Yesterday I completely rewrote ye just-publish’d story, “The Quickening of Ursula Sphinx,” as I am nigh unhappy with the version that has been publish’d in STRANGE VERSUS LOVECRAFT and wanted to improve the story and then use it in the book I am writing with David Barker.
—W. H. Pugmire’s Blog, 12 July 2013
Whoever compiles the full and complete bibliography of W. H. Pugmire will have their work cut out for them. Not only because much of Pugmire’s work is distributed in scarce fanzines and limited editions, but because Wilum had a penchant for re-writing that went beyond cleaning up a bit of purple prose or updating references that had aged unpleasantly. When Pugmire re-wrote a story, he could completely transform it in only a few sentences—and did.
“The Quickening of Ursula Sphinx” was published twice; the first time in the now-scarce Strange versus Lovecraft (2013) bizarro anthology, and then re-written for inclusion in the also-scarce In the Gulfs of Dream and Other Lovecraftian Tales (2015), written with David Barker. Finding either will be a hunt; but to truly appreciate how Pugmire could rework a story would require access to both.
The context of the publishing makes an interesting contrast. Strange versus Lovecraft is a collection of Lovecraftian bizarro fiction, and Pugmire is in the odd position of having not just the first story in the anthology, but the most straitlaced one—or perhaps more accurately, in a gathering of grindcore, anti-folk, and crust punks, Pugmire is the OG horror punk who sets the bar against which everything else is measured. Meanwhile in In the Gulfs of Dream, “The Quickening of Ursula Sphinx” is buried deep in the two-author collection, not an afterthought but also not a standout. Among a collection of other less experimental and irreverent Lovecraftian tales, the story finds its place more in relation to the shared characters and ideas of Pugmire and Barker’s other works.
The story by itself is a slight one, only about six pages long, and centers about one of Pugmire’s characters, Ephraim Kant, who has unearthed the thought-lost “talkie” film of silent film actress Ursula Sphinx—who has arrived at the viewing party. The atmosphere and mood opens with the Lovecraftian equivalent of The House on Haunted Hill (1959), just a smorgasbord of Lovecraftian and horror images, tropes, and in-jokes, all in a good-natured fun but marked by Pugmire’s love for the outré and decadent, the sensual and the surreal.
The first changes in the story are minor, mere tweaks on the language:
| “Have you not read Ephraim’s second novel, In the Valley of Shoggoth? He mentions these Outer Ones there, in the third chapter, wherein his narrator discusses the queer influence of mortal blood upon cosmic daemons of an alternative dimension?” | “Have you not read Ephraim’s second novel, In the Vale of Shoggoth? He mentions these Outer Ones there, in the third chapter, wherein his narrator discusses the queer influence of mortal blood upon cosmic daemons of alien dimension.” |
| Strange versus Lovecraft 8 | In the Gulfs of Dream 217 |
Later, the changes become more pronounced and impactful. The language refined, the ideas more clearly expressed—the equivalent of another draft.
| I waved my hand to the others who milled about the room. “Have we all done time for lunacy? Are any of your evening guests slaves to sanity?” “My dear, what a wicked imagination you have. Ah—but here is our Living Legend.” | Waving my hand to the others in the room, I continued. “We’ve all done time for lunacy, yes? We are none of us slaves to dull sanity.” “He licked his lips. “I promised you that tonight would be a mad affair.” The babble in the room suddenly ceased, and when our host looked up an element of rare wonder entered into his eyes. “Here is our Living Legend,” he whispered. |
| Strange versus Lovecraft 10 | In the Gulfs of Dream 219 |
The climax of the story though, is where the story fundamentally pivots. Pugmire plays another variation of the magic of the silver screen, like “Pickman’s Other Model (1929)” (2008) by Caitlín R. Kiernan. There is the promise of something captured in the film as it begins to play. In another writer’s hands, this could have been drawn out into a full-blown novella, a legend of what happened that night, a la Fury of the Demon. Pugmire, though, doesn’t look away. Let’s the reader see what happens.
| Ephraim took hold of my arm and guided me out of my chair, out of the row in which I had sat, toward the flickering image on the pale wall. I watched the image of the youthful Ursula Sphinx, that semi-human priestess, open her mouth, and I thought that she would buzz again; but instead, she sucked at aether, and the blurred bloody blotch fell, so as to encase her. I saw that cosmic essence sink into the texture of the young woman’s flesh, into her ears and nose and mouth. She stepped out of the screen, toward us. She stopped just before me, her fantastic eyes shimmering, and with the sweetest buzzing tone, she spoke my name with a mouth that wore one little stain of gore. Tilting to her, I kissed the blood from off her mouth. | I sensed our host beside me and allowed him to help me to my feet. I liked the way his buzzing voice poured laughter into my ear as the young woman floated toward us. Ursula Sphinx stopped just before me, her fantastic eyes on fire, as in the sweetest droning purr she spoke my name, with that mouth that wore one little stain of my bloodshed. Tilting to her, I kissed my crimson liquid from her lips. |
| Strange versus Lovecraft 14 | In the Gulfs of Dream 222-223 |
The bloody mouth is a recurring image in Pugmire’s fiction, one he liked to return to, at once carnal and horrific. It’s easy to see why Pugmire cut down this paragraph a bit, as it is more effective to move Ursula Sphinx’s quickening to a little earlier—yet the key points, the big change between the two versions of the story is that in the second one, the strange actress tastes the blood of the protagonist. And so, the narrator becomes a part of the proceedings, not just a witness but a celebrant in the climax of the rite, partially captured on film.
For those most interested in the Mythos as setting and stories as sources of lore, this little piece would probably be classed as a minor work. Compared to many of Pugmire’s stories, it is; but it is a little gem of its kind. A look at how and why an author could revise a story, the way a few words’ difference can change the meaning so completely, while retaining the core of both texts.
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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Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein 