“Nymph of Darkness” (1935) & “Yvala” (1936) by C. L. Moore & Forrest J Ackerman

C. L. Moore (1911-1987) made her debut in Weird Tales with “Shambleau” (1933); and her stories were immediately lauded for their vivid language and distinctive imagination. With her marriage to Henry Kuttner in 1940, Moore would appear to vanish from the scene—she and her husband formed a prolific writing team, with most of their shared output published under his name or one of their joint pseudonyms. Yet during that period when Moore was on her own, she also collaborated on a round robin titled “The Challenge From Beyond” (1935) with A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith; “Quest of the Starstone” (1937) with Henry Kuttner, and two stories with Forrest J Ackerman: “Nymph of Darkness” (1935) and “Yvala” (1936).

Forrest J Ackerman (1916-2008) was the early archfan of science fiction; he became heavily involved in organized science fiction fandom (notably engaging in a brief flame war with Clark Ashton Smith and H. P. Lovecraft in the pages of The Fantasy Fan), a cornerstone of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, and closely involved with science fiction and fantasy filmmaking and reporting in Hollywood—notably as editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958-1983). He also co-created the character of Vampirella and was very briefly editor of a revamped Weird Tales in 1984.

Forry had the advantage over Moore in that he lived longer, and had more opportunities to weigh in on their collaborations in the 1930s. Yet from what has emerged, we can see that it was an interesting—if brief—partnership, which Ackerman continued to capitalized on for decades.

“Nymph of Darkness” (1935)

I’ll send you a drawing I’ve just made for FANTASY MAGAZINE. In collaboration with Forrest J. Ackerman, who’s been writing to me for some time, I’ve written a story for them, and Mrs. Schwartz, who edits the magazine, is going to fix things up so he can publish the illustration for it to. All this gratis, of course, for the WT issue of FANTASY. Mr. Ackerman’s idea was so good I just had to write the story. He seems to be bulging with good ideas, and wants to team up with me for WT, but I won’t be able to. Have so little time to write I have to cash in on every minute of it, and as long as I have ideas of my own can’t afford to use someone else’s and split the profits.

Let’s see now. That’s the JULHI drawing, BRIGHT ILLUSION and NYMPH OF DARKNESS I’ve promised. If I can find them. You can keep them all if you want. All three will be the original trial drawing, so I shan’t have any copy of my own, and I suppose you’ll return them if by any remote chance I need them again. I’m far too lazy to make copies of them, and anyhow will be glad to get rid of the things. They just clutter up my already unspeakably cluttered files (what I need is a nice, neat-minded secretary) and [. . .]

C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 31 Dec 1934 – 11 Feb 1935, MSS. John Hay Library

“Nymph of Darkness” by C. L. Moore and Forrest J Ackerman first appeared in Fantasy Magazine April 1935, the Weird Tales special issue. Fantasy Magazine was a neatly-published semiprozine put together by Julius Schwartz (who would go on to become Lovecraft’s agent, and later an editor of DC comics), the same that would publish “The Challenge from Beyond.” It isn’t clear when exactly Moore and Ackerman came into correspondence, although it was probably 1934, possibly through The Fantasy Fan or another fanzines, possibly through Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales, who sometimes forwarded fan mail to authors.

It was probably Ackerman that had the idea for a collaboration; while he was an avid fan of science fiction and wrote considerable prose, he wasn’t particularly noted as a fiction writer, and he had managed to collaborate with other writers by providing an initial idea and criticism on the work—while the writer did all the writing. Ackerman confirmed this as the general process in a letter:

Thank you for your complimentary remarks about NYMPH OF DARKNESS, which was from my plot. I contrived Nyusa, and her pursuer, and Dolf, et.c, and sent suggestions as Catherine while she was working on the story. After it was all finished and in New York and I had an autographed copy, I thot of the part at the conclusion about Nyusa giving NW a kiss, and C. was so enthusiastic about it and said it gave the story just the proper punch, etc., that she typed an extra page-insert about it and rusht off to FM.

