I am looking for a particular story that was published in a vintage,
British, science-fiction magazine. The story is called "The man who
lived backwards" by C. F. Hall. I have been able to track down that it
was published in the summer 1938 issue of a magazine called "Tales of
Wonder". A suitable answer would either tell me where I might purchase
a copy of this magazine, or obtain a copy of the story itself through
other means. I have been
watching eBay for some time with no luck, and have also posted the
question on the rec.arts.sf.marketplace newsgroup, but so far nothing
has turned up.

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Clarification of Question by bigbiangboy99-ga on 24 Dec 2002 17:31 PST

I do know that there are other stories by different authors with the
same title. The link that luciaphile gave with the author's full name
is exactly the one I'm looking for (a possible inspiration for C.S.
Lewis' "The Great Divorce").

I do not know the volume #, only that it is the Summer 1938 issue.

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Request for Question Clarification by luciaphile-ga on 24 Dec 2002 20:24 PST

It appears that you need volume #3 for 1938.

http://www.pulpgen.com/pulp/biglist/mags/worlds_work.html#talesofwonder

I haven't been able to locate a copy for sale. I did, however, find
this:

Virginia Tech has a "Speculative Fiction Project" that has pulps
online and offers "Tales of Wonder are available to credentialed
scholars." There is a link to the project. They might be able to help
you there even if you're not a credentialed scholar.

From what I am finding out there, it very much looks like this is a
rare volume indeed. Given the names of the authors' who seem to have
contributed to the magazine (including Lord Dunsany), I'm not
surprised it appears to be in such demand.

http://thepulp.net/pulpsources.html

I'll keep looking as will the other researchers. 

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

The author's name appears to be Charles F. Hall. 

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824/sf-written.htm

Are you positive about the author? Although it is obvious there are
multiple authors with similarly titled stories I have found two books
that contain short stories with the same title you are looking for.
One was published in 1936 and the other was published in 1929. They
would be very easy to obtain. You might even get them for free.

Do you know the volume number of the magazine? Volumes 1, 3, 7, & 8
are easily obtained.

On the site http://66.108.177.107/SF/sflastmod.shtml is the following:
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from Paul Nahin's 1999 "Time Machines",
quoting Charles Hall's 1938 story "The Man Who Lived Backwards".

At another page on the same site (
http://66.108.177.107/SF/how_to_cite.html ) is an email contact for
Mike Christie that is mikec@athensgroup.com.  His address is provided
for sending in a citation and it is possible he could put you in touch
with Fred Galvin.  By contacting Mr. Galvin, you may be able to obtain
a copy of the story.

Good luck in your quest!


SEARCH PHRASE:

"the man who lived backwards" "charles hall"

P.S.  I did not locate a contact for Paul J. Nahin, the author of
"Time Machines" but the book was published by Springer-Verlag and
their contact page is located at http://www.springer.de/contact.html 
You may also be able to contact the author through the publisher to
obtain a copy of the story since Nahin referenced it in the book.