of two minds on the same thought at the same moment--at any rate, I know that I am responsible for the title of the Series!

The price of the projected book was a matter of fierce argument. Finally we agreed upon two shillings in the belief that Not at Night would be the kind of book that a man would buy at a railway-bookstall, throwing down a single coin and running for his train. We wanted, above all, to produce books that would be within the reach of a very large number of people . . . 

The jacket for the first volume (and for many of the later ones), was designed by that clever advertising agent, Betty Prentis, who was then working as a freelance artist under her trade name of Eliza Pyke. It was "Eliza", with her sense of dramatic colour, who contributed not a little towards a "brighter bookstalls" movement!

Publication-day dawned and we held our hands in trepidation. Were we backing a wrong horse? Within a week we knew that we were on the right one. Not at Night was launched and we daringly planned a second and a third to follow in the ensuing years. For originally this was a one-book scheme. The popularity of the Series never waned, and it became a matter of price to make each subsequent volume equal the quality of the previous one; for--in our modest opinion--it was impossible to surpass it! 

And thus the first multi-volumed series of weird stories came about. It even sparked a short revival of three Not at Night volumes in paperback in the early 1960s.