Comic books arose during the peak of the pulp magazine era, and commonly shared writers, artists, and sometimes publishers. Given the crossover in creative talents, it is no surprise that several ideas and sometimes entire stories were lifted from the pages of Weird Tales and other pulps to appear in the pre-Code horror comics. Many of these stories were produced basically anonymously, with little or no credit given to the writers or artists involved, which makes it more difficult to determine who did what, or whether a particular idea was borrowed, stolen, or just carried over by a creator from one project to another.
This is the case for “The Obi Makes Jumbee,” an 8-page story that first appeared in Spook Comics, a one-shot horror comic from Baily. Though not dated, the issue is thought to be published in 1945 or 1946 (in one panel, a character reads a newspaper with the date December 1945). No writer is credited. The Grand Comics Database says the art is credited to Robert Baldwin (I can’t find a signature on any of the pages, so I’m not sure where that came from), but also claims the art was actually done by Munson Paddock. Based solely on the art style, I lean toward Paddock. Since Paddock is only known to have worked with Baily in 1945, that would support that date.
The one thing we can say about the script is that it probably came from a Weird Tales fan.
Spook Comics, p27
The U.S. invasion and occupation of Cuba (1906-1909, 1917), Haiti (1915-1934) and the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), and the purchase of the Danish Virgin Islands in 1917, brought more and more of the Caribbean into their sphere of influence. So too, more U.S. citizens gained contact with the island cultures, which differed radically from the hard racial limits of Jim Crow. More tantalizing to many would-be anthropologists or tourists were the syncretic African diaspora religions on these tropic isles—remnants of African indigenous religions, often hybridized and combined with elements of Roman Catholicism.
In the 1930s, zombies and Haitian Vodou were popularized in the United States through William Seabrook’s The Magic Island (1929), and works that were inspired by it like the film White Zombie (1931). Seabrook wasn’t the first to write about Vodou or Vodoun; novels like The Goat Without Horns (1925) by Beale Davis, but it was Seabrook who captured the imagination of a generation of writers, whose zombie stories trickled into first pulps and then comic books. H. P. Lovecraft read Seabrook, as did Seabury Quinn, August Derleth, and many others. While far from the only source of data on African diaspora religions—Zora Neale Hurston would write Tell My Horse (1938) and other works, to name one—Seabrook was the most sensational and popular, and his version of Haitian Vodou made a lasting impression on “voodoo” as it appeared in pulps, comics, and film.
“Jumbee” however, is something a bit different. As a category of supernatural being, jumbee is most often associated with the folklore and African diaspora religion (“Obi”) of the Virgin Islands, and Jumbee tales were told by a substantially smaller group of authors—especially Henry St. Clair Whitehead, H. P. Lovecraft’s friend, correspondent, and fellow Weird Tales writer. Although Whitehead died in 1932, in 1944 Arkham House published his first collection of supernatural fiction: Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales. A follow-up collection, West India Lights (1946) includes Whitehead’s non-fiction article “Obi in the Caribbean.” Given how scarce Jumbee stories are in comics (“The Obi Makes Jumbee” is the only comic story with that word in the title on the Grand Comics Database), it seems likely the author of that comic script had to have read Whitehead.
They knew enough to differentiate Jumbee from zombies, Obi from Vodou. Yet they make what seems to be an odd mistake or artistic license. “The goat without horns” is a term used for human sacrifice in some works that discuss Haitian vodou. Seabrook didn’t originate the term, though he helped popularize it, and in his book he quotes from the March 1917 Museum Journal of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia:
In Hayti the basis of Voodooism is the frank worship of a sacred green snake that must be propitiated to keep off the evil spirits. The meetings of the cult are held at night about bonfires in secret places in the forests. The presiding official is an old man “papaloi,” or woman “mamaloi” who has gained renown as a Voodoo sorcerer. After assembling, all present take an oath of secrecy and then the priest exhorts them to remember the sacred green snake, and to hate the whites. Prayer is offered to the divine serpent that is supposed to be present in a box placed near the fire. Then follows the sacrifice of a cock which the “papaloi” kills by biting off its head. With a great deal of drumming and incantation the blood is smeared over the faces of the worshipers and drunk by the officiating priest. A goat may be sacrificed with similar ceremony. After the goat there might be a human sacrifice, as was reported by a French priest. He said that it was the wish of some of the devotees that “a goat without horns,” that is a child, be sacrificed. This was done and the flesh, raw or partly cooked, was eaten by the members of the cult.
Readers familiar with blood libel will recognize the familiar tropes at work; similar accusations were made against witchcraft and against many non-Christian religions. For a horror comic dealing with Hollywood-style voodoo in the 1940s, a human sacrifice wouldn’t be unusual—but the odd thing is that the writer doesn’t use “the goat without horns.” Instead, the mamaloi dancer Caresse invokes “The Goat with a Thousand Horns.”
There’s no such figure in Seabrook’s book, or any other text or story on Vodou (and, in context, it is being used as another appellation for Damballah). But it is awfully close to the epithet of “the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young” associated with Shub-Niggurath in H. P. Lovecraft stories like “The Whisperer in Darkness” and “The Dreams in the Witch-House.” Is that a sub rosa reference to Lovecraft? Maybe. Certainly, it’s not the only oddity in the tale.
For example, the rival club is called the Belfry, and is owned by Batso…Batso’s Belfry… “Bat’s Belfry” (1926) by August Derleth. Coincidence? Or an Easter egg for Weird Tales readers?
Spook Comics, p28
The basic idea of the narrative seems to borrow very heavily from the beginning of Manly Wade Wellman’s “The Third Cry to Legba” (Weird Tales Nov 1943), where a new voodoo-themed club has a dancer (Illyria) that provides authentic Haitian dances for the clientele. In Wellman’s story, this is a plot by the evil magician Rowley Thorne to start a new cult, and he is thwarted by occult detective John Thunstone.
Interestingly, Wellman was inspired by real life, as he mentioned in ‘The Eyrie‘:
It is a fact that something appeared recently in New York newspapers that might be the public version of THE THIRD CRY TO LEGBA. Some may remember an account of how a certain singer chanted black magic songs and attracted big audiences, including at least one attentive being that she must have wished would stay away. We can’t check on that now, for the singer is untimely dead.
Wellman was probably referring to the case of Elsie Houston:
Ironically, the Brazilian singer was apparently claiming initiation in another African diaspora religion, Candomblé. To the general public of the United States of America, ignorant of the differences, it was all “voodoo” in their eyes. The Daily News article is actually fairly restrained; the American Weekly gave Houston an entire page to herself.
While the Weird Tales connections (real or apparent) are fun, “The Obi Makes Jumbee” also has a bit more plot than you might expect for a mere eight pages. The setup has readers expecting a zombie yarn—and they get gangsters, a fake death, a doublecross, a fake zombie, double murder, and then at the end—it’s all true. Which is as neat a bit of storytelling as you can expect. I might almost believe Wellman wrote it himself; he did a good bit of comic book scripting. Unless we find evidence to prove that, however, that remains speculative.
This miscellany includes excerpts from period newspapers, one of which (“Iwo Jima & Innsmouth”) contains historical racism and racist language. As such, please be advised before reading further.
Any tool is also a toy. The only question is whether you’re using it for work or for play. When it comes to online newspaper archives, they are a wonderful tool that has made available a vast amount of minute detail of the past that would otherwise be inaccessible to the average researcher. They are also, however, vast fun if you’re in the right mindset—because newspaper writers are inherently creative, highly literate, hungry for content, and often have a wonderful sense of humor. The result is bits and pieces that are often bizarre or brilliant, though sometimes sober and horrific.
Most of them are effectively noise when considered in terms of “serious” research into Lovecraft’s life, but as a reflection of the growing popularity of Lovecraft and the influence of his work, they stand out as tide water marks: examples of the spread of awareness of Lovecraft and his work. They are sometimes incredibly fun, if only because of how weird they are. I’ve culled out a dozen of the best clippings to showcase the wacky and sometimes fascinating Lovecraftian oddities that have appeared in newspapers over the past century.
Quick links for readers who want to jump to a particular clipping:
“Are strange stories ever enacted in the North woods? repeated an old-time lumberman from the Ashland district, who has been spending a few weeks in Bangor. “Well, I know one—as weird a yarn as ever was told. If you print it, people will say either that I tried to ‘kid’ you or I should be examined by an alienist; and yet, in my own mind, I believe it true.
“I can’t say from personal experience, for it happened at least 75 years ago. but it’s a tradition among some of the old lumbermen, and it’s been handed down from father to son. Personally, I’m not imaginative, and I don’t believe in any kind of ghosts. I never read Edgar Allen [sic] Poe or Ambrose Bearce [sic] or Harold [sic] Lovecraft. Yet here, as I heard it from many lips, was a tale like Bearce’s [sic] ‘Damned Thing’ and Lovecraft’s ‘Dunwich Horror’ rolled into one.
“Seventy-five years ago, then, in the lumber camps of the great woods and on lonely, outlying farms, hroses and cattle were being slaughtered in considerable numbers. Always it was done in the same way—their throats were ripped open, as though from the teeth of some savage dog or wild animal. And yet gradually, through the countryside, there spread a belief that it was not an animal at all. Tracks sometimes were left near the stables or tie-ups—tracks something like those of a man’s bare foot, and yet were not a man’s. Sometimes a shadowy form, ape-like and hairy, was seen gliding through the darkness—or so imaginative persons said. But the cries of the cattle were real and tangible; and the following morning—for few dared venture out in the dark—always disclosed that the ‘wood demon’, as some called him, had been at his deadly work.
“Finally there arose one who loudly announced he didn’t care for man or devil; he was going to get to the bottom of the mystery, if it was the last thing he did in the world. I don’t recall just what led this man to suppose that, on a certain night, he was due for a visit from the strange marauder. But the story goes that he insisted on staying in the tie-up, and so became the one human witness of the horror that followed.
“The hours passed; nature had never been more placid or calm. And the man was about to return to camp, laughing at himself for having believed in old wives’ tales, when—the thing happened.
“It was a clear night, and a ray of moonlight fell through a hole chopped in the roof that the steam rising from the cattle might escape—a crude but popular system of ventilation in those days. And through this hole, filtering through the moonlight and the shadows, came as strange an object as ever found its way from the Inferno. It was like a huge ape, yet the man swore it was not an ape; it was like a man yet it was not a man; it had hairy, strangely contorted limbs, and cruel teeth that gleamed in the darkness—for the man had put a burlap bag over the lantern he carried.
“It sprang upon the cattle, ripped open their throats, drank of their blood, and disappeared through the roof—as an ape might have done. But, as I have told you, it was not an ape. And the man who had said that he feared nothing in the world just stood there in a corner, a high powered rifle in his hand, too paralyzed by fright to so much as stir. He said afterward that, even had the Thing turned and attacked him, he couldn’t have moved a muscle.
“What was the thing? I don’t know! I never heard how the story ended; but I believe the mystery was never solved. if there is any moral, it is simply that it points the truth of what Hamlet said: ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'”
One seldom thinks of vampiric sasquatch as having anything to do with H. P. Lovecraft. Yet vampirism of animals is a key plot point of “The Dunwich Horror” Weird Tales (Apr 1929); just as an orangutan formed an essential feature of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), and an unseen menace is the key to Ambrose Bierce’s “The Damned Thing” (1893). One suspects that the errors in the names of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and Howard Phillips Lovecraft are probably intentional, to give an air of rusticity to a tale that is probably fabricated out of whole cloth. No name is given for the author of the piece, and it may have been a friend or friend-of-a-friend of Lovecraft. Whoever it was had at least a modest affection for weird fiction.
Abdul Alhazred, the mad Arab of Lovecraft fame, once wrote in the “Necro[no]micon”—”Science and fact, as seen by our little minds, are but dew-spangled cobwebs that catch the light of a tiny candle; and the resulting glitter [b]linds us to the horrible expanse of black doom behind the puny light.
“For that cobweb and that candle are instable as a breath. The breeze can make them tremble, a wind will rend them. And afar, even now, I hear the trampling of a mighty storm.”
The Knob Noster Gem was a small local paper; Dan Saults was the publisher, editor, and probably wrote a good chunk of the daily output. Judging by this little space-filler figment, he was also a Lovecraft fan.
Robin Hood, Bran Mak Morn, and Cthulhu (1937)
Friar Haw Foresees The Twentieth Century
As Robin Hood’s Prophet Might Have Outlined The Ills Of Our Day
by L. W. S., Eaton, O.
Sherwood forest was aflame with the torches of autumn, bringing all of its robust life. Robin Hood and his merry men had cast aside every care and fathered again beneath the mighty brown oaks and beeches. The silver tang of life was in the air and lusty merriness was in the hearts of Robin’s men.
Of course they were spilling great quantities of the favorite cool brown ale down their throats and singing its praises until the song rang and echoed far down the dark rows of mossy tree trunks, as jolly Friat Truck continually banged his tankard on the rough oak table, swinging his head from side to side.
And brawny Little John Arose, flinging the rumble of his deep bass into the depths of Sherwood forest:
So, laugh lads, and quaff lads ‘Twill make you stout and hale, Thro’ all my days I’ll sing the praise Of brown October ale.
Really Robin Hood had called his men together for the purpose of hearing once again the strange prophecies of Friar Haw, but he always had to allow them their little fling first, as a prelude. The men had arrived at some degree of respect for the words of Friar Haw, and they usually sat engrossed. Even the snorts of Friar Tuck had grown fewer.
Friar Haw, grim and ascetic, had been taking Robin’s men into the dream-world of the 20th century. Today he had sat oblivious of the roistering men, his face like a white autumn sickle moon. The men could see that he wasn’t going to talk today about streamlined chorus girls and elaborate movies.
He arose. “Few people,” he began, “who shall live in the 20th century shall realize fully the abysmal depths to which the world conflict in the early part of that century shall plunge the races with the blood of long centuries in theri veins. yea, dark forces of life, far more ancient than the ancient oaks of Sherwood, as ancient as the ideas of Chthulhu [sic], Yog Sothoth, Gol-goroth and the blood of the Gaelic, Cymric and Teutonic. The king of the Dark Empire of the Stone Age, covered so long by the imposition of a new god called Reason, shall break loose again in the emotional abandon of those dark years of 1914-18, and shall continue long afterwards.
“The surface of the collective civilized mind shall be torn adunder and the long-buried emotional elements of the days of a Bran Mak Morn shall break loose, and the 20th century would shall be puzzled and at a loss to understand what forces are driving men.”
