Burn, Witch, Burn!

His fiction, eight complete novels and a number of short stories, 4] was only a sideline to his journalism career. One of the best-paid journalists of his era, Merritt made $25,000 per year by 1919, and at the end of his life was earning $100,000 yearly-exceptional sums for the period. His financial success allowed him to pursue world travel-he invested in real estate in Jamaica and Ecuador-and exotic hobbies, like cultivating orchids and plants linked to witchcraft and magic (monkshood, wolfbane, blue datura, peyote, and cannabis