Edwin Baird (1886 - Sep 27, 1954) was the first editor of Weird Tales. He put out the first issue, dated Mar 1923, and ran the magazine through the Apr 1924 issue, when the publisher J. C. Henneberger fired him for losing over $50,000 during his editorship, and instead put him on Detective Tales, a position in which he remained when that magazine was later sold off.
Baird may have been a bad businessman, but he was a pioneering editor who published and encouraged writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Seabury Quinn, establishing not only the magazine but the whole weird fiction genre.
He also wrote weird fiction in his own right.
His own stories include:
Brilliant chemist Anton Slezak has had a happy career and life. By 52, he has made important discoveries, become famous and wealthy from them, and married the beauteous young blonde Zora. Now he's working on a truly amazing project — a solution that can be painted on objects to make them invisible!
If only Zora would get along better with his nephew Robin, who is about her age.
And then he finds out that she does.
Tropes that will be dreamt of one last time include:
- A Family Affair: Robin is Zora's nephew-in-law.
- Art Major Physics: Metamaterial invisiblity (which is what the form used in this story is now called) doesn't work the way it's described in-story. Specifically, invisibility works by diverting light, not by painting something a color invisible to the human eye. (That would merely make the paint invisible, not the object on which it was painted!).
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: Though they don't get to complete the act (that time, anyway), Anton witnesses Zora and Robin making out, while overhearing their conversation. He sees and hears enough to know they're having a serious affair.
- Clandestine Chemist: Of the non-drug variety. Anton uses his invisibility paint to spy on and murder his unfaithful wife and disloyal nephew. Though this was probably not his original intention.
- Dark Secret: Zora and Robin are having an affair.
- For Science!: Anton believes that his invisibility paint has no practical value; he developed it simply because he thought it was an interesting problem to solve. (In reality, invisibility paint would have numerous military, intelligence and police applications — and could of course be mis-used to commit crimes, as Anton demonstrates!)
- Love Triangle: Dramatic and ultimately tragic. Type 12, with Anton and Zora married but Zora sexually- (and perhaps emotionally) dissatisfied with Anton. Zora seeks sex (and maybe love) from Anton's nephew Robin, who in turn is madly in love with her. Anton and Robin are close kin and normally affectionate toward one another. Anton is pushed by discovery of the infidelity to Murder-Suicide. Thus in the end all betray the others, and all die for it.
- Mal Mariée: An obvious factor inciting Zora's adultery is that Anton is 52, while Zora and Robin both seem to be in their early twenties. The story emphasizes this with their character descriptions, emphasizing Zora and Robin's youth and vitality.
- Murder-Suicide: At the story's climax, Anton shoots first Robin, then Zora — then — after he makes certain they are dead — himself. His seemingly-perfect life has been ruined beyond repair, and he doesn't have the heart to face the inevitable consequences.
- Rich Genius: Anton has profited greatly from his discoveries:Narrator: No poor dreamer was Anton. His dreams had brought him great riches. For he had turned his genius to practical matters, and, working miracles in his laboratory, had discovered ways of converting waste into things of commercial value — cornstalks into cloth, weeds into paper, coal soot into lacquer - and from these and other such discoveries, Anton had derived much wealth.
- Science Is Good: Despite the tragic outcome of the tale, and the role that Anton's invisibility paint plays in facilitating his murder of Zora and Robin, science itself, and Anton's discoveries therein, are portrayed as an unalloyed blessing for humanity. The sins and crimes committed by all three main characters stem from their personal weaknesses, rather than being inherent in Anton's discoveries.