“And,” interposed Little John, who had a common sense kind of mind, “what are you driving at, or trying to say? It sounds crazy to me.”
“Oh, doubtless!” said Friar Haw, his sickle face growing a shade colder. “Yet the original minds of the 20th century shall see that strange things are happening. Now, in the country called Germany, age-old psychic forces break loose again. Wotan, who is half rage and frenzy and half seer who understands ‘the runs and interprets destiny.’ Wotan shall be personified in a man named Hitler, a strange figure whose reasoning shall be guided by very, very ancient emotional forces.
“You are to remember that men taken collectively in a nation are not dominated by reason. A wise man of that century shall say: ‘Where the mass rather than the individual is in motion, human control ceases. And at at that point the archetypes begin to operate.'”
“In Germany the stormy personality of Wotan shall come to life again in the youth movement. The waking will be celebrated with the slaughter of more than one sheep. Aye, men called Nietszsche, Schuler, Stephen George and Klages shall anticipate the waking, as shall one called Richard Wagner put it into his music.
“But I have taken only Germany as one example in the Old World, where the 20th century shall see the troubled awakening on every hand of the most ancient archetypes, the most powerful emotional forces. Frightened men shall shout ‘Peace! Peace!’ where there shall be no peace. men shall come to understand somewhat the things that Wotan whispered through Mimir’s head. mean shall come to appreciate what Valhalla means, and the Valkyries and the Fylgjur.”
Whereupon Robin Hood jumped to his feet and shouted: “Engouh for today! I’d rather go and rob a bishop. This chatter makes me uneasy inside.”
“Yes,” came from the sickle autumn moon face of the prophet, “it is a far cry from your simple Sherwood forest and your October ale drinking. yet it shall be the sap in the roots of your Sherwood conflicted with a conflict of world cultures.”
This is fanfiction. Yet L.W.S. (Leonard W. Sharkey) of Eaton, Ohio must have been a serious fan indeed, to weave references to Lovecraft (Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth) and Robert E. Howard (Gol-goroth, Bran Mak Morn) into his narrative of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, on the run-up to World War II. A likely inspiration for these references is “The Children of the Night” (Weird Tales Apr-May 1931) by Robert E. Howard—which is probably the only story at the time that mentions Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Gol-goroth, and Bran Mak Morn all in the same tale. Sharkey did at least one more Robin Hood/Friar Haw tale, albeit without Mythos references (The Camp of Robin Takes A Forward Look).
Lovecraft & Whippoorwills (1945)
Whip-poor-wills will remind some readers of the stories of the late H. P. Lovecraft.
You never heard of Lovecraft?
Many persons have not, but they will, in time, and all through the affectionate remembrance of two young men in Wisconsin.
They founded a press to put his stories sold to pulp magazines into book form. Extremely limited editions have made these books collectors’ items.
Lovecraft’s tales are somewhat Poe-like in character. They are laid in New England, and bring in visitors from “the outside,” strange beings always ready to push into our own known world.
Some of the stories incorporate the whip-poor-wills, which set up a constant cry, according to legend, every time one died.
If they missed getting his soul, they screamed unusually loudly, and then died out. In this way it was possible to tell what happened to the departing soul.
In 1939, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei founded Arkham House in Wisconsin to publish the work of H. P. Lovecraft in book form. It was a beginning to establish Lovecraft’s literary legacy, and awareness of the Providence-born horror writer was slowly trickling out into public awareness, although this was slow going, and involved many misunderstandings.
Whippoorwills are a key example. They only feature in one of Lovecraft’s stories, “The Dunwich Horror”; but the idea seems to have appealed to August Derleth, who incorporated the idea of the whippoorwill as psychopomp in several Cthulhu Mythos stories, notably the novel The Lurker at the Threshold(1945). Derleth’s repetition of the idea—and articles like this one—contributed to the spread of certain basic conceptions (and misconceptions) of what Lovecraft wrote.
Iwo Jima & Innsmouth (1945)
Journalettes by Charles B. Gordon
Friday, this newspaper used a cut of three Japanese prisoners, taken on Iwo Jima, and their American guards. The three Japs were three of the most repulsive looking human beings whose faces we have ever gazed upon.
. . . — V . . . —
We think he’s dead now, but some years ago, there was a writer named H. P. Lovecraft. This voracious reader made acquaintence with his works through the current 25-cent pocket books, but it is our belief that most of his output was printed first in pulp “horror” magazines. At any rate, he was the greatest master of the “horror[“] story specializing in stories about beings, things, or whatever you might want to call them, which emerged from places under the earth, under the water, or from ages thousands of years past, but were generally possessed of at least a few human qualities, enabling them to “get by” on the earth of the present day.
. . . — V . . . —
The pictures of those Japs taken on Iwo Jima gave us for the first itme a partial realization of what the creatures of such books of Lovecraft’s as “Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “The Dunwich Horror” must have resembled.
War doesn’t just breed prejudice, it encourages its expression. The enemy is described in terms that downplays or denies their humanity. As things instead of people. The bloody battle of Iwo Jima ran 19 February–26 March 1945. Casualties were horrific, especially on the Japanese side; of 20,933 troops, only 216 Japanese were taken prisoner from the main battle, with an additional 867 taken prisoner post-battle. A photo of three such prisoners was made available to the press—men who, like their counterparts in the US military, had served their country, be it right or wrong, and lived through a terrible and terrifying conflict.
The racist depiction of Japanese military and civilians was sadly common—though as far as I have found, this is the first and only instance where they were compared directly to Lovecraft’s Innsmouth folk during the conflict.
Paper shortages during World War II put a severe crimp in the publishing plans of Arkham House, but also opened up other opportunities. Bartholomew House was a small New York publisher that put out two cheap (25 cents) paperback editions of Lovecraft with the permission of Arkham House: The Weird Shadow over Innsmouth (1944) and The Dunwich Horror (1945). Another cheap paperback readily available to the military was the Armed Services Edition of The Dunwich Horror and Others (n.d., 1945?). These books helped spread the word of Lovecraft during the war years—and beyond.
Lovecraft & Hitler (1945)
Two pieces appeared in the Chicago Tribune in April 1945 which tied Lovecraft to the ongoing world war.
Werewolf Hunt
The werewolf myth, which the frenzied and frightened Nazis threaten to revive as a romantic disguise for a post-war assassination cult, has haunted hte lower levels of the human mind since the era of the cavemen. Its roots are in primitive cannibalism. The word means man-wolf; that is, a betwitched creature which has human form by day and lupine hide, teeth, and appetite by night. The superstition is one of the unwholesome ideas that have survived from pre-history among European peasants to provide material for folklorists and themes for authors who have a bent toward the weird, grotesque, and horrible.
* * *
Hitler, whose career has a werewolfish flavor, comes froma stock in which this notion was likely to breed and influence character. We quote from his best and msot objective biographer, Konrad Heiden, who says in “Der Fuehrer” while discussing his pedigree:
“The Waldviertel in lower Austria, from which both the Hitler and Pölzl families came, is a gloomy, remote, impverished section; like many such regions it has no lack of superstitions and ghost stories. The ancestors were mostly poor peasant people; ‘small cottager’ often stands in the church records.”
* * *
The myth is closely related to the vampire bugaboo, and, therefore, in the novel called “Dracula,” a veritable case book of vampirism, you will find werewolves as auxiliary phantoms. The anthologies of terror stories which ahve become quite an article of commerce in the war time book trade contain numerous examples of werewolf tales. We expect to find out in “Best Supernatural Stories of H. P. Lovecraft,” edited by August Derleth and new on the counters.
* * *
To kill a werewolf according to the folklore formula, yo umust use a gun that has been blessed at a shrine of St. Hubert and fire a silver bullet.
In this, the unnamed newspaper writer would be disappointed. Vampires and werewolves were not Lovecraft’s normal schtick. However, we know that they did read the new collection—and the horrors in those pages probably compared to those that came in over the news wire. U.S. forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp on 11 Apr 1945.
Powers of Darkness
The lifting of the curtain on the massive horrors of Germany’s prison and concentration camps recalls the supernatural tales of H. P. Lovecraft, a writer who was relatively unknown until August Derleth undertook his popularization. To conjure up the mood of unearthly terrors, Lovecraft invented the mythology of Cthulhu in which there are many monstrous spirits of evil, forever seeking to take possession of this planet.
* * *
Lovecraft wrote of his work: “All my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inahbited at one time by another race hwo, in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside, ever ready to take possession of this earth again.”
* * *
Perhaps Cthulhu has come back, thru the cracks in Hitler’s mind. Lovecraft, who died in 1937, would be staggered by the revelation.
* * *
During his lifetime, Lovecraft’s work appeared in pulp paer magazines, chiefly in Weird Tales. Arkham House of Sauk City, Wis., a publishing enterprise over which August Derleth presides, has been assembling this scattered material and putting it between covers in limited editions. A collection of 14 tales, regarded as the best of Lovecraft’s 50-odd, was recently issued by the World Publishing company. Derleth, its editor, says in his introduction:
“The weird tradition was particularly his. In the scarcely two decades of his writng life he became a master of the macabre who had neither peer nor equal in America. . . . It has been said of ‘The Outsider’ that if the manuscript had been put forward as an unpublished tale by Edgar Allan Poe, none would have challenged it.” —Chicago Tribune, 27 Apr 1945, p14
Lovecraft never wrote that “black magic” quote. The unnamed author of this little piece is drawing on The Best Supernatural Stories of H. P. Lovecraft(1945). To place Lovecraft’s horrors with those of Nazi Germany is understandable, journalists must have grasped for any straw of comparison. Three days after this was published, Adolf Hitler committed suicide.
Unlike many of these small newspaper pieces, another journalist picked up on this thread and glossed it in another paper:
Powers of Darkness
The lifting of the curtain on the massive horrors of Germany’s prison and concentration camps recalls the supernatural tales of H. P. Lovecraft, a writer who was relatively unknown until August Derleth undertook his popularization, says a Chicago Tribune column. To conjure up the mood of unearthly terrors, Lovecraft invented the mythology of Cthulhu in which there are many monstrous spirits of evil, forever seeking to take possession of this planet.
Lovecraft wrote of his work: “All my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on teh fundamental lore or legend that this race [sic] was inhabited at one time by another race who, in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside, ever ready to take possession of this earth again.”
Perhaps Othulhu [sic] has come back through the cracks in Hitler’s mind. Lovecraft, who died in 1937, would be staggered by the revelation.
It is like a telephone game, as Derleth’s jumbled quote gets increasingly jumbled with every step. Yet the tying-together of Lovecraft and Hitler in this instance shows how relevant Lovecraft’s fiction could be, how plastic and adaptable his work was to a new syntax—and how new editions helped spread knowledge of Lovecraft and the Mythos to new audiences.
Lovecraft’s Men From Pluto (1955)
Space Travel
Friday Dr. Wernher von Braun, an expert in the field of astrophysical and astronomical lore, spoke at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. he talked chiefly of efforts being made to study the areas beyond the earth’s atmosphere. he talked of artificial satellites and of space travel, topics which tickle the imagination of young and old alike in these days of scientific discussion.
Dr. von Braun asserted that there was no doubt of the capacity of man to leave earth, point toward the moon, circle it and return to earth again. As one who is an expert in the designing of rocket propellants and in all the developments in this sphere he speaks with authority. He insists that we know enough now to launch a space ship and be reasonably sure of its safe voyage moonward and its return.
To the layman all this is fantasy. How can man survive in the intense heat which must exist beyond the atmosphere? How can direction be assured where there is no air friction against which rudders can press when a craft is to be turned? We have to ahve water to direct a ship, air to direct a plane. What possiblity of management exists in the ether where every object runs free?
And to make such a voyage the start must be swift. Through the great spaces where there is no atmosphere presumably the speed would not generate sufficient heat to decompose the ship. But what about the start and the finish? How can the ship begin its flight without at least a speed of 5,000 miles an hour? And how can it be toned down to reason when it returns to the lst hundred miles of its voyage?
We are still skeptics on the whole matter. Those who say such a trip to the moon is possible are the delight of the small boy and the radical scientist. but to the down-to-earth citizen, accustomed to keep his feet on the ground or rise only moderately above it, the natural comment is a Bronx cheer. If such a voyage is possible today, as Dr. von Braun asserts, let’s get at it and stop expending our energies in talk.
The usual reply from the space scientists to such suggests is that the cost is tremendous and there is no source for the funds. That is a complete answer, the best in the world if discussion is preferable to achievement. We have heard people say you could abolish certain diseases in the world if had ten or fifteen billions to spend on them. We have noted those who think permanent peace could be achieved by the careful expenditure of a few hundred billions. The poist that there isn’t any such money so it is easy to talk about it.
If a space ship would cost a few billions there can be no space ship. it would not be worth the price. The scientists, instead of telling us such a craft is possible today, might better expend their time and energy in seeking ways of bringing their creations down to the possible range of expenditure. Otherwise space travel lies in the same domain as the weird tales of Jules Verne, Lovecraft’s story of the men from Pluto who visited earth or Wells’ novel about the coming of the Martians.
The Luna 3, the first spacecraft to manage a successful circumlunar trajectory, did so in 1959; the first manned trip in lunar orbit, however, was Apollo 8 in 1968. It turned out, probably much to the anonymous author’s chagrin, that there actually were billions of dollars to spend on the space race.
The reference to “Lovecraft’s story of the men from Pluto” is a bit bizarre; as near as I can tell this has to be a reference to “The Whisperer in Darkness” (Weird Tales Aug 1931), which featured the Fungi from Yuggoth. Who were about as far from the stereotypical 1950s humanoid aliens as one might imagine—but this is a good example of a typical misreading or misunderstanding. I wonder how many science fiction fans wondered where they could read about Lovecraft’s men from Pluto?
Man has a back, and if you beat it he works. (Alhazred Bhati Khan, 11th century despot of Samarkand).
The labor policies of Alhazred Khan are frowned upon in the more enlightened areas of the world today. But if his theories on back-beating have fallen in esteem, his basic goal of increasing production has never been held in higher regard.
The actual title of the piece was “Bosses ‘Whip’ Workers With Musical Gimmicks,” and it was about how employers use new psychological tools to manipulate the workplace and motivate their employees. However, the author Ted Smart apparently thought it needed a hook, and so created Alhazred Bhati Khan—who never existed—presumably by combining Lovecraft’s Alhazred, the Hindu word bhati (भाटी), and the Turkic or Mongolian title khan. Samarkand was a reality, however, and if anybody ever checked to see who was ruling it in the 11th century, they did more work than Ted Smart did. I have to wonder if any Lovecraft fans noticed.