Forrest J Ackerman to Mrs. Burnhill, 7 May 1935

In a 1948 issue of Ackerman’s fanzines Shangri-LA #4, he published “The ‘Nymph’ o’ Maniack,” which reprints some of Ackerman and Moore’s correspondence involved in the process. While labeled as being from 1936, these letters were probably from early 1935:

“Dear Forrie: Happy New Year. And by the way, if you heard a new year’s horn blowing extra loudly just at midnight, your time, and couldn’t locate it—that was me. I blew a special blast for you at about 2:00 a.m. or thereabouts, as nearly as I can remember now—of New Year’s morning just as the radio announced that it was at that moment midnight in Los Angeles. I never quite believe things like that—different times, I mean. Of course, know that you lose a day going round the world, and all that—but somehow can’t quite [268] believe it anyway. I read a story somewhere once in which someone in New York phoned someone in London, and over the wire ‘the late afternoon New York traffic vibrated weirdly in the stillness of the London night.’ It seems impossible, if you see what I mean.

[. . .]

Here is the outline I sent to Catherine when she was living in Indianapolis and working in a bank vault:

THE NYUSA NYMPH—One short and exciting experience in the adventure-filled life of Northwest Smith . . . Of a fleeing figure in the nite that bumped into NW at the Venusian waterfront—an unseen form—that of Nyusa, the girl who was born invisible! Further details: The business of the squat creature who came swiftly slinking thru the street, short on the heels of the figure in NW’s arms, with the strange lite-tube in its hands flashing from side to side (it would have caused Nyusa to become visible, you know—the lite from the tube) . . . and of Nyusa, whose abnormally high body-temperature kept her comfortable free from clothing; so that invisible she remained, as born—And from what she fled, and how NW was of service to her, etc.—I will leave to you.

MOORE to Ackerman: I think I know why the pursuer’s flash made Nyusa visible. Did you ever notice the peculiar colors one’s skin turns under different lights? A violet-ray machine turns lips and nails—as I remember—a sickly green, adn the blue lights they use in photographers shops, sometimes, make you purple. I once figured out why, but can’t remember and haven’t time now to go  into it. Something about complementary colors and mixing yellow and blue, and whatnot. Well, you remember in Bierce’s The Damned Thing his invisible monster was a color outside our range of perception. Coudln’t this flash-light be of some shade which, combined with Nyusa’s peculiar skin-tone, produce a visible color? * And Venus is the Hot Planet anyhow, so no need to increase her body temperate above normal tomake it possible fo there to run about in the altogether. * Smith had met her in the absolute black dark of the starless Venusian night. She came tearing down the street and bumped into him, and, tho considerably astonished to find his arms full of scared and quite unadorned girl, he of course didn’t realize her invisibility then. Afterward came this squat, dark pursuer, flashing his greenish glowing ray to and fro. When he’d gone by she heard another sound—origin yet unknown, to me or anyone else—which [269] so alarmed her that she pulled Smith into a run and guided him at top speed thru [the spellings “thru” & “tho” are Catherine’s] devious byways and into an unlighted room. “Lift me up,” said she, “so I can reach the light.” ANd when it goes on he realizes that he is holding in midair a beautifully muscular, firmly curved armful of nothingness. He had just dropped her onto the floor and staggered back, doubting his sanity. What happens next I don’t know. * If you have any more ideas, they’ll be welcome. This is the stage of a story when I usually sweat blood for several days, racking an absolutely sterile brain for ideas. Thens something takes fire and the whole story just gallops, with me flying along behind trying to keep up with it. Very strenuous. & Think hard and see if you can find any possible reasons, sane or insane, as to what the noise was she had heard, why it alarmed her so, whether she is invisible just by a freak of nature or whether by some mysterious mastermind’s intent. I suspect she is in the power of some insiduous villain, but I don’t know yet. * All thru the preface of the story I’ve made some veiled hint about the nameless horrors which stalk by night along the waterfront of Ednes, that said villain might be almost anything—some horror out of the ages before man, or some super-brain of the far advanced races we know nothing of, or an unhappy medium like the Alendar. (That reminds me—Vaudir is the infinitive of–as I remember my college days—the French verb wish. I presume Nyusa is purely original with you, so you deserve more credit than I, for it’s a grand name.) [“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” said the 18-year-old lad. “There is no truth to the rumor that I made it up from the initials of our major metropolis, N.Y. U.S.A.”]

