L. Sprague de Camp gave J. R. R. Tolkien a copy of his paperback anthology
Swords and Sorcery. The contents of the book, and the book itself, may be read online here:
[
archive.org]
Eventually, Tolkien's copy was offered for sale with the notes Tolkien wrote about the stories. An attempted transcription was made:
Jirel of Joiry. Does create an atmosphere
and [?the] sinister 'corrupt' household of Alaric was
eerie and credible. But I never [sic] find phantasmal
struggles such as that of Jirel with 'Undead' Andred
quite unconvincing — especially when the victims escape!
Dunsany at his worst. Trying so hard for
the shudder. But not for a moment making the
tale 'credible' enough to {pro} make a background for
a strong [?e...]. And the ending lamentable — in
fact [?insulting]. In a world in which a Thangobrind
could even begin to be (let alone Hlo-hlo or [?all the rest])
early 19th century Riviera [?...] is surely utterly
impossible — or vice versa. And what is meant
by selling his daughter's soul.
Cappen Varra. Nomenclature v[ery] bad
Let us have genuine Scandinavian/Norse "bar-
barians" or something invented.
The Athammaus monster wholly unbelievable
[?…] disgusting [?... ... …]. There are lots
of ways of being [?... as] nastily, without all this
[?tooraloo] of nonsense.
Most of these things are overheated & exaggerated
([?...] bigger or [?would be] bigger, [?'...'] is
[?...] than the {ends} purposes warrant)
Also obviously over or ill-written.
Jirel of Joiry 140 - 146 is good but
needs a [?deft] story (and [?explication]) to [?...]
[?valid]. Dunsany's is one of his worst
That final ghastly paragraph!
[Here end the Tolkien comments.]
It will be seen that no comments on Howard's Conan story "Shadows in the Moonlight" appear. However, de Camp evidently said that Tolkien liked it. Lin Carter misrepresented Tolkien's opinion by starting that Tolkien had read the Conan stories and rather liked them, but in fact de Camp is on record as saying he doubts Tolkien had read any of them except the one reprinted in this book.
So far as I know there's no proof that Tolkien read the stories by Kuttner, Leiber, and Lovecraft, but I suppose he did.
Anyway, the incomplete notes are, so far as I know, our best evidence for Tolkien's having read Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith, as well as several other authors of American pulp fantasy. His notes indicate that he'd read more than one of Dunsany's stories. I see Dunsany as almost the opposite of Tolkien, as a fantasist: Dunsany emphasizes the unreality of his stories where Tolkien referred to the "secondary belief" that readers experience thanks to the Elvish art of (the best) fantasy. Dunsany's names -- which used to be lauded -- sound made up, as they are; improvised for the sake of a story with only enough substance to hang together till the conclusion (if then). I used to regard Dunsany as one of my favorite authors, but now I find it takes too much effort to complete the reading of much of his short fiction, so inconsequential.
But I'm going off on my own opinions. I thought it would interest some people here to see Tolkien's remarks, though they are so brief and underdeveloped.