Cipher puzzles are fairly common amusements in newspapers, and have been for decades. As an exercise, they’re fairly simple substitution ciphers: each letter of the alphabet is replaced by another letter, to render what appears on the surface is gibberish. However, the relationship between the letters remains; and there are only 26 letters in the alphabet. Figure out a word or two, either by frequency analysis or trial and error, and the rest of the cipher alphabet falls in place pretty easily. In this case, the puzzle designer has been a little clever: one word has been encoded as the English word FRIGHT, which gives a hint to the solution of the puzzle.
The answer, on the other hand, is a bit of a cheat:
The answer is a cheat because this isn’t a real Lovecraft quote, but a highly abridged version of a line from Lovecraft’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature”:
Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.
The reason why the full quote isn’t used is pretty obvious: space. While not intellectually any more challenger than the briefer text to decipher, 59 words is a lot more daunting in terms of sheer volume of words to be deciphered. On the plus side, at least Lovecraft wasn’t reminding the readers of the San Francisco Examiner to drink their Ovaltine.
Tucked in at the end of a column of classifieds ads, just above a threat from the Mafia against a fratboy, this is one of a number of ads for a copy of the Necronomicon for sale that have cropped up here and there. Such hoaxes are classics of fan-activity, and vary from carefully-constructed and believable to error-ridden and silly. This one is fairly restrained and detailed, and the writer probably was familiar with Lovecraft’s “History of the Necronomicon,” which had been most recently republished in The Necronomicon: A Study(1967).
Such ads seem to have become rare after the first widely-available commercial Necronomicons began to hit the market in the 1970s.
Old Ben Lovecraft (1978)
Mulligan’s Stew by Hugh A. Mulligan AP Special Correspondent
RIDGEFIELD, Conn. (AP)—My old aunt used to say you never really know who your neighbors are until one day you read about them in the paper being appointed to the White House transportation staff or taken off in the patrol wagon for wife-beating or graduating with high honors from welding school.
And, by George, she was right.
This town, for instance, is chock full of interesting people, what you might call real characters just waiting to be discovered by some sharp-eyed reporter or a playwright in search of a sequel to “Our Town.”
Over on Ludlow Hill there’s a man who never in all his born days has seen a flying saucer. Old Ben Lovecraft has lived in these rocky, rolling hills of Connecticut for nigh onto half a century, since moving up from the Bronx, without catching so much as a glimmer of an outer world touchdown on his two acre zoned spread there behind the town dump.
The other night he thought he saw an eerie light reflecting from an elliptical shaped object in his driveway that wasn’t there when he took in the cat and turned off the carriage lamps. he put on his new Christmas cardigan, grabbed a flash light from the hall closet and made his way stealthily along the hedges bordering the garage. he could hear chattering and the sound of equipment being unloaded.
There in the moonlight, he saw five tiny creatures no bigger than a breadbox with enormous shiny eyes filing out of an aluminum cylinder. They fled in panic the instant his beam hit them.
“You know how racoons scamper after they’ve tipped over a garbage can to get at a turkey carcass,” Ben drawled in his matter of fact way. “I called the Air Force and they didn’t want to hear about it. They already had four people on hold with positive sightings.”
Fascinating fellow, Ben. A real skeptic. He’s seen “Star Wars” twice and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” three times and doesn’t believe a word of either of them. […]
At the time of this writing, there are 91 hits for “Old Ben Lovecraft” on newspapers.com. The Associated Press spread the “Mulligan’s Stew” humor column far and wide. While some of the other bits and pieces mentioned above are diamonds in the rough, this is closer to what constitutes noise in search results. Half the country might have read about “Old Ben Lovecraft” between March and April 1978, when the article ran. Perhaps a few had a chuckle; the flying saucer craze of the 50s had given birth to the impressive big box-office sci fi spectacles of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). No doubt a lot of the country had no idea why some folks got so excited.
Why Lovecraft? I suspect it was simply because Lovecraft was still known as a science fiction writer, and the “Old Ben” part was borrowed from “Old Ben” Kenobi in Star Wars. It’s also possible that the author simply wanted a distinctive name and typed out the first that came to mind; certainly a fan would probably have added a reference to Cthulhu in there at some point.
Lovecraft, C. M. Eddy, Jr., and Dark Swamp (1995)
What happened that night in the swamp?
Editors: I am in my 75th year of life as I write this, and I do not wish to allow a few things to pass unnoticed before I go. My mother, Muriel Eddy, was a gifted author; for several years she was the poet laureate of Rhode Island, the state in which we lived.
My father was also an author—of uncanny horror stories. he had a buddie named H. P. Lovecraft, the famous author of many books about strange things.
Lovecraft was a night person, and back in 1922 and 1923 he and my father would often walk through Providence’s Chinatown at midnight. One night they decided to go into the woods of the “great swamp” of Chepatchet, R.I., because they had heard that “It” (a ghost or monster) had been seen there.
Nobody knows whether or not they encounted the “It” being; they did survive their night in the great swamp, but neither would talk about it. I wonder to this day what they saw.
Perhaps that telephone-game is why his facts are slightly garbled. For while Lovecraft and C. M. Eddy, Jr. did certainly survive the Dark Swamp in Chepatchet, they weren’t exactly silent about it. We have first-hand accounts from Lovecraft’s letters, a memoir by C. M. Eddy, Jr., and memoirs from Muriel E. Eddy, who would have had the facts from her husband. Unfortunately, the accounts do not all agree.
Lovecraft’s Version In four letters written c. Oct-Dec 1923, Lovecraft mentions Eddy and Dark Swamp. These are the only accounts that were published at the time of the trip, and Lovecraft goes into some considerable detail.
I find Eddy rather a delight—I wish I had known him before. Next Sunday we are going on a trip which may bring you echoes in the form of horror-tales from both participants. In the northwestern part of Rhode Island there is a remote village called Chepachet, reached by a single car line with only a few cars a day. Last week Eddy was there for the first time, and at the post office overheard a conversation between two ancient rustic farmers which inspired our coming expedition. They were discussing hunting prospects, and spoke of the migration of all the rabbits and squirrels across the line into Connecticut; when one told the other that there were plenty left in the Dark Swamp. Then ensued a description to which Eddy listened with the utmost avidity, and which brought out the fact that in this, the smallest and most densely populated state of the Union, there exists a tract of 160 acres which has never been fully penetrated by any living man. It lies two miles from Chepachet—in a direction we do not now know, but which we will ascertain Sunday—and is reputed to be the home of very strange animals—strange at least to this part of the world, and including the dreaded “bobcat”, whose half-human cries in the night are often heard by neighbouring farmers. The reason it has never been fully penetrated is that there are many treacherous potholes, and that the archaic trees grow so thickly together that passage is well-nigh impossible. The undergrowth is very thick, and even at midday the darkness is very deep because of the intertwined branches overhead. the description so impressed Eddy that he began writing a story about it—provisionally entitled “Black Noon”—on the trolley ride home. And now we are both to see it . . . we are both to go into that swamp . . . and perhaps come out of it. Probably the thing’ll turn out to be a clump of ill-nourished bushes, a few rain-puddles, and a couple of sparrows—but until our disillusion we are at liberty to think of the place as the immemorial lair of nightmare and unknown evil ruled by that subterraneous horror that sometimes cranes its neck out of the deepest pot-holes . . . It. —H. P. Lovecraft to Edwin Baird, c. Oct 1923, Letters to Hyman Bradofsky & Others 45
Lovecraft’s letters to Baird was published in Weird Tales (Mar 1924), and forms the first account in print.
My next trip, on which I had as a companion my new adopted son Clifford Martin Eddy, Jr., was on Sunday, Novr. 4; and led thro’ much the same territory as did my trip of Septr. 19 with out amiable confrere Mortonius. It was a quest of the grotesque and the terrible—a search for Dark Swamp, in northwestern Rhode-Island, of which Eddy had heard sinister whispers amongst the rusticks. They whisper that it tis very remote and very strange, and that no one has ever been completely thor’ it because of the treacherous and unfathomable potholes, and the antient trees whose thick boles grow so closelytogether that passage is difficult and darkness omnipresent even at noon, and other things, of which bobcats—whose half-human howls are heard in the night by peasants near the edge—are the very least. It is a peculiar place, and no house was ever built within two miles of it. the rural swains refer to it with much evasiveness, and not one of them can be induc’d to guide a traveller through it’ altho’ a few intrepid hunters and woodcutters have plied their vocations on its fringes. It lies in a natural bowl surrounded by low ranges of beautiful hills; far from any frequented road, and known to scarce a dozen persons outside the immediate country. Even in Chepachet, the nearest village, there are but two men who ever heard of it. Eddy discover’d its rumour at the Chepachet post office one bleak autumn evening when huntsmen gather’d about the fire and told tales and express wonder why all the squirrels and rabbits had left the hills and fled across the plain into Connecticut. One very antient man with a flintlock said that IT had mov’d in Dark Swamp, and had cran’d ITS neck out of the abysmal pothole beneath which IT has ITS immemorial Lair. And he said his grandfather had told him in 1849, when he was a very little boy, that IT had been there when the first settlers came; and that the Indians believed IT had always been there. This antient man with the flintlock was the only one present who had ever heard of Dark Swamp.
So on that Sunday my son and I took the stage for Chapachet, and in due time alighted before the tavern. In the tap-room they had never heard of Dark Swamp, but the landlord told us to ask the Town Clerk, two houses down the road beyond the White Church, who knows everything in the parish Upon knocking at this gentleman’s pillar’d colonial house, we were greeted by the genial owner him self; a prefect rural magnate and Knight of the Shire, than whom Sir Roger himself cou’d not be more oddly humoursome. he told us, that the Dark Swamp had a very queer reputation, and that men had gone in who never came out; but confest he knew little of it, and had never been near it. At his suggestion we went across the road to the cottage of a very intelligent yeoman nam’d Sprague, whom he reported to have guided a party of gentlemen from Brown-University thro parts of the swamp in quest of botanick specimens, some twelve years gone. Sprague dwells in a trim colonial cottage with pleasing doorway and good interior mantels and panelling;a ND tho’ it turn’d out that ’twas not he who guided the gentlemen, he prov’d uncommon genial and drew us a map by which we might reach the house of Fred Barnes, who did guide them […] After a long walk over the same highroad travers’d by Mortonius and me, we came to Goodman Barnes’ place; and found him after waiting Al of thirty-five minutes in his squalid kitchen. When he did arrive, he had not much to say; but told us to find ‘Squire James Reynolds, who dwells at the fork of the back road beyond the great reservoir, south the the turnpike. Again in motion, we stopt not till we came to [Cady’s] Tavern, built in 1683 […] The tavern lyes on the main Putnam Pike; but shortly after quitting it and passing the reservoir we turn’d south into the backwoods, coming in proper season to Squire Reynolds’ estate. We found the gentleman in his yard; a man well on in years, and having a very market rural speech which we had thought extinct save in stage plays. he told us, we had better take the right fork of the road, over the hills to Ernest Law’s farm; declaring, that Mr. Law owns Dark Swamp, and that it was his son who had cut wood at the edge of it. Following the Squire’s directions, we ascended a narrow rutted road betwixt picturesque woods and stone walls; coming at last to a crest […] We found Mr. Law […] He inform’d us, that Dark Swamp lyes in the distant bowl betwixt two of the hills we saw; and that ’tis two miles from his house to the nearest part of it, by a winding road and a cart0path. He said, the peasants have a little exaggerated its fearful singularities, tho’ it is yet a very odd place, and I’ll to visit by night. We thanked him greatly for the civilities he had shewn us, and having complimented him on the fine location of his seat, set out to return to town with the information we shall use upon our next trip. —H. P. Lovecraft to Frank Belknap Long, Jr., 8 Nov 1923, Selected Letters 1.264-267
[…] setting a time and place of next meeting December 2nd, 6:45 a.m., west facade of the Federal Building—whence leaves the coach for Chepachet and the Dark Swamp. —H. P. Lovecraft to Maurice W. Moe, 24 Nov 1923, Letters to Maurice W. Moe137
We were on a still hunt for the grotesque & the terrible—the ghoulish & the macabre—in the form of a hideous locality which Eddy had heard certain rusticks whispering about . . . . . Dark Swamp. The peasants had mutter’d that it is very remote & very strange, & that no one hath ever been completely across it because of the treacherous & fathomless potholes, & the ancient trees whose thick boles grow so closely together that passage is difficult & darkness omnipresent even at noon, & other things, of which bobcats—whose half-human cries are heard in the night by cotters near the edge—are the very least. It is a very peculiar place, & no house was ever built within two miles of it. The rural swains refer to it with much evasiveness, & not one of them can be induc’d to guide a traveller thro’ it. It lies near where we were lost south of the pike—there & westerward—& probably brushes the foot of Old Durf himself. Very few know . . . . or admit they know . . . . of it. Eddy discover’d its rumour at the tavern in Chepachet one bleak autumn evening when huntsmen gather’d about the fire & told tales. One very ancient man said that IT dwells in the swamp . . . . & that IT was alive even before the white man came.
Well, anyway, we took the nine-twenty-five for Chepachet on Nov. 4, & wasted all the noon period getting shunted from one villager to another for directions. One bimbo—a bearded chap named Sprague, who lives in a colonial house—was especially valuable, & gave some extra tips on Durf. […] The last Swain we were directed to was Ernest Law, who owns Dark Swamp, & who was reached by a rutted road that climbs upward betwixt woods & stone walls. […] He told us how to reach Dark Swamp, & inform’d us it is a very odd place, tho’ the peasantry have a little exaggerated its fearful singularities. We thank’d him for the civilities he shew’d us, & having congratulated him on the fine location of his seat, set out to return to town with the information we shall use upon our next trip. […] —H. P. Lovecraft to James F. Morton, 5 Dec 1923, Letters to James F. Morton 58-59
“Durf” in this case is Durfee Hill, the second-highest point in Rhode Island, located near Chapechet. On 19 September 1923, Lovecraft and James F. Morton had gone to Chapechet to climb the hill, as detailed in a letter to Frank Belknap Long, Jr. (Selected Letters 1.250), which makes no mention of Dark Swamp. According to Lovecraft, C. M. Eddy, Jr. heard about Dark Swamp in Autumn (say, October), they went there on 4 November 1923, but couldn’t find it, though they got directions to find it next time, made plans for such a trip in December—and ultimately never returned to Chepachet.