[…]

MOORE to Ackerman: Thanks for the further suggestions. I had already gone on past my stopping point when I wrote you, so can’t use all your ideas, but have incorporated Dolf and the dancing-girl idea. It seems Nyusa is—sorry—really innately invisible, being the daughter of a Venusian woman and a Darkness which is worshipped by a queer race of slug-like, half-human beings which dwell under the Venusian city of Ednes. (Incidentally, Ednes, the city where in the Minga stood, is simply lifted bodily out of the middle of Wednesday.) Anyhow, Nyusa is forced by the preists to dance in their ritual worship under a peculiar light which renders her visible in a dim, translucent way. And because of her mixed breed she has access into other worlds from which her masters bar her out by their own strange mental powers because she’d never return to dance for them if she once got away. Dolf guards her for the same reason. I think now that Nyusa’s captors drive her too far sometime, and she realizes that after all she is half divine, and calls upon the strain of Darkness within her to burst [270] the bonds they have imposed. Smith, attacked by Dolf as he hides in their temple watching the ritual dance, fights with the worshippers and kills the high priest, whereupon their power over Nyusa is weakened and she exerts her demi-divinity to escape. Thus, tho Smith doesn’t get the fortune you suggested, he at least is spared the expense of buying her any clothes, which was a very practical idea on your part.

ACKERMAN to Moore: I have a suggestion about the ending. Shambleau stunned Smith; to this day he had probably not forgotten “it.” Sweet, was the girl of the Scarlet Dream. While in the Black Thirst, he gazed upon beauty incredible. But Shambleau was to be shunned; and the girl of the Dream . . . Vaudir dissolved. So, let the Nymph—Nyusa—just before she escapes . . . couldn’t she—kiss Smith? A kiss never to be forgotten: a kiss . . . so cool, with a depth drawn out of Darkness. And yet, a kiss of fire—from her Venusian strain—hot, alive, searing Northwest’s lips. A kiss, of delicious semi-divinity . . . a fond caress of frozen flame. Making it, under your care, Catherine, a kiss smothering with extra-mundane emotion, leaving the readers gasping. Smith’s reward, the kiss becomes famous and concludes the story.

MOORE to Ackerman: I do wish I had had your suggestion about the parting kiss before I finished. I wasn’t able to expand the idea as fully as I’d have liked to, both because of the space-saving necessity and because to give it the attention it deserved I’d have had to write the story toward it from the beginning. It was a grand idea and would have given the story just the punch it needed at the end. Oh well, no story of mine is complete unless I leave out some major point until too late. I meant to make Shambleau’s eyes shine in the dark, and to play up the idea of the Guardians in Black Thirst.

Ackerman republished this account in Gosh! Wow (Boy-oh-Boy)! Science Fiction (1982), Echoes of Valor II (1989), and the Ackermanthology! (1997), Expanded Science Fiction Worlds of Forrest J Ackerman and Friends (2002), and quite possibly other places, often accompanied by “The Genesis of an Invisible Venusienne: Afterward to ‘Nymph of Darkness'” (first published in Echoes of Valor II). It is not too much to say that Forry’s version of events has essentially been the only one put forward…but there is a bit more to the story.

