Avon Fantasy Reader 4 - A book cover with an image of a cartoon character

In 1946, while working at Ace Magazines, Donald Wollheim pitched the idea of a fantasy title to rival publisher Avon. This led to the birth of the Fantasy Reader, an anthology originally intended to be published every two months. Although considered a book series by Wollheim and Meyers, it's often treated as a magazine due to its magazine-like format. The success of the first issue secured Wollheim a position at Avon, and he eventually took over as editor. A companion series, the Avon Science Fiction Reader, was launched in 1951 and is treated similarly by historians. Wollheim left Avon in 1952, resulting in a merger with "Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader", edited by Sol Cohen, but only two issues appeared in 1953. Wollheim considered the series to be independent anthologies, eschewing serials and relying on reprints. "Fantasy Reader" covered the 19th century to the 1940s, while "Science Fiction Reader" drew mainly from pulp magazines. Avon aimed to introduce readers to lesser-known authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury. Published under various company names, the Fantasy Reader had 18 issues, the Science Fiction Reader three and the combined series two, all edited by Wollheim. The format was digest-sized, initially perfect-bound and later saddle-stitched, and the price was 35 cents for 128 pages. In 1969, Avon Books published two paperbacks, "The Avon Fantasy Reader", with selections by Wollheim and forewords by George Ernsberger.

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