One unanswered question is what Eddy was doing in the Chepachet post office to overhear these rumors of Dark Swamp. We know Lovecraft was in Chepachet in September, but why would Eddy be there? Stephen Olbrys Gencarella in “Lovecraft and the Folklore of Glocester’s Dark Swamp” (Lovecraft Annual #16) notes several other discrepancies in Lovecraft’s account that suggests that whatever the original story, HPL elaborated the tale with subsequent telling.
Ken Faig, Jr. in “Searching for Dark Swamp” in Lovecraftian Voyages, traced through old maps and records and confirmed much of the geography and named personages that Lovecraft mentions in his letters regarding the search for Dark Swamp, which he believes is currently inundated and forms the northern part of the Ponaganset Reservoir.
C. M. Eddy, Jr.’s Version In 1966, Eddy’s brief memoir “Walks With Lovecraft” was published in The Dark Brotherhood by Arkham House. Near the end of the memoir, Eddy recalled the trip to Chapachet:
One other jaunt with Lovecraft is retained rather vividly in memory, for all that it was in a way a frustrating one. It was a trip made into the country in August 1923, in search of a blighted area called the “Dark Swamp”—a place of such stygian darkness that the sun reputedly never shone there, never penetrated its fastnesses, even at high noon. Lovecraft had no very clear idea of its setting, but had been told that it was located off the Putnam Pike, about halfway between Chepachet, Rhode Island, and Putnam, Connecticut.
The day we set out was blisteringly hot; though we took the first trolley in the morning to the end of the line in Chepachet, it was already very warm at that hour. In Chepachet, we started out on foot on the road toward Putnam. The heat increased as the day wore on. We had brought sandwiches with us, and from time to time we stopped at farmhouses along the way for water and to inquire about Dark Swamp. But no one seemed to have heard of it, and after four miles, Lovecraft, considerably wilted by the heat, decided reluctantly that we would have to give up the quest. So we found some reasonably comfortable stones at the side of the road and sat there until one of the Putnam-Providence cars stopped for us and put an end to our search. We never afterward took it up again, though, despite the discomfort of the summer day, it was as rewarding as any walk with Lovecraft, in that he found many of the old farm buildings fascinating and conveyed that fascination to me. —C. M. Eddy, Jr., “Walks With Lovecraft” (1966) in The Gentleman from Angell Street 49-50
The most immediate discrepancy between the two accounts is that while Lovecraft places the search for Dark Swamp in early November 1923, Eddy places it in August. The comments about the heat make sense if it was a summer hike, but in the autumn?. Lovecraft doesn’t mention the heat in his own accounts, but did allow that he was “monstrous weary, and cou’d scarce stand” at the end of the hike (SL1.267), which would jive with Eddy’s account (though Lovecraft avers that they hiked 17 miles around Chepachet, not 4 miles).
Granted that Eddy was remembering back ~43 years, so some details could be hazy; Lovecraft mentions they were walking about noon, and if it was an All-Saints summer, perhaps that might account for Eddy’s memory of summer heat. More odd is that Eddy makes no mention that he was the originator of the search; by his account, it was Lovecraft that had been told about the swamp, rather than Eddy that told Lovecraft about it. However, we know Lovecraft had been in Chapechet before; perhaps it was Lovecraft who heard of Dark Swamp when he went to Chepachet with Morton, and later asked Eddy to go with him to find it.
Muriel E. Eddy’s Version There are three versions of the story in Muriel Eddy’s memoirs of Lovecraft, two published before C. M. Eddy’s 1966 memoir and one after. All versions agree largely with each other, and more with C. M. Eddy’s version than with Lovecraft’s—this makes sense given that all of Muriel’s information probably came from her husband or memories of what Lovecraft mentioned about the trip. Though Selected Letters 1, with Lovecraft’s lengthy account of the trip to Long, was published in 1965, the Eddys do not seem to have referred to it.
It was during the hot summer months that Lovecraft expressed the desire to have Mr. Eddy accompany him on a quest to find a so-called “Black Swamp” somewhere, it was said, in the wilds of Chepachet, R.I.—a swamp so overhung with trees that no sunlight ever penetrated it. Always on the lookout for oddities of nature, the idea of seeing such a swamp intrigued Lovecraft to such an extent that he took the whole day off, leaving his writings, as eager as any schoolboy to witness nature’s phenomenon. The whereabouts of that swamp—if such a swamp truly exists—is still a msytery—at least, it was never located, and Mr. Eddy almost had to carry Lovecraft back from the rural excursion, at least a mile, to the trolley line, for, unaccustomed to such vigorous jaunts at that time, the writer of tales macabre soon became so exhausted he could hardly move one foot after the other. It was a great disappointment to Lovecraft that the trip was failure, as far as finding the swamp was concerned; but the rural characteristics of the village delighted him, and found place, I am sure, in many of his later stories. —Muriel E. Eddy, “Howard Phillips Lovecraft” in Rhode Island on Lovecraft(1945) 18
It was during the summer of 1923 that Lovecraft expressed the desire to have Mr. Eddy accompany him on a quest to find a so-called “Black Swamp” somewhere near the small village of Chepachet, Rhode Island. It was said to be a swamp so overhung by trees that sunshine never penetrated it.
The thought of visiting such a swamp intrigued H.P.L. and he discarded his habit of staying in during the bright hours of the day to join my husband in the long hike. They took a trolley to Chepachet, and from then on they were on their own. It was a long walk to any kind of swamp land from the civic center of the community, and hours later, after viewing several small swamps but not finding any to answer the description of Black Swamp, they were about to turn back when Lovecraft suggested that they stop in and rest at one of the farmhouses dotting the section. besides, he averred, some of the farmers in that region might possibly know where (and if) there was such a swamp in the vicinity.
The wife of one farmer invited them into the kitchen and offered refreshment in the form of a glass of milk and gingerbread. H.P.L. eagerly accepted it, and he listened attentively as their hosts assured them that Black Swamp was virtually unknown to them, and it must have been a pipe dream somebody had, writing up a non-existent place. There were plenty of swamps, but none, they were sure, through which sunlight never filtered. Sometimes their cows got lost in the swampland, but they always found them sooner or later.
Lovecraft, later, jotted down in a little notebook he carried, tidbits of their quaint Yankee talk, saying the trip was not entirely a failure, as he had gleaned quite a bit from hearing the antiquarians converse. It would come in handy when he wrote his next story, he assured my tired-out husband. —Muriel E. Eddy, “The Gentleman from Angell Street” (1961) in The Gentleman of Angell Street 11-12
My husband often accompanied Howard on trips to get new ideas. One day they took a trolley car from Providence to the village of Chepachet, Rhode Island, to find a black swamp. it was said to be so overhung by trees that sunshine could not penetrate it.
They hiked for hours, and saw several swamps, but found nothing to answer the description.
But H.P.L. made many notes for future reference. He told Cliff that no trip was ever wasted.
Although Howard never wrote a story about the non-existent swamp, my husband used this as a basis for the last story he wrote during his retirement. Entitled “Black Noon,” it will be published in 1970 by August Derleth of Arkham House, Sauk City, Wis.
—Muriel E. Eddy, H.P.L. “The Man and the Image” (1969) 4 Later revised as “Lovecraft Among the Demons” (1970) in The Gentleman from Angell Street54
Muriel E. Eddy’s accounts add certain details lacking in both Lovecraft and her husband’s accounts, such as being served milk and gingerbread by a farmer’s wife (perhaps while waiting in the kitchen of Fred Barnes?) which might be authentic; others might be invented (no notes related to Dark Swamp are in Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book) or the result of the telephone game from husband to wife (neither of them mention any smaller swamps, either).
Both Lovecraft and Muriel Eddy reference “Black Noon,” a story begun by C. M. Eddy, Jr. If the story was begun in 1923, as Lovecraft suggests, it was not completed at that time. C. M. Eddy, Jr. attempted to complete the story in the 1960s, but ill-health made it difficult to impossible for him to write, and the story went unfinished at the time of his death in 1967. In the Arkham Collector Summer 1968, August Derleth announced “Black Noon” would appear in the forthcoming anthology Dark Things, but Derleth died in 1971, before this fragment could be published, and it was not included in Dark Things. “Black Noon” was eventually published in Eddy’s posthumous collection Exit Into Eternity (1973).
“Black Noon” is set in Eddy’s fictional Fenham, with a thinly-disguised Weird Tales (as Uncanny Stories), Lovecraft (as Robert Otis Mather), and Dark Swamp (as Witches’ Swamp). Although little of their adventure features in the fragment, some of the description of the swamp echoes Lovecraft’s:
[…] the trees on either side of this new construction had grown so close together that their trunks touched one another, and so tall that their leafy branches had interlocked to form a well-night impenetrable covering. In addition, hybrid vines, whichh grew rampant in the swamp, had over-grown both oaks and branches to eliminate all light from the canopy thus formed. The only thing that could find a way through this natural barrier was the fog which, during the early Fall, hung over the entire swampy area!
Even at high noon, the portion of the road was black as a moonless midnight! (117-118)
Neither of the Eddys ever mention Lovecraft’s “IT”; whether this was an invention of Lovecraft’s or a local legend that he picked up on but the Eddys failed to mention is unclear. Thomas D’Agostino in “Dark Swamp’s IT” (2020) leans into local legends; Stephen Olbrys Gencarella in “Lovecraft and the Folklore of Glocester’s Dark Swamp” (Lovecraft Annual #16) goes even deeper, and critically analyzes D’Agostino’s claims. Personally, I’m inclined to agree with Gencarella that Lovecraft may have been pulling his correspondent’s legs a bit—whether or not there was a germ of local lore at the heart of it, Lovecraft let his imagination elaborate with each telling.
However, it is interesting that Clifford Myron Eddy mentioned “IT,” when his parents did not. Did the elder Eddys decide it was more believable to leave out the legendary critter, or did the younger Eddy read Lovecraft’s account in his letters? Alas, we may never know. All we are left with is an intriguing bit of data, and it isn’t clear if it is fool’s gold or the real thing; if it is just a bit of glitter among the dross of clippings, or a valuable addition to Lovecraft studies. All researchers can do is sieve through the data.
Lucky for some of us, it is good fun to pan for digital gold in newspaper archives.
Racist Language The following article deals explicitly with racism in humor, many examples of which use racial pejoratives. Frank discussion of these matters requires the reproduction of at least some samples of racist pejoratives and ideas in quotes, titles, etc. As such, please be advised before reading further.
Few authors have been as personally identified with their work as H. P. Lovecraft. Even during his own lifetime, Lovecraft’s friends began to incorporate fictional versions of them into his stories—as “Howard” in “The Space-Eaters” (1928) by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.; as the unnamed mystic dreamer in “The Shambler from the Stars” (1935) and Luveh-Keraph, Priest of Bast in “The Suicide in the Study” (1935) by Robert Bloch; and as “the man with the long chin” in The Village Green (192?) by Edith Miniter.
In life, Lovecraft was a self-effacing and ready correspondent who made many contacts with his fans and peers in pulp fiction and amateur journalism; he liked to project the image of himself as older and more reclusive than he actually was. After his death, this personal myth-making took on a life of its own, as his legend developed and spread. There was no absence of humor from the early decades as awareness of Lovecraft and his Mythos grew, with both parody and satire present in works like “At the Mountains of Murkiness, or From Lovecraft to Leacock” (1940) by Arthur C. Clarke.
A notable absence in early humor directed at Lovecraft is any mention of his racism. The biographical facts of Lovecraft’s life were generally slow to emerge, and not always readily available to fans. So while comments on Lovecraft’s racism and antisemitism were made public by the first version of his wife’s memoir in the 1940s (see The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft (1985) by Sonia H. Davis), and August Derleth felt the need to address the issue in print in Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft (1959), Lovecraft did not develop a widespread reputation as a racist until the publication of L. Sprague de Camp’s Lovecraft: A Biography (1975). De Camp, who had studied Lovecraft’s published and unpublished letters and other materials, emphasized Lovecraft as neurotic, a flawed human being, a possible homosexual, and especially as a racist—and published the entirety of the poem “On the Creation of Niggers” which is attributed to Lovecraft.
De Camp’s biography came at a time when Lovecraft was beginning to spread to a much larger audience, due to reprint of his work in paperback, films like The Dunwich Horror (1970), and growing influence on music, adaptations in comic books, and other media—and as Lovecraft was gaining more critical awareness and acceptance. The same year as de Camp’s book came out, the first World Fantasy Convention was held in Lovecraft’s hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, with the theme “The Lovecraft Circle,” and the first World Fantasy Awards were given out—in the form of a bust of Lovecraft, carved by noted cartoonist Gahan Wilson. So, just at a time when Lovecraft’s popularity blossomed and more information on his life emerged, de Camp released a highly influential book.
Many Lovecraft scholars criticized de Camp’s approach, presentation, and conclusions—though not the underlying facts: while speculation about Lovecraft’s sexuality or mental health were subjective, Lovecraft’s prejudices were clearly expressed in his letters. The critiques, however, didn’t have the reach of the book itself, and many of de Camp’s misconceptions continue to color perceptions of Lovecraft to the present day. This has been very apparent in various fictional depictions of Lovecraft in various media, which often exaggerate Lovecraft’s characteristics and prejudices for humorous effect.
When the little kitten darted from the door and fled into the hall, the apparition in the darkness shouted out loud. It shouted in the high nasal accent native only to that part of New England once known as Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations. And its words were these:
“Come back!” it cried. “Come back, my pet! Come back, NIGGER-MAN!“ —Gregory Nicoll, “The Man Who Collected Lovecraft,” The Diversifier (May 1977) 68
As a subject of satire and ridicule, Lovecraft might seem to be a particularly strange dead horse to choose to whip. Obviously, Lovecraft is dead and is unaffected by mockery; he can’t regret or reform his reviews, and won’t roll in his grave no matter how hard you make fun of him. Humorous takes on Lovecraft are thus aimed at the living: at fans who are familiar with Lovecraft and his fiction, whether or not they enjoy either. In the case of Lovecraft’s racism in particular, this effectively serves as a kind of damnatio memoriae: unable to condemn a living Lovecraft for his prejudices, they make fun of a dead Lovecraft. These humorous portrayals, with all of their exaggerations, have influenced Lovecraft’s posthumous reputation and image.
Does making fun of a dead man constitutes “punching down?” Certainly, Lovecraft has no ability to defend himself from false accusations or inaccurate claims about his prejudices. On the other hand, he doesn’t really need any such defense. While Lovecraft may have no power to answer now, Lovecraft was racist, and part of the white majority that kept racial and ethnic minorities as second-class citizens during his life. Empathy in cases of historical racism should be on the victims of discrimination, not the perpetrators. Lovecraft may not have been a member of the Ku Klux Klan or participated in any racial violence directly, but he was still part of the majority of U.S. citizens that supported the legalized racism of Jim Crow and the social norms that prevented racial equality.
