Dorothy McIlwraith
Under the editorship of McIlwraith, beginning in April 1940, Weird's later years were distinguished by an influx of newer writers, including such major figures as Ray Bradbury, Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Theodore Sturgeon, Joseph Payne Brennan, Jack Snow and Margaret St. Clair, a somewhat more eclectic range. McIlwraith was instructed by Delaney not to publish fiction which he considered "disgusting" or "more esoteric", which meant the magazine no longer published "sword and sorcery" stories as it did during Wright's tenure. Occasionally the magazine would publish Lovecraftian pastiches presented as pieces of "lost" Lovecraft completed by his self-appointed literary executor August Derleth, who also wrote fiction for the magazine under his own name.
Like most pulp magazines, Weird Tales suffered from the newsprint shortage during World War II, and after the War from increasing competition from comic books, radio drama, television and paperback books. Commercially, the magazine declined until it ceased publication in September 1954, after 279 issues.
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