H. Warner Munn

Harold Warner Munn (November 5, 1903 – January 10, 1981) was an American writer of fantasy, horror and poetry, best remembered for his early stories in Weird Tales. He was an early friend and associate of authors H. P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn. He has been described by fellow author Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who interviewed him during 1978, as "the ultimate gentleman" and "a gentle, calm, warm, and good friend." He was known for his intricate plotting and the careful research that he did for his stories, a habit he traced back to two mistakes made when he wrote his early story "The City of Spiders".

A resurgence of interest in his work occurred during the 1970s due to its appearance in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series and the successor fantasy series published with the imprint of Del Rey Books.

In addition to writing, Munn collected books and classic pulp magazines, including Air Wonder Stories, Amazing Stories, Astounding and other science fiction titles, along with Argosy, Argosy All Story, Cavalier, Weird Tales (to the end of the Wright publication series), and others. Also in his library were books consisting of serialized stories from magazines, notably works by George Allan England such as "Darkness and Dawn". About three fourths of his collection was ruined by exposure to weather during a relocation and had to be destroyed.

During his last years Munn lived in Tacoma, Washington in a house he had built himself. He did his writing either in his living room or in the attic room that constituted his library. During this time he was working on an additional volume of the Merlin series to be called The Sword of Merlin, which he did not live to finish. He was befriended at this time by the young writer W. H. Pugmire, who was influenced by Munn's work.

Early career Munn began writing in the 1920s. He adopted the name "H. Warner Munn" in imitation of two writers he admired, H. Rider Haggard and H. Bedford-Jones.

The two series of works for which he is known best, his Merlin saga and the Tales of the Werewolf Clan, were both started during the Weird Tales period. King of the World's Edge, the first Merlin novel, was written as early as 1925. On publication (Weird Tales, 1939) it was compared favorably to the stories of Robert E. Howard, of whose fiction Munn confessed to being a great admirer. The novel starts in the last days of King Arthur, and follows the adventures of Myrdhinn (Merlin) and a Roman centurion, who leave Britain for new lands to the West, and find themselves in the kingdom of the Aztecs.

Later career After Weird Tales ceased publishing his work, Munn generally did not seek new outlets. he devoted to his time to family duties for many years and worked in various trades from sawmill operator to ice cream salesman. It was not until he lost a knee cap in one of these jobs that Munn returned to full-time writing around 1965.

With the exception of the 1980 epic historical novel, The Lost Legion, his post-Weird Tales output was minor, most of it either self-published in small press editions or issued haphazardly by publishers who sought him. While he had already completed The Ship from Atlantis, the second installment of the Merlin Saga, in 1941, it was only published 26 years later, when Donald A. Wollheim contracted to publish King of the World's Edge in book form and also accepted the sequel. The Ship from Atlantis follows the further adventures of Gwalchmai, who sets out for Rome but becomes lost in the Sargasso Sea and encounters a survivor from Atlantis. These two novels, later combined under the title Merlin's Godson (omnibus 1976), are a precursor to Munn's magnum opus, Merlin's Ring (1974).