The occasional depiction of Lovecraft as “Genre’s Racist, Crazy Uncle” has exactly that much truth in it: Lovecraft’s prejudices were largely tolerated during his lifetime, and for some decades beyond that, because they were the same prejudices that millions of other people in the U.S. held. Just because those prejudices were common does not make them universal. Just because other people were racist does not make Lovecraft’s racism okay. The broad cultural background radiation of racism during Lovecraft’s lifetime is an explanation for his views, not an excuse for them.
The fact that Lovecraft is often depicted as much more cartoonishly racist than he was in real life, or than his peers, is in part down to the needs of the writer or artist to make a joke, but also in part due to lack of understanding of what Lovecraft’s prejudices were and how they fit into the historical context. Pretty much no one that mentions “On the Creation of Niggers” in any context wants to read a dissertation on the tradition of racist light verse in English poetry, just as few people who are familiar with the name of Lovecraft’s cat in “The Rats in the Walls” want a lecture on the propensity for naming pets racial epithets around the turn of the 20th century. They care about the current context, when the N-word is a racial epithet of unique power, not a historical context when such usage was more broadly accepted by a more openly racist society.
Many expressions of prejudice that were commonplace in the early 20th century seem egregiously racist now. Plain statements of Lovecraft’s life may seem ludicrously racist by the standards of the present, because many plain statements of racism in the 1930s and 30s are ludicrously racist by today’s metric. It is difficult for today’s readers to get a grasp of what a “normal” amount of racism was in the 20s and 30s when minstrel shows, coon songs, and the African Dodger were still socially acceptable.
In 1897 I was trying for Beethoven—but by 1900 I was whistling the popular coon songs & musical comedies of the day. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 3 Sep 1931, Letters to J. Vernon Shea et al.46
As a consequence, when combined with a general ignorance of the actual nature and scope of Lovecraft’s prejudices, the exaggerations of Lovecraft’s bigotry are often much more extreme to get a laugh.
Ah! Look, it’s attempting to communicate. No doubt the savage thing knows language as a house pet knows its reflection in the mirror. The sense is taken in, but the process, the meaning is forever lost. —H. P. Lovecraft, Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time by Brandon Masters
There is a certain irony in that the more that we know of the facts of Lovecraft’s prejudice, the more ridiculous and far from Lovecraft’s actual beliefs that humorous takes on Lovecraft’s racism tend to get. The earliest humor was written by weird fiction fans who were generally aware of who Lovecraft was, his work, and some of the scholarship about his life. Later writers tend to be less familiar with the minutiae of Lovecraftiana and base more of their image of Lovecraft off the memes and stereotypes of Lovecraft and his work, or lean into a particular presentation that relies on such a specific image of Lovecraft as cartoonishly bigoted.
In terms of accuracy, there’s a kernel of truth here: Lovecraft did express some prejudice against Italian immigrants, especially those in the Federal Hill area of his native Providence, RI. Lovecraft had even made mention of Italian immigrants in some of his publications, such as his very first widely-published poem, “Providence in 2000 A.D.”:
In 1912 my first bit of published verse appeared in The Evening Bulletin. It is a 62-line satire in the usual heroic couplet, ridiculing a popular movement on the part of the Italians of the Federal Hill slums to change the name of the main street from “Atwells’ Avenue” to “Columbus Avenue”. I pictured Providence in 2000 A.D., with all the English names changed to foreign appellations. This piece received considerable notice of a minor sort, I am told, though I doubt if it had much effect in silencing the Italians’ clamour. The idea was so foolish that it probably died of its own weakness. —H. P. Lovecraft to the Kleicomolo, 16 Nov 1916, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner & Others 76
The humor comes from the juxtaposition of the prosaic (and to contemporary eyes, ridiculous) prejudice against the harmless (if stereotypical) Italian immigrant and the eldritch entity breaking its way through the dimensional barriers. The cartoon also draws on and supports the misconception that Lovecraft’s fiction was largely driven by his personal fears and prejudices.
In real life Lovecraft actually liked Italian food, generally had congenial relationships with Italian immigrants he got to know, and rarely included Italian characters in his fiction. But that is a lot more nuance than can be expected in six panels. The joke doesn’t work if Lovecraft is presented as someone who isn’t triggered by the fact an Italian offered him a calzone, whose cosmic horrors aren’t inspired by more prosaic prejudices.
My taste has become so prodigiously Italianised that I never order anything but spaghetti & minestrone except when those are not to be had—& they really contain an almost ideal balance of active nutritive elements, considering the wheaten base of spaghetti, the abundant vitamines in tomato sauce, the assorted vegetables in minestrone, & the profusion of powdered cheese common to both. —H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 18 Sep 1925, Letters to Family & Family Friends 1.402
If there is a problem with the humorous expression of Lovecraft’s racism, it isn’t in the fact of making fun of a dead racist, or of painting racism as ridiculous or illogical. The problem is what it is often wrapped around in: the normalization of negative depictions of someone with mental health issues, and the downplaying of the dangers that contemporary racism represents. While a few scholars and pedants may decry the propagation of misinformation about Lovecraft and his fiction, that is ultimately a minor quibble compared to the bigger issues of propagating negative stereotypes like de Camp’s neurotic picture of Lovecraft, or of ignoring the really scary part about Lovecraft’s prejudices:
Many people held them then, and many people still hold them today.
Racist humor always has the caveat that to a certain audience, it isn’t funny because it’s ridiculous or breaking a taboo, but because it appeals to their own prejudices. Dave Chappelle mentioned in a 2006 interview with Oprah about someone laughing at him, rather than with him. The same thing cannot happen in the same way with Lovecraft because Lovecraft is white, and even prejudicial words like “cracker” and “honky” don’t have the same bite or weight as the N-word. Yet at the same time, making fun of Lovecraft’s prejudices has become a popular excuse for continuing to spread that language—the name of his cat, the poem “On the Creation of Niggers”—many writers find it acceptable to repeat that in a humorous context, as the punchline of the joke.
So might their audience.
The use of nigger by black rappers and comedians has given the term a new currency and enhanced cachet such that many young whites yearn to use the term like the blacks whom they see as heroes or trendsetters. —Randall Kennedy, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2003) 36
The moral problem with the humorous portrayal of Lovecraft’s racism isn’t about making fun of Lovecraft, who is already dead and long past injury. It is that the jokes themselves do little but reiterate and spread prejudice. They don’t teach the audience anything about Lovecraft’s racism, and often only work when predicated on an audience already aware of Lovecraft’s racism in some form.
Is there any hidden moral or germ of insight in these portrayals?
A case in point might be made for the Midnight Pals, which takes as its set-up the idea of famous writers, living and dead, sitting around a campfire and having brief conversations. The nature of the form means that the personalities are exaggerated and deliberately satirical. Lovecraft is often portrayed as neurotic, racist, although often ultimately harmless (as opposed to J. K. Rowling, who also appears.) In most cases, Howard’s portrayal makes him the butt of the joke, and the series is clear in demonstrating that racism is bad and Lovecraft is cringe for his prejudices—though not ostracised. Indeed, despite the differing beliefs presented, the campfire group is specifically accepting, even of members who are wildly far apart in their views on race, sex, etc.
The series doesn’t work without some butt to the jokes. Like Archie Bunker, Lovecraft in the Midnight Pals has become the mostly-lovable racist, whose prejudices are played for laughs rather than evidence of malice.
Humor is only one way of portraying Lovecraft in fiction, and Lovecraft’s racism is often used to make him a figure of ridicule. Yet even to do that, humorists often have to go far beyond Lovecraft’s own recorded words and actions. As racist as Lovecraft was, and with the unusually deep record we have from his letters and essays to give evidence to that racism, many people remain ignorant of what Lovecraft actually wrote and said, and many humorists invent new ways for Lovecraft to be racist—which perpetuates the idea of Lovecraft as racist, but isn’t very useful for refuting his actual beliefs. Lovecraft the racist is more often than not effectively a straw man when it comes to humorous portrayals.
It’s not conclusive, Clark, but it appears this dark-haired woman is your ancestor. Please, take no offense…university rules, you know. I’ll have to ask you to leave the premises. —Prof. Upsley, Rat God (2015) by Richard Corben
A very rare form of humor when it comes to Lovecraft’s prejudices is irony. In Richard Corben’s Rat God, the very Lovecraftian protagonist discovers that he is less of a WASP than he thought he was—thanks to the late revelation of a long-forgotten Native American great-great-grandmother. The story takes obvious inspiration from Lovecraft’s “Arthur Jermyn” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” as well as the prejudices expressed in Lovecraft’s own life and letters. The result is not funny in a ha-ha sense, but a grim irony in that the character who exhibited such terrific prejudice throughout the story has discovered that he himself is now subject to the same prejudice by others.
Corben’s ironic unmasking of Lovecraftian prejudice does something that a lot of riffs on Lovecraft’s prejudices don’t: it moves the plot forward. It has something to say beyond “look at how racist Lovecraft is! Isn’t that funny?” It is a bit more subtle, but it also has a point, and illustrates that prejudice is a doctrine which is, ironically, color-blind to its targets. Who knows who every ancestor of theirs is, after all? Who do you think you are?
It has to be recognized that the depiction—accurate or exaggerated—of Lovecraft’s racism goes far beyond humorous jokes and portrayals. There are quite serious fictional depictions of or references to Lovecraft as a racist, as in Richard Lupoff’s Lovecraft’s Book (1985, later re-released as Marblehead), Alan Moore and Jacen Burrow’s graphic novel Providence, Lovecraft Country (2016) by Matt Ruff, The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) by Victor LaValle, Ring Shout (2020) by P. Djèlí Clark, and The City We Became (2020) by N. K. Jemisin. Accuracy is always a challenge for any historical character incorporated into a fictional work, and each author’s usage of Lovecraft is determined by their own research (or lack thereof) and their understanding—and perhaps especially, by the point they want to make.
In several of the latter novels, the point is specifically to bring attention to Lovecraft’s racism, as part of the point of their narrative is the acknowledgment and refutation of Lovecraft’s prejudices. Where a humorous depiction of Lovecraft’s racism shows prejudice as laughable, the serious depiction shows racism as no laughing matter. Either approach is workable depending on what point or mood the creator is trying to get across, one is not superior to the other, and many of the same observations about humorous depictions of Lovecraft’s racism also applies to non-humorous depictions.
Both humorous and non-humorous depictions of Lovecraft tend to be strongly driven by the myth of Lovecraft, rather than historical reality. The neurotic, cartoonishly racist caricature of a horror writer is often an easier character to work with than the more complex and nuanced historical human being, just as bumbling or villainous Nazis are easier to depict than stalwart German troopers with wives and kids who enlisted in a rush of patriotic spirit or economic need and ended up participating in a genocide. Lovecraft is not alone in being depicted first and foremost as a racist; many characters based on historical persons are essentially caricatures.
Lovecraft stands out in this respect only in that he is a pulp author from the period that humorists and their readers are still familiar with. Would the same jokes work if the subject was Ernest Hemingway or Catherine Lucille Moore? Probably not. Not because such jokes wouldn’t be as accurate (or inaccurate) as applied to Lovecraft, but because readers are less familiar with those writers and their prejudices. Lovecraft’s continued relevance, name recognition, and a vague awareness of his life are the main drivers for his continued humorous portrayals—racist warts and all. These depictions have been shaped by previous characterizations of Lovecraft, and in turn continue to shape his myth.
Real historical people are messy and complicated. Myths are easier to deal with. Yet the more the myth is repeated—the more extremes the depiction of a fantasy Lovecraft’s racism become—the harder it is to see the real historical individual. Many people, if they have the image of an individual as racist, take any correction of that image as an attempt to downplay or deny that racism. It can be very difficult to correct such a reputation once it takes hold.
In the small village of Itchno, which is on the outskirts of the town of Konotop, in the small Province of Chernigov, on the cold and wintry night of March 16, 1883, with the temperature several degrees below zero, an infant girl was born. —Sonia H. Davis, Two Hearts That Beat As One (2024) 1
In February 2022, when the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine, I noted the news as the invaders moved through Konotop, the birthplace of Sonia H. Davis, who had once been Sonia H. Lovecraft. In 2019, when I prepared my notes for a panel at NecronomiCon on Lovecraft’s ex-wife, I had wondered if there were any records of her early life still there in the city. As the Russians overran the city, any hope I had of some original documents about Sonia or her family surviving to fill in the gaps in her early life faded.
It was mid-October 2022 when I got in touch with Monica Wasserman (The Papers of Sonia H. Davis), and to my surprise found there were better sources closer at hand than Konotop. We shared a common interest in the former Sonia H. Greene, who had become Mrs. Lovecraft. However, Monica’s dedication to the subject far outstripped mine. Her considerable research on Sonia’s life included access to the papers of Sonia and her third husband at Brown University, tracking down some of Sonia’s books and the extremely scarce second issue of The Rainbow, and scouring newspaper archives and genealogical databases. She even managed to access photographs of Sonia that had never been published, and contacted Sonia’s living relatives for family lore.
My own research was more modest, though complementary: while Monica had focused on her subject, I’d been focused on everything else around Sonia. I had been meticulously reading H. P. Lovecraft’s letters for references to Sonia, and had obtained access to other correspondence from or related to Sonia in various archives. Monica had unearthed the goods: I could offer a bit of context and insight from the Lovecraftian side of things. When Monica followed through on her project of actually publishing Sonia’s autobiography, unearthed from the archive and supplemented by additional autobiographical materials like The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft (1985) by Sonia H. Davis, she was very gracious in allowing me to be a beta reader and to comment on it before publication. Because a few of my suggestions found their way into the final product, I’m listed as a contributor.
Most readers come to Sonia H. Davis as an adjunct to their interest in her second husband, H. P. Lovecraft. Her memoirs of their marriage shed light on a critical period of Lovecraft’s life, and fans and scholars alike sought her out for what she could give them about him. Yet that interest never manifested in any profitable form. Lovecraftian scholarship and publishing in the 1930s-early 1970s was almost entirely a small-scale endeavor, dominated by amateurs and small presses like Arkham House that sometimes seemed more labors of love than businesses that could produce actual revenue. There was no major biography of Lovecraft released during Sonia’s lifetime, though every major biography since has depended at least in part on her memoirs.
Pretty much no one seemed interested in Sonia’s own story. Until Monica Wasserman, that is.