The initial reaction to “Nymph of Darkness” in Fantasy Magazine wasn’t entirely positive:

I read “Nymph of Darkness” in Leedle Shoolie’s mag, & wonder how much Price had to to with it. Full of hokum, & inclined to repeat parts of “Black Thirst”, yet not without a touch of the vividness & originality which one may regard as typically Mooresque.

H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 20 Apr 1935, O Fortunate Floridian 252

“Price” is E. Hoffmann Price, a fellow-pulpster, friend, and correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft, C. L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and others. Unlike Lovecraft, who was an auteur, Price in the 1930s dedicated himself to becoming ap professional pulp author who could make a living off of his fiction writing—reasoning that you cannot eat artistic sensibilities. While that commercial mindset served him for a while, it came at the detriment to his fiction; Lovecraft worried about Price’s influence on the young and impressionable Moore, who showed tremendous promise as a writer.

After Lovecraft’s death in 1937, Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright arranged with August Derleth to publish some of Lovecraft’s fiction that had appeared in fan magazines. Due to copyright law at the time, this work was technically in the public domain, but the modest sum would go toward Lovecraft’s surviving aunt. Seeing these stories published gave Ackerman the idea that maybe there was an opportunity to earn a few bucks on his own:

How’s about submitting Nymph of Darkness to Weird Tales? I’ll supply U a copy, if U’r in accord; I suggest the title b changed to Nyusa (like Yvala), I want my name to appear without the period after “j”, & I’d recommend, in order to enhance the value of the original, that U do not include Ur illustration for Nod’s first public appearance. Now . . . as for the check (if any): Accurately as I can recall U were responsible for about 4/5ths the story—so simply a proportionate 20% to me?

Forrest J Ackerman to C. L. Moore, 2 August 1938 (draft letter)

What kind of arrangement Moore and Ackerman came to is not clear, but Wright apparently accepted it by September 1938, and “Nymph of Darkness” was published in slightly expurgated form over a year later in Weird Tales December 1939—one of Wright’s final issues. While there are a few changes in formatting, punctuation, and spelling between the Fantasy Magazine and Weird Tales versions, the most notable difference between the two texts is a handful of changes to remove reference to Nyusa’s nudity:

Fantasy Magazine	Weird Tales
His startled arms closed about a woman—a girl—a young girl, beautifully made, muscular and firmly curved under his startled hands—and quite naked.	His startled arms closed about a woman—a girl—a young girl, beautifully made, muscular and firmly curved under his startled hands.
I did not know you, save that I think you are of Earth, and perhaps—trustworthy.	I did not know you, save that I think you are of Earth, and perhaps trustworthy.
“No. But a Martian, or one of my own countrymen, would not so quickly have released a girl who dashed into his arms by night—as I am.” In the dark Smith grinned. It had been purely reflexive, that release of her when his hand realized her nudity. But he might as well take credit for it.	“No. But a Martian, or one of my own countrymen, would not so quickly have released a girl who dashed into his arms by night.” In the dark Smith grinned.
It was a blasphemy and an outrage against the eyes, against all that man hopes and believes and is. The darkness of the incredible, the utterly alien and opposed.	It was a blasphemy and an outrage against the eyes, against all that man hopes and believes and is; the darkness of the incredible, the utterly alien.

The readers of Weird Tales received this new Northwest Smith story more positively, but possibly Moore sided more with Lovecraft—or simply didn’t care for the collaboration. It is notable that “Nymph of Darkness” was not included in any of the English-language collections of Moore’s Northwest Smith stories during her lifetime, and really only reprinted near the end, in the Denvention II program book, where Moore was scheduled as a guest of honor.

After Moore died in 1987, Ackerman and others published the story (which was in the public domain) more widely; and in most instances the text used was the unexpurgated version from Fantasy Magazine, with afterword and explanatory essay by Forry. In Sci-Fi Womanthology (2002) and Expanded Science Fiction Worlds of Forrest J Ackerman and Friends, Ackerman even managed to finally give it the title he wanted: “Nyusa, Nymph of Darkness.”