Sonia’s autobiographical manuscript is, first and foremost, the story of her life. Born to Jewish parents in Ukraine (then a part of the Russian Empire), the loss of her father, her travels to the United Kingdom and then the United States, the new family her mother made, her need to work at a young age, marry at a young age, to become a mother, a successful businesswoman, an amateur journalist…long before she met Lovecraft, Sonia lived a life worth telling about. Her story is the story of many immigrants that came to the United States, living by her wits and the sweat of her brow, striving for education to better herself, dreaming of her own business and financial freedom, and yes, even of love.
While Sonia is very honest in her autobiography, there are things she doesn’t talk about very much. This is where Monica added footnotes, stitched-in material from The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft and other autobiographical writings, to fill in some of the gaps. The result is more complete than just the individual works by themselves would be; the formatting by Helios is carefully done so it is easy to see at a glance when another text is “pasted-in,” and perhaps most importantly, in a way that preserves the intent of the book:
To tell Sonia’s story in her own words.
To appreciate Monica’s work, it is important to realize that Sonia desperately needed an editor. While some of her autobiographical writings proceed in a fairly linear manner, she had a tendency to hop around in time, or to put down sudden thoughts and recollections as they occurred to her, and there is much that might be forgotten (or omitted) when writing for a general audience decades later. We see little of her daughter, Florence Carol Greene, who grew up to be the journalist Carol Welde, for example, though we know their relationship was fraught and eventually irrevocably sundered. Endings seemed to be particularly difficult for Sonia; she struggled to wrap things up. The raw manuscripts aren’t unreadable, but they benefit immensely from someone taking the time and care to put them in order and to clarify a few obtuse points with cogent endnotes.
Monica put in the work so that the reader can access Sonia’s story more easily.
Two Hearts That Beat As One is, as of the moment it saw print, the definitive text on Sonia’s life. In a format accessible to both scholars and casual readers, it provides a unique glimpse into the life of a woman who suffered, strove, and finally achieved much of what she hoped for—love, a degree of economic comfort, and purpose—with her third husband, Nathaniel Davis. In time, old age would take this all away. All lives end, and the last chapters are rarely pleasant. Here, at last, Sonia is the star and subject of her own story, not a brief and shadowy chapter in H. P. Lovecraft’s.
One of his stories in Weird Tales was so frightening that it caused removal of the magazine from the newsstands in at least one city. —Howard Wolf, “Variety” column, The Akron Beacon Journal 12 Dec 1927, p10
In his 1927 article on H. P. Lovecraft, Howard Wolf relates the above brief anecdote, which probably came from Lovecraft himself, or one of his close associates. In writing to his aunt Lillian D. Clark about the article, Lovecraft explained:
He is wrong in saying that it was a tale of mine which caused an issue of Weird Tales to be barred from the stands in Indiana. The story in question was Eddy’s “The Loved Dead”—which, however, had much of my work in it. —H. P. Lovecraft to Lilian D. Clark, 10 May 1928, LFF2.652-653
Lovecraft had mentioned a brush with censorship and “The Loved Dead” in his letters since late 1925, although details were vague. One of the key points seemed to be that it involved Indiana and, strangely enough, the Parent-Teacher Associations.
“In the Vault” he rejected because he feared its gruesomeness would get him into trouble with the censors—O Gawd! O Montreal! —H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 4 Nov 1925, DS 86
Glad you like “In the Vault”. Wright’s rejection of that was sheer nonsense—I don’t believe any censor would have objected to it, but ever since the Indiana senate took action about poor Eddy’s “Loved Dead”, he has been in a continual panic about censorship. —H. P. Lovecraft to Lilian D. Clark, 13 Dec 1925, LFF1.507
About poor Eddy’s tale—it certainly did achieve fame of a sort! His name must have rung in tones of fiery denunciation all through the corridors & beneath the classic rotunda (if it has a rotunda) of the Indiana State Capitol! —H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 22-23 Dec 1925, LFF1.520
This worthy editor has been amusingly timid about very bizarre tales ever since he had had some trouble with state censors and parent-teacher associations over a story he printed three years ago—a story, as coincidence would have it, by an acquaintance of mine in Providence. —H. P. Lovecraft to Bernard Austin Dwyer, [June 1927], LMM 455
C. M. Eddy, Jr. and his wife Muriel E. Eddy were pulp writers that lived a few miles from Lovecraft in Providence, Rhode Island. In the early 20s, Lovecraft and the Eddys were fairly close, and Lovecraft would have a hand in several of C. M. Eddy’s weird stories “Ashes” (Weird Tales Mar 1924), “The Ghost-Eater” (Weird Tales Apr 1924), “The Loved Dead” (Weird Tales May-Jun-July 1924), and “Deaf, Dumb and Blind” (Weird Tales Apr 1925), as well as work on The Cancer of Superstition for Harry Houdini. The degree of Lovecraft’s involvement in the stories is difficult to trace; the Eddys and Lovecraft gave different accounts of his work in “The Loved Dead,” though all agree the initial idea was Eddy’s, and it appeared under his byline when it was published in Weird Tales‘ large anniversary number in 1924, which was an oversize issue on the stands for several months.
The reason for the oversize issue is that Weird Tales itself was going through a critical re-organization. Initially, Weird Tales was published by the Rural Publishing Co. with Edwin Baird as editor, and Farnsworth Wright as first reader for the magazine; the offices were in Chicago. Mounting debts forced a change: Baird departed, and Weird Tales was now published by Popular Fiction Publishing of Indianapolis, Ind., with Wright as editor. The oversize 1924 May-Jun-Jul issueof Weird Tales marks the transition from Baird’s editorship to Wright’s, and the move from Illinois to Indiana.
This, then, at the beginning of Wright’s career as editor of Weird Tales, is when something happened—at least, according to Lovecraft, who would continue to refer to the event in his letters for the rest of his life:
Of course, you would have to use vast care & subtlety in suiting the tale to Wright’s idea of its reception by the Indiana Parent-Teacher Association—& even so, his timidity might bring about rejection in the end. Poor chap—he’ll never forget the row that Eddy’s “Loved Dead” stirred up some seven years ago! —H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, [8 Nov 1931], DS 301
Quinn’s new offering would surely seem to be strong stuff—hope it doesn’t produce another situation like that aroused by Eddy’s “Loved Dead”. —H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, [3?-6 Aug 1934], OFF 157
Poor Farny! That censorship of ‘24 absolutely broke his nerve, so that he has ever since been timid about publishing anything with a corpse over 10 hours old! As you may know, he once rejected my “In the Vault” as “too horrible”—although he did take it later on. It may interest you to know that I revised the now-notorious “Loved Dead” myself—practically re-writing the latter half. Eddy is a Providence man, & I was in fairly close touch with him in ‘23. I did not, though, devise the necrophilic portion which so ruffled the tranquility of parents & pedagogues on the banks of the Wabash. —H. P. Lovecraft to Robert Bloch, [mid-Mar 1935], LRBO 132
Did I tell you that he rejected a splendid corpse story by Kid Bloch because it was ‘too horrible’? He brought up the spectre of C. M. Eddy’s “Loved Dead” again after 10 years. Poor chap—he’ll never forget the Indiana Parent-Teacher’s Association! —H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, [24 Mar 1935], OFF 230
A recent experience of little Bobby Bloch does not form an encouraging omen—for Pharnabozus turned down a yarn of his (about a chap who found that his bedfellow in an hotel was a badly decomposed cadaver) on the ground of excessive horror, bringing up the now-classic case of 1924 . . . . . C. M. Eddy’s “Loved Dead” (the latter half of which I re-wrote!) & the Indiana Parent-Teacher’s Association. Poor Farny—he’s like a dog that has received a nerve-breaking scare, & cringes every time anything reminds him of it! —H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, [26 Mar 1935], DS 594
Poor Farny has been timid ever since 1925, when he had a run-in with the Indiana bourgeoisie over a yarn by C. M. Eddy Jr. of Prov., which I revised! —H. P. Lovecraft to Robert Bloch, [mid-May 1936], LRBO 170
As with Edith Miniter and the Dracula revision, Lovecraft’s accounts are generally consistent throughout the years, and many scholars and critics have taken him at his word that perhaps the May-Jun-Jul 1924 issue of Weird Tales was banned in Indiana, or at least Indianapolis, and that the Parent-Teacher’s Association had something to do with it. The problem is, no specific evidence of such a ban has ever been uncovered. Unfortunately, the Lovecraft-Farnsworth Wright correspondence has a gap in that timeframe when it would have occurred, and the surviving letters do not mention it; the same goes for Lovecraft’s letters to C. M. Eddy, Jr. and his wife Muriel. While Lovecraft’s data for the anecdote must have come from Wright or Eddy—there would hardly seem to be anybody else in a position to know—we are left with speculation as to what really happened.
The editorial offices for Weird Tales at this time were at 854 North Clark Street, Chicago; thier business address was 325 North Capitol Avenue, Indianapolis, the address of a brick building constructed and owned by the Cornelious Printing Company, a well-known, family-owned Indianapolis company of solid standing, who happened to be the printer of Detective and weird Tales, and the largest creditor of Rural Publishing. Their building sat a mere block-and-a-half from the capitol. We suspect that Lovecraft’s initial comment—”His name must have run . . .”—was based on infortmation he misunderstood and which he tuned into a delectable joke. What fun to imagine that Eddy’s devilish little story threw a puritanical state goverment into a tizzy! In fact, what probably happened was that the PTA, a member, or even a state senator, visited the Cornelius office to complain about “The Loved Dead,” and the unwholesome influence it might have on the youth of America, etc. et.c, and that the company, which had financial leverage, asked Henneberger to exercise more caution in the future. Then when “In the Vault” was rejected, Lovecraft converted his initial faulty suppostion into a fact. (173)
New evidence, however, suggests there was at least a germ of truth in Lovecraft’s account.
The Indiana Magazine War of 1924
In the Spring of 1924, a grassroots campaign of concerned parents, educators, and other busybodies had enough of salacious pulps on the newsstands. With a cry of “think of the children!” (or a foreshadowing of the later campaign against comic books by Frederic Wertham), the Parent-Teacher Associations of Indiana came together to petition Governor Warren T. McCray to do something about the pulp menace.
McCray dropped the issue in the lap of Indiana State Attorney-General U. S. Lesh. The focus of the petition was not on all pulp magazines, but seemed to be centered on confession pulps and the slightly risque (for the time) spicy pulps, confessionals, and the men’s humor magazines such as Hot Dog, which might have a few pin-ups that bared a shoulder, an ankle, and a filmy veil through which a reader might catch a glimpse of a nipple. Indiana, like most states, already had legislation on the books to deal with obscene publications (Sale of Obscene Magazines To Be Halted In State part 1, part 2), which had occasionally resulted in successful prosecutions (Johnson County Bars Magazines).
Lesh decided now was the time to enforce these laws, and sent out letters to state prosecutors naming 22 pulp titles that the PTA had put forward as wanting off the stands.
Weird Tales was not on the list; it was neither a confession pulp or a spicy pulp, and the covers during that period were often done by Andrew Brosnatch, and fairly unsalacious.
The news spread quickly in Indiana’s newspapers. Immeditately, there was question of enforcement, cries of censorship, and pushback from newsstands, distributors, and pulp magazine publishers. Several state prosecutors such as Frank T. Strayer, Henry T. Hardin, John Summa, Mark I. Thompson, William H. Remy, and P. H. Hurd garnered notices and grabbed headlines (1924 was, after all, an election year) as they moved forward with enforcement, which initially meant seeing what was actually being sold at the local newsstands and bookstores and making the owners aware of possible legal consequences. As the focus was on the point of sale, several news agents removed the magazines from their stock rather than face arrest, fines, and possible imprisonment:
On Monday, 24 Mar 1924, raids were made at newsstands throughout Indiana. Police and prosecutors confiscated thousands of magazines. Macfadden Publishing, who had three confession pulps on the ban list (True Romances, True Stories, and Dream World) organized a meeting of news agents in Chicago (Publishers To Fight Seizure of Magazines). It was the opening salvo in what several Indiana newspapers would dub the “Magazine War.”
However, there was little that pulp publishers could do except circle the legal wagons. One of the first layers of censorship in the United States in that era was the U. S. Post Office, which had the authority to prevent the sending of obscene matter through the mail. Pulp magazines were classified as second-class mail, and subject to inspection; lawyers for the pulp publishers argued that if the post office accepted it, the content must have passed the postal censor (Ignore Attorney-General). This argument, however, did not hold water with the state attorneys. (Publishers Protest, Briefs Are Sent To Prosecutors).
Soon, rumors started of a “test case”—someone to actually be charged with a crime, tried in court, to see if the law would hold against legal reasoning (A “Test Suit”, Seen and Heard About Richmond). Lesh knew that this would be the litmus test of the campaign, and urged prosecutors to proceed cautiously (Lesh Changes Magazine Rule). Such a case soon became reality. State prosecutor B. H. Hurd had set a deadline of 1 April for local dealers to stop selling the banned pulps; one dealer resisted (One Dealer Selling Tabooed Magazines).
The affadavit charged the appellant on April 4, 1924, at Huntington county, in the State of Indiana, did unlawfully sell to one Sophronia Wannas an obscene, lewd, lascivious and licentious publication in the form of a pamphlet, to wit, a pamphlet bearing the name and title of, “Hot Dog, The Regular Fellows Monthly, price two bits,” being then and there of the issue of the month of April 1924, Vol. 3, which printed matter of said pamphlet being then and there too lewd, lscivious and licentious to set out herein and to incumber the records of the court therewith. —Sunderman v. State of Indiana, Reports of Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of the State of Indiana, vol. 197, p705
Enforcement of the pulp ban was uneven. While Attorney-General Lesh could send letters to direct and guide state prosecutors, local authorities had considerably leeway into how hard they pursued the matter. When the new governor, Emmett Forrest Branch took office in May 1924, he pushed Lesh to send another letter to aid enforcement , but not every county took up the ban (No Objection to Magazines Heard, Obscene Magazine Fight Gets Impetus, The Indiana Anti-Pulp Crusade). On the other hand, other prosecutors appear to have been more keen: William H. Remy presented evidence before a grand journey to see if he could prosecute (Grand Jury May Get Bad Magazine Cases). Others set a deadline of August 1st to remove offending magazines from their county.
Pulp publishers such as Macfadden and distributors such as the Hoosier News Agency continued to resist however they could. Macfadden managed to convince several Indiana ministers to come out in favor of the moral stories in their confession pulps (Pastors Aid Magazines Banned Here), and Lesh apparently agreed to allow Macfadden’s pulps to be sold until a test case could be resolved (Magazines Under Ban Are Being Sold Thru “Truce”), but the individual district attorneys were the ones who decided which magazines to ban…which may explain why, in September 1924, Macfadden took out a large advertisement against the Richmond District Attorney.
As autumn turned to winter, the magazine war slowed. Lesh consulted with postal inspectors, presumably to stop the offending periodicals from coming into the state (In Postal Campaign). Some pulp publishers were accused of having changed tactics, producing pulp magazines with new titles that didn’t appear on the ban list (New Magazines Are Suspected), but this seems unlikely—or at least, the turnover of old pulps folding and new ones forming doesn’t seem to fit with Lesh’s list or the publishers of the pulps on that list. In practice, the pulp field was so fecund, with new magazines published and ceasing publication every year, that any static blacklist could not possibly keep up.
1925 brought a change: U. S. Lesh was no longer Attorney-General of Indiana. Lesh and the PTA had shifted their attention from enforcing existing laws to pushing new legislation. Their reasoning behind this was clear:
Lesh prepared the bill, which provided for magazine sellers to be licensed by the state. The bill died in the Indiana house of representatives (Magazine Bill Goes Down in the House).
Weird Tales entered into the picture near the end of the drama. While Lesh was out, individual prosecutors could and did continue to enforce magazine bans. Henry T. Hardin was a particularly tenacious and truclent. In June 1925, he published a list of 46 pulp titles banned in Evansville, Indiana—based on the initial list of 21 titles provided to Lesh by the PTA, it also included Weird Tales. Hardin’s reasons for including the weird fiction pulp among the spicies, romance pulps, and girlie magazines is not stated. Perhaps someone really did read “The Loved Dead” and got offended.
Farnsworth Wright, who took over as editor of Weird Tales from Edwin Baird, wrote in a September 1924 letter, “The Richmond (Indiana) Parent Teachers’ Association tried to get an injunction out against the further publication of Weird Tales because of ‘The Loved Dead.'” (vi)
Without access to that letter, this quote cannot be confirmed, and no news notice in support of this has yet been located. Yet if accurate, that would be another instance of Weird Tales being targeted.
While the stated intent of the campaign was to save the children, the magazines targeted had an audience largely comprised of older teens and adults, many of them women (“Bootlegging” of Magazines is Predicted). Confession pulps like True Romance and True Confessions more often than not contained morality tales where women expressed their regret for terrible decisions or circumstances that left them wiser and dealing with the consequences; yet to hear state prosecutor William H. Remy tell it:
They make a heroine of the unfaithful wife and a martyr of the renegade husband. The divorce evil is already serious enough in Marion county, and so is the matter of crime, and magazines which tend to encourage either or to condone offenses against the laws of the land ought to be blacklisted by public opinion as well as by law. —“To Prosecure Sellers of Obscene Magazines” part 1, The Indianapolis News, 3 May 1924, p1
Even the spicy pulps like Breezy Stories and Saucy Stories sold the sizzle, not the steak—no pulp publisher was going to print an explicit account of sex. Yet to the stolid men of the state attorneys offices, these were considered obscene.
Yet despite all the hullaballoo, it is clear this was not a popular crusade. At a time when the state prosecutors and law enforcement were wrestling with the Volstead Act, Indiana’s Magazine War went unsupported in a majority of its counties, seems to have resulted in few prosecutions or fines, and did not apparently change or diminish the content of any of the pulp magazines involved—unless Lovecraft was correct, and Farnsworth Wright, wet behind the ears as editor of Weird Tales, was scared because his magazine was numbered, however briefly, among the obscene materials that might be banned from the newsstands.
The players in this little drama are little more than footnotes in Indiana state history, but the outlines of the conflict are an old, ugly tale, one which has played out again and again—censorship by an outspoken minority, and the rule by fear.
Loose Ends
As with any old puzzle, there are a few pieces that don’t quite fit, and those deserve to be briefly addressed. In one letter recounting various experiences he has and has not had, Lovecraft wrote:
I have several times been in a police station—usually to inquire about stolen property, & once to see the Chief of Police about the banning of a client’s magazine from the stands—but never in the part devoted to cells. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 29 May 1933, LJS 131
Lovecraft does not give a date or place for his incident, and some have suggested that this might be a reference to the banning of Weird Tales‘ May-Jun-Jul 1924 issue. However, on the balance this seems unlikely—Lovecraft was never in Indiana, and there doesn’t seem to be anything the Chief of Police in any city he did visit could have done. It is possible that this is a forgotten incident with another magazine—one can imagine the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice getting a hold of a copy of Home Brew and squinting at the phallic shapes of Clark Ashton Smith’s vegetation—but lacking any hint of that in Lovecraft’s letters, it must remain a mystery.
In a memoir of Lovecraft, his friend and literary executor R. H. Barlow wrote:
He tells me he ghostwrote “The Curse of Yig,” “The Last Test,” “The Electric Executioner”; some Houdini stuff in WT—“The Loved Dead”; that the latter was nearly suppressed in Milwaukee because of the necrophilic theme. —R. H. Barlow, “Memories of Lovecraft (1934)”, OFF 402
Milwaukee is in Wisconsin. In this case, I believe Barlow simply misremembered what Lovecraft had said.
Thanks extremely for the interesting cuttings, which I herewith return. I also have kept a file of these things for years—would you care to see some of the choicest items? I’d be glad to lend any number of envelopes full. That fog in Washington surely was a curious ‘colour out of space’ . . . . . I wonder if the preparations to reprint my story in that state had anything to do with it? The case of the Boer lady—Mevrouw van de Riet—certainly offers dark food for the imagination. She seems to be a sort of female Aleister Crowley—or a striga, lamia, empusa, or something of the sort. An odd—& potentially evil—face. Actually, she probably has the same degenerate psychology found in the old maleficae whom Sprenger & Kramer & Boguet & the other Renaissance prosecutors encountered—no doubt seeking to start cults or groups of loathsome practices wherever she settles. For fictional purposes you could use the South African birth—hinting at a childhood visit to the ruins of Zimbabwe by moonlight, & at whispers overheard there . . . . . . for is that not one of the points visited by the Fishers from Outside? —H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, postmarked 18 Nov 1933, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 479
I’m glad the newspaper clippings were of interest. Thanks for your suggestion about the Boer witch-woman: she might well have gone to Zimbabwe and imbibed certain vaporous or shadowy outside influences from those unholy ruins. I may yet use her in a story; she certainly looks the part assigned to her. —Clark Ashton Smith to H. P. Lovecraft, postmarked 4 Dec 1933, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 491
Today, friends widely separated geographically can easily send each other news articles and images from different parts of the world through social media and the internet. In Lovecraft’s day, they would stick clippings from newspapers and magazines to each other alongside their letters. As the clippings themselves often do not survive, researchers are left to figure out what Lovecraft and friends were talking about via the references left in their letters—which, for Mevrouw (“Madam” or “Mrs.” in Dutch/Afrikaans) van de Riet, little has come to light.
Fortunately, the ongoing scanning and uploading of newspaper archives has at last put forward a promising candidate:
Crash Is Laid To Woman
Witchcraft, darkly sinister, fraught with all the mystery that has coursed uncertainly through the ages, found its way into the port of San Francisco yesterday.
A tale of black magic was told by men of the sea who shuddered fearfully as they whispered of the strange curse that has pursued the Silver Palm, British freighter, which collided with the cruiser Chicago in an “unnatural” fog off Point Sur.
Woman in Mystery As this saga of sorcery was recounted, it was almost as if a a marrow chilling wind from a long forgotten civilization swept through the city, desstrying every concept belonging to this generation.
The story concerns a woman. The only passenger aboard the Silver Palm at the time of the fatal crash, whose very presence on the freighter caused high seas to run and desne fogs to fall. Whose familiarity with gods of the underworld brought disaster upon the shop, and whose artful malevolence resulted in a near collision with the Tattosh lighthouse and the unforseen accident with the Chicago.
This is what members of the Silver Palm’s crew are whispering about Mrs. Maude A. C. Van der Riet, former resident of Marin county, who is now being detained at Angel Island at the request of the British Government, pending the arrival of another ship to take her to South Africa.
Fear Seals Lips So convinced are they that she is a “witch woman,” and that she along was responsidble for the ship’s misfortunre, that two Hindu sailors refused to testify under oath at the inquiry board session at Mare Island for fear she would put a curse on them.
And yet, as Mrs. Van de Riet basked in the bright sun yesterday at Angel Island, watching her three kittens scamper about, she seemed anything but a “jinx woman.” She exuded no mysterious force, and spoke in simple terms of her weariness and her desire for beauty.
She boarded the Sil[v]er Palm at Vancouver at the request of the British Government who tactfully insisted upon her immediate return to South Africa, the land of her brith. —S. F. Chronicle
As this article doesn’t include a photograph of Mrs. van der Riet, this wasn’t exactly the clipping that Smith sent Lovecraft—probably it was the original version from the San Francisco Chronicle, whose 1933 issues are not yet available. Still, it seems to be the only article that attributes witchy attributes to van der Riet, whose story is a bit more prosaic.
The 1930 Federal census lists Maude van der Riet as a resident alien from South Africa, a widow living on her own in Marin, California. A card from a 1925 crossing to Mexico gives her full name as Maude Anna Catherine Vander Riet. She was about 46 in 1930, and is listed as having entered the U.S. in 1926. A 1925 passenger departing/arriving list for Hawaii lists her occupation as “Nurse,” as does her entry in the 1928 San Francisco city directory. A 1925 newspaper article says that she was a Red Cross nurse, and that when denied to go to shore in the port of Los Angeles, she jumped off a ship, the Rakuyo Maru (same as the 1925 passenger list above), and swam ashore before walking back to the ship (Defies Law By Swim To Reach Land).
In 1933, Van der Riet was in Vancouver, Canada when she was apparently requested by the British government to return to South Africa. She boarded the M.S. Silver Palm as the only passenger when it left Vancouver on 20 October. On 24 October, the Silver Palm collided with the U. S. S. Chicago off Point Sur during a heavy fog. The collision left three U.S. seamen dead (Paymaster John W. Troy, Lt. H.A. McFarlane, Lt. F. S. Chappelle,), and one injured (machinist J. A. Oehlers) (Warship in Crash, Two Killed In Crash In Fog Off Point Sur). Later newspaper accounts reveal gruesome details: Oehlers had a “fractured arm and mashed hand” which required amputation of the army just below the elbow; Troy was crushed to death in his stateroom; the head and face of Chapelle was found as the wreckage was torn away, and McFarlane was initially believed missing, but the crushed and mangled body was found after hours of work with torch and saw—his stateroom had been directly hit (Mystery Ship in Crash).
Newspaper accounts list the Silver Palm arriving in San Francisco regularly; the Chicago was on the way to San Francisco for Navy Day celebrations. The Point Sur lighthouse could not see clearly what happened. As details emerged in the paper, Capt. Herbert E. Kays of the Chicago claimed that he was attempting to avoid a collision with a third, unknown ship (later described as a “rusty tramp freighter”) in the fog when the Silver Palm emerged from the fog to starboard. The third made of the Silver Palm, George Ellis Stanley, confirmed Capt. Kays’ report of a third ship (Quiz Pressed In Ship Crash).
The first articles were focused on the crash itself, and the dead and missing officers of the Chicago. An official inquiry would be made and interviews taken (Naval Inquiry Board Starts Probe of Ship-Cruiser Crash), yet there was one witness that got into print the day after the accident: Maude van der Riet.
Petaluma Argus-Courier, 25 Oct 1933, p3
The news of the collision was widely reported; the aftermath a little less so. Reporters followed the inquiry, and the testimony given by crew and officers. Libel suits by the freighter company and the U.S. Navy were filed, and the tragic accident took on the narrative of a legal drama. Mrs. van der Riet is not mentioned in the lists of witnesses called—nor, perhaps, was she expected to be, as she was only a passenger. The sensational claim that Maude van der Riet was a witch appears to be only a bit of yellow journalism. They couldn’t even get the number of kittens she had correctly.
What happened to Maude van der Riet? Presumably, she was put on another ship to go back to South Africa; the why and wherefore of that trip and her earlier and later life aren’t recorded in sources I have access to, though possibly someone with better sources in South Africa, Canada, Australia, or the U.K. might have better luck.
Lovecraft and Smith probably had little more to go by than the one article declaring van der Riet a witch, and that is what tickled Lovecraft’s imagination. He would set a story partially in South Africa, “Winged Death” (1934) by Hazel Heald & H. P. Lovecraft, which was published a few months later, and the reference to Great Zimbabwe and the “Fishers from Outside” is a reference to “The Outpost” (1930) and his conception of an African Mythos. The idea of a woman who had learned witchcraft in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe was also a minor plot point in “Medusa’s Coil” (1939) by Zealia Bishop & H. P. Lovecraft, written c. 1930. The reference to Aleister Crowley is simply a reflection of the Great Beast’s reputation, which Lovecraft commented on elsewhere in his letters.
In the end, Clark Ashton Smith doesn’t seem to have used Maude van der Riet in any of his stories, and this potential plot idea was dropped by both men. Yet it is a good example of the kind of oddness that could crop up in newspapers during their lifetime, how this information (or disinformation) could be spread, and could inspire stories in pulp authors. It shows too how easily Lovecraft could adopt new material into his existing framework as the Mythos slowly grew.
In the August Derleth (1909 – 1971) archive of the Wisconsin Historical Society, there is a fairly substantial file of correspondence from Zealia Bishop (1897 – 1968), comprising ~83 letters and postcards (192 pages) over a period of about thirty years (1937 – 1966, roughly; many letters are undated). The first letter is dated 8 Apr 1937, and is a reply from Bishop to Derleth:
Dear August Derleth:—
I am overwhelmed with shock & grief at the tragic message your letter conyed to me for I had not learned until then of Mr. Lovecraft’s death. No on can ever know what his means to me as it was he who steered me into the path of writing—who taught me the necessity & fascination of playing with words—taught me humbleness rather than arrogance—and it was always to him that I rushed when in difficulty—how willingly, patiently and kindly did he always pull me from the chaos—regardless of the sacrifice to himself—Poor Howard! What a beautiful spirit he possessed—& how insignificant the rest of us are beside his shining armor! How I shall continue without him I don’t know—for he was as an anchor in my stormy career. Anything—anything I can do for his old aunt—& to partially repay him for his goodness & patience, to me—let me know— His letters to me—I have hundreds & hundreds—are so beautiful & inspiring. Why could we not use excerpts from them? Also I have two stories which were never published—you might be interested in reading them— F. Wright—read one: Medusa’s Coil—but could not use it then—I never sent it again nor endeavored to place it with another publisher—Two years ago Howard helped me with a book—The Adopted Son—He liked it so very much—and urged my sending it out tirelessly—but after I’ve done a piece of work I can’t bring myself to struggle over the financial ends—the book is here—Would you care to read it?
And on in that vein. In effect, Bishop’s correspondence with Derleth picks up where her correspondence with Lovecraft drops off. Zealia Bishop was at the time relatively comfortable with her husband Dauthard William Bishop in Missouri, where they owned a farm/ranch (and later a furniture manufacturing business). Their sons from previous marriages were now grown and out of the house, according to the 1940 Federal census, and they had not yet adopted their two daughters.
As with Hazel Heald, Derleth wrote to Zealia Bishop primarily in search of Lovecraftiana, as part of his nascent plan to publish the fiction and letters of H. P. Lovecraft. She had two weird stories revised by Lovecraft as yet unpublished: “Medusa’s Coil” (1939) and “The Mound” (1940), which Derleth would see published (and in the former case, whose ending he would bowdlerize). Bishop’s letters from Lovecraft were transcribed and some of them made it into the Selected Letters published by Arkham House. Derleth appears to have shown rather less interest in Bishop’s non-weird fiction.
The majority of the letters are from Zealia Bishop to Derleth, and this gives a different perspective, since we can read about her own life and experience with Lovecraft in her own words. These first 1937-1941 letters in particular deal considerably with her memories of Lovecraft and the publication of her stories at Weird Tales. After this, the correspondence appears to have fallen off for a space. The next letter from Bishop to Derleth is dated 19 Jan 1949, where she details the losses suffered during the war.
Her letters veer between reminiscences of Lovecraft and matters of the present, especially where they came together in the printing of her stories. Both “The Mound” and “The Curse of Yig” appeared in Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943) from Arkham House, so presumably there would have been permission sought and granted, but Bishop did not apparently receive a copy of the book until after she wrote to Derleth in 1949, which prompted the comment:
He knew that I prefered lighter fiction, tho he encouraged my continuing on with weird stories for he thought I would gain more depth. He was delighted when I went to Oklahoma and became interested in folklore and wrote the story of Yig. This is strictly a story that came from my sister’s husband’s grandmother and the Indians around Binger. The names all authentic. The Mound also came from the same source and Medusa’s Coil originated from a tale told me by my negro maid.
I am wondering how the fact that it is listed as HPL’s story in this book will effected its being reprinted in a collection of my own? Was it your intention to make them appear as his stories? —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 28 Jan 1949, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
When and how Zealia Bishop decided she might publish a collection of her stories isn’t clear, yet this became the trend of her correspondence with Derleth over the next few years, which resulted in The Curse of Yig (1953) being published by Arkham House as a more-or-less vanity press arrangement.
Business aside, their friendship improved when they actually met in person in 1949—her son Jim (James P. Reed) was out of the army and living in Madison, Wisconsin, Derleth’s home state, so they were close enough to visit. Her reaction was positive, if perhaps not exactly heartening:
Dear August:
A little late in telling how much Jim and I enjoyed the visit with you and how much it meant to me. That trip was exactly what I needed to get me back in harness and on the road again. Believe this time I shall continue on and, at least, get a peek at the bull’s eye. How foolish for me, with all the years of training I’ve had, to have let people discourage me. From now on—well, I’ll keep plugging. […]
I fell more at ease with you now. You’re just another boy—big, fat—spoiled as hell—
My best always, Zealia —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 6 Apr 1949, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
At the time, Derleth had some issues with his weight and hypertension; he was also “pitching woo” with a local teenage girl (Sandra Winters, whom Derleth would later marry), which Bishop found amusing. Much of the focus on her own life and writing in the letters surrounds Bishop’s critical lack of confidence in her own writing, her inability to finish things, and her concern over the perception of her work as her own:
It was just before Bill’s and my brother’s tragic deaths, that H. Hoffman Price [sic] (maybe I have that first initial wrong) turned me over to his agent August Lenninger. At that point when he was advising me my heart and mind seemed suddently to stand still. Oh, I always did some writing, kept notes religiously. That was simply second nature . . . . but it was difficult to settle down to creating anything in particular. Then suddenly things changed for me. I knew I must do everything I had been seeking (at least make the efort) But, for some reason, I began to feel, that possibly my writing weird tales and having HPL revise them had made it difficult for me to do things of any importance, without editors believing I had been unable to create alone. Is that true, or is that merely me own fancy? Now, I believe I should begin to sell—if I have developed characterization well enough. The plots are there . . . but— Of all the eight novels I wrote I never tried to sell any of them. The last time Professor Moe read my pottery novel ater my final revision, he said it was a ‘work of art’; that I ahd done a wonderful job and he thought it would sell; but I didn’t send it out. I had that feeling I still couldn’t sell my work to an editor. I would like to have you read one or two either short stories or nevels and tell me what you think of them and point out specifically what I should or shot not do. —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 24 Apr 1949, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
E. Hoffmann Price and Maurice W. Moe were friends of Lovecraft’s; Price was a professional pulp writer during the 40s, and August Lenninger a hard-nosed agent, while Moe was primarily an English teacher. Bishop’s fear of rejection is almost palpable in these letters; for Derleth, who needed to publish constantly to survive, it was almost a matter of course that some stories or novels would be rejected—and rewritten, resubmitted, until they sold. That was how he worked.
Derleth was willing to be friendly, and even read and offer a few comments on her manuscripts, evident from a carbon of a letter that survives, with notes like: “try to be less feminine in your writing. Eliminate gushing, and there is quite a bit of it in these pages.” and “You have a tendency to be trite and hackneyed, as perhaps you know.” While these might seem a bit harsh, they’re also probably fair and well-meant.
The file of correspondence is spotty 1950-1952. The long-promised articles on Lovecraft and Derleth that Bishop had meant to write took a long time to actually come to fruition, and both were very busy with their respective lives. The adoption of the young women Helen and Frances May (“Frankie”) by Zealia and her husband apparently was completed in 1950. August Derleth and Sandra Winters were engaged to be married and Zealia congratulated them about it a little early (the letter of 10 Jun 1952 is addressed to “Mr. & Mrs. Derleth”; they would not be married until 6 Apr 1953—unless the letter is misdated, which is possible).
Then, disaster.
D. W. Bishop would live until 1956, but would never regain his full health. This was a major change to Zealia’s life and to the businesses that the Bishops shared. At the same time, she was determined to publish something; and Derleth was amenable for her weird fiction to come out through Arkham House. So the letters focus on the details of the publication of The Curse of Yig, which provided a relief from managing the farm and her life as caretaker:
Since D.W. is in this state—whether or not to be of long duration I shall be confined closely. Were I unable to keep busy and accomplish something, I could not exist. I cannot play or practice on the organ or piano. We have to whisper most of the time and slip about on tip-toe. Except on the surface, all idea of keeping the house clean by vacum [sic] or waxer is remote. Any noise seems to set him into a tantrum. Yes, it is very hard on one who has been so active and I would give my own life if I could give back to him his health and activity. Nothing could be worse or more heartbreaking than to watch his slow disintegration and one whom you love so dearly. So, you see, why I am especially eager to keep so busy and must not dwell too much upon the conditions about me. —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 22 Dec 1952, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
D. W. is not now bedfast. He sits in a contour chair in a darkened library fourteen to eighteen hours a day—and never moves from there except to go to his meals, to the bath or, on occasion, to look out one of the windows in another room. For amusement or diversion he listens to a radio beginning at 5:A.M. and continuing until sometimes midnight. (I loathe a radio.) He likes only hillbilly msuic. He insists that I sit with him at all times. If I go upstairs or into another room he calls or starts ringing a bell for me. In three days I wrote exactly four words on the revision of the DERLETH article. —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 14 Aug 1953, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
Things aren’t going so well here. Drs. have had to tell D.W. his true condition. I am going work of the day & night—so I am weary, very weary—and must do all the planning for this cattle sale Oct 21st. —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 16 Sep 1953, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
Without D. W. Bishop at the helm to manage the business, the decision was made to close it out—sell the cattle at least—which in itself was a complicated process that involved some involvement with the Internal Revenue Service, according to Zealia Bishop’s 19 Jan 1954 letter to Derleth. The same year, their adopted daughter Frankie was married. The promotion for The Curse of Yig included a brief appearance on local television:
Anne Hayes had me on TV last Tuesday—with Frank Glenn—who has the more complete book stores in this aera [sic]. He gave a fine plug for the book, and immediately afterward had a number of calls for “YIG”—I am profoundly surprised that so much interest is being shown because I am not too elated. Had this come ten years ago I would have loved it and perhaps been a bigoted nit-wit—now, I feel only humility and gratitude for having the honor of being instructed by so great a man and teacher—In the interview your pitcutre was held before the camera and we discussed you— —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 19 Jan 1954, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
As it happened, Zealia had misunderstood her contract with Arkham House, which probably exacerbated her financial difficulties at this trying time, due to having taken a short-term loan to cover the cost of printing the book and not understanding that the immediate receipts from initial sales would not begin to pay it back.
It was, it happened, a bad time for Arkham House. The Curse of Yig (1953) was followed by The Feasting Dead (1954) by John Metcalfe, but Arkham House did not publish another book until The Survivor and Others (1957), Derleth’s collection of his posthumous collaborations with Lovecraft. Derleth’s letters to Zealia Bishop during this period give a peak into Arkham House’s business, and the harsh realities of independent press publishing. The slowness in which The Curse of Yig sold probably discouraged any further publishing plans Bishop had.
There seem to be fewer letters from Zealia to August during this period, though they appear to have remained on good terms. A letter of congratulations was sent to August and Sandra Derleth on the birth of their first child, April Rose Derleth, in 1955. For herself, Zealia was still dealing with her husband:
D. W. is holding own. We still have three nurses and our income is rapidly vanishing. he is helpless, it requires two people to turn or move him. he doesn’t get up at all anymore, but we try not to let it discourage us. Rather, we endeavor to feel this is our God-given job and we must go about it happily and unselfishly. Such an attitude does wonders for us! I believe I feel younger and certainly do not feel one day older . . . tho my hair is quite silver! —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 4 Jul 1956, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
D. W. Bishop died 11 Sep 1956; the death certificate lists immediate causes of death as pyelonephritis (kidney infection), uremia (high urea in the blood, from kidney failure), and pneumonia. Zealia announced her husband’s death in the same letter where she congratulated the Derleths on the birth of their second child, Walden William Derleth. The death meant more legal matters to deal with, including government audits of the furniture factory, and Zealia was a grandmother eight times over. She tried to keep in touch. Yet there are gaps in the letters, and signs of weariness from the years of caretaking which, now over, left her bereft of purpose.
Never a year went by without a letter or two from Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, but in 1963 her financial situation took a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse:
Have lost practically everything—through no fault of my own—Go over your books—See if you can send me a small check each month instead of semi-annually—Never needed help before in my life—& so desperately—Will tell you all later—Am living with my niece— —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, c. Jun 1963, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
What exactly happened isn’t clear from the letters; she wrote in 1959 that Kansas City absorbing Gashland changed the “tax picture” on her property—probably that meant higher taxes. There may also have been some business mismanagement, for she wrote that she was not often in the office, that her problems were placing her trust and confidence in others, and in one undated letter: “I had no debts—they were debts of others—”
Newspaper ads suggest that Zealia Bishop owed the government several years of back taxes, and when they came to collect the farm, factory, and house were all foreclosed on and had to be sold.
The letters to Derleth did not cease. Zealia Bishop did her best to go on with her life, though at times she would write things like:
Am so unsettled—so unaccustomed to living this way—my heart simply isn’t in anything. It’s difficult to realize this is actually “me”— —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, c. 1965, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
She was 68 years old and had lost her husband, her home, presumably most of all of her savings and many belongings. On top of which, there seems to have been a breakdown in her relationship with her son:
Never hear from Jim—& we were such truly good friends—as well as mother & son—& my only child! I shall never recover from all this—it was so tragic—so unnecessary— —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, 8 Mar 1966, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
We do not have Jim Reed’s thoughts on his mother, or what the circumstances were; perhaps he had simply not called or written to her for a while, and there was no real break, only a lonely old woman who wanted to hear from her child more often than she did. The end of life is almost always tragic, if only because it is written out long beforehand, and cannot be avoided. Many of the later letters, where Zealia’s handwriting becomes noticeably more shaky, ask for Derleth to send her anything he can—any check, however small—and with every indication is that she was near the end of her resources. In an undated letter, she wrote:
To one who has tried to make life worthwhile for others I cannot believe so much has been put upon my shoulders—everything stripped from me with an hour’s warning—& not one bit of it my fault except trust & confidence.
How I would love to see & talk to you, August, & have your advice as a column. —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, n.d. [1964?], MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
While the occasional small royalty check on The Curse of Yig was no doubt welcome, what she always asked for from Derleth was news of him and his children—what she always expressed was a desire to visit and see him once again. Friendship, as much as anything, was what Zealia Bishop seemed to crave in her extremity—and perhaps Derleth did his part to provide that.
Into every life comes ups and downs, and Zealia weathered her storms with whatever dignity she could manage. Lovecraft, no doubt, would have approved.
We are in the direct line of a tornado at the moment so I’ll stop & go to the basement with the rest— —Zealia Bishop to August Derleth, n.d. [1965], MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to. —Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent
Lovecraft country is often associated with New England, because that’s where Lovecraft set many of his most famous stories. Arkham, Dunwich, and Innsmouth are in the fictional Miskatonic River valley of a fantasy version of Essex County of Massachusetts. Yet Lovecraft country was never restricted to the Bay State.
The fictional stomping-grounds of the Old Ones encompassed the Oklahoma frontier of “The Curse of Yig” (1929) and “The Mound” (1940); the French provence of Averoigne in Clark Ashton Smith’s tales; the ancient town of Stregoicavar in Hungary in Robert E. Howard’s “The Black Stone” (1931). Other writers have staked out and developed their own corners of Lovecraft country: the Severn Valley in Ramsey Campbell’s tales, with Goatswood and Brichester; the Sesqua Valley in the Pacific Northwest by W. H. Pugmire; and any other of other additions, popular and obscure, by writers professional and amateur.
Yet this might be a first. Niceville USA meets Shub-Niggurath.
The Shadow over Des Moines is a parody written in the style of the great pulp horror author H.P. Lovecraft. if you are not familiar with his work, you are missing a treat