As far as the story itself…to say that the idea of a lithe, naked, invisible young woman that falls into the hero’s arms is a very Ackerman conceit would be an understatement. Forry would revisit the idea several times in other stories, most notably in “The Girl Who Wasn’t There” (1953) by Tigrina & Ackerman, and “The Naughty Venusienne” (1956) by Morgan Ives (Marion Zimmer Bradley) and “Spencer Strong” or “Otis Kaye” (Ackerman), depending on the publication. The idea is fairly fannish, forcing a slightly antiheroic sci fi series character into close quarters with a naked young woman.

The prose, however, is all Moore’s, and Moore takes the idea and runs with it. While not as original as many of her other stories from the 30s, “Nyusa” falls firmly into the science-fantasy field, where a rogue of the space ways might well encounter the cult of an obscure god and the hybrid child. While it isn’t quite “Northwest Smith goes to Dunwich,” there are broadly similar ideas that are being repurposed into a space opera concept, and Moore does her best with the bare bones of a plot that Forry provided.

“Yvala” (1936)

Unlike “Nymph of Darkness,” C. L. Moore’s Northwest Smith story “Yvala” was first published in Weird Tales February 1936 issue—and under her own byline, with no mention of Ackerman’s involvement. Unlike “Nymph of Darkness,” “Yvala” made the cut for the 1954 collection Northwest of Earth that collected most of Moore’s other non-collaboration Smith stories, and it was reprinted several times during her lifetime. We get a hint of Ackerman’s involvement in “Yvala” from his 1938 letter to Moore above (“suggest the title b changed to Nyusa (like Yvala)”). After Moore died in 1987, Ackerman wrote:

En passant, it is a virtually forgotten fact—except by Sharane Yvala Dewey, a woman I knew as a little girl, who was so named by her science fiction author father G. Gordon Dewey, who was captivated by the name of A. Merritt’s heroine in The Ship of Ishtar and the Yvala of Catherine Moore’s Northwest Smith adventure of the same name—it is a practically unknown fact that I created the character (pronounced Ee-vah-lah). I hope it’s not unchivalrous to suggest it, with dear Catherine so mentally decimated by Alzheimer’s disease that she has not known me or herself of what she wrote for two years or more (1987), but reflecting on the origin of the story it occurs to me I might retroactively be entitled to a byline on “Yvala” because in retrospect I feel I contributed about as much inspiration and plot gimmick to it as I did to “Nymph.” I will not belabor the point, however, since Catherine’s memory is a blank book and she is in no position to agree or disagree with my observation.

Forrest J Ackerman, “The Genesis of an Invisible Venusienne,” Ackermanthology 267, Echoes of Valor II 90-91

A decade and change later, Ackerman published the story as by “C. L. Moore and Amaryllis Ackerman,” and slightly expanded on this explanation:

Amaryllis? I confess: ’tis I, FJA. Had I been born a girl, that is the name my parents had selected for me. So what is my byline doing on this strange interplanetary story from the pages of Weird Tales in 1936? Because I have just walked up to the realization, 66 years later, that I was as much a collaborator on this story as on “Nyusa, Nymph of Darkness”! I contacted Catherine, under the spell of the Russian screen siren Anna Sten, and outlined the plot and named the character. Some years later when I met a Mr. & Mrs. G. Gordon Dewey, I recognized the name of one of their daughters, Julhi, as being a CLMoore name, but the middle name of Sharane (Merritt’s The Ship of Ishtar heroine) beffled me. “Eve-uh-lah? How do you spell that?” “Y-v-a-l-a.” “Ee-vah-la!” I exclaimed. “Why, I made up that name!” Today Sharane Yvala Dewey is nicknamed Syd and is a grandmother living in the Hawaiian islands. Yvala’s inspiratory, glamorous Anna Sterm (whose first husband was an Esperanto korespondanto of mine in Kiev)—ascended to anglehood several years ago—but not before being on all-fours in my living room playing with out cat Meetzi.

Forrest J Ackerman, Expanded Science Fiction Worlds of Forrest J Ackerman and Friends (2002), 59

No details on the inspiration or writing of “Yvala” have appeared in any of Moore’s surviving correspondence that I have seen, so we really have only Forry’s word on it. Reading the story, it is difficult to pick out Ackerman’s influence, except possibly by the seediness—Smith and Yarol are hired to go to an alien planet to kidnap women into sex slavery. That slavery exists in the Northwest Smith series was firmly established in “Black Thirst,” so that’s not necessarily unusual; but where that was something like an Oriental harem out of the Thousand and One Nights set, this one is closer to a sex trafficking tale of the more unpleasant pulp variety. There is something of “Black Thirst” too in the character of Yvala, a kind of embodiment of the inhuman beauty sought by the Alendar in that tale.

What saves “Yvala” is pure description and characterization; Moore throws herself into the description of Smith, the spaceport, and the strange alien world they land on. The climactic battle of wills echoes similar contests in “Shambleau,” “Werewoman,” and other stories. If it isn’t one of Moore’s better stories of the period, it is only because it is a little too derivative in the nature of the threat and the final conflict, which Northwest Smith once again barely survives.

We do not know why the “collaborations” did not continue, although the date “Yvala” was published might give a clue: February 1936 was when C. L. Moore’s fiance died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and she was depressed and unable to write for some months afterward—and then she came into correspondence with Henry Kuttner.

A Word on Forrest J Ackerman & #MeToo

In 2018 during the #MeToo movement, allegations surfaced of Forrest J Ackerman sexually harassing female fans, at least some of whom were underage. Given some of Ackerman’s proclivities over the decades, including his preference for young and scantily-clad or unclad women, this doesn’t really come as a huge surprise in hindsight. At the time it came as a shock to many that “Uncle Forry,” who had long been a public face for fandom of science fiction and monsters in general, subjected women and girls to unwanted sexual touching and other forms of harassment.

Does this knowledge change how we read “Nymph of Darkness,” “Yvala,” and the whole relationship of collaboration between a young Forrest J Ackerman and C. L. Moore? Is there a certain additional skeeviness to the depiction of Nyusa, whose age is never given, as being naked all the time…or is that a more garden-variety bit of taboo-daring sensuality that Moore was happy to roll with? Given that Ackerman had several more decades to put forth his narrative on these stories, we may never know the full details of their collaboration, whether Ackerman’s account is accurate, or what other interactions they had when they met in person or through continued correspondence.

In The Forrest J Ackerman Oeuvre (2012) by Christopher M. O’Brien, one particular entry caught my eye:

[“C. L. Moore.” Perret, Patti. The Faces of Science Fiction: Intimate Portraits of the Men and Women Who Spahe the Way We Look at the Future. New York: Bluejay Books, 1984.] (Ackerman ghosted this piece for the then-ailing Moore.)

The page in question can be viewed online. I don’t know O’Brien’s source for this claim, though it is believable. Moore suffered terribly from Alzheimer’s in her last few years, with failing memory; Ackerman also has a piece in the book; and Moore’s piece itself seems to be stitched together from bits and pieces of what she had written elsewhere about herself over the years, not really adding anything new. Yet even if written with the best of intentions, it showcases the way in which Forry was still shaping the narrative, and it adds a layer of distrust.

We know so little of Moore’s later life, that we have no idea what her actual relationship with Forry was like after the 1930s. Whether they had a falling-out or drifting-apart, if they remained friends, if he did something inappropriate…we don’t have Moore’s side of the story. Lacking that, and with Ackerman’s own known proclivities to emphasize his part, and even to put words in Moore’s mouth—how much do we really know about these stories and their collaboration at all?

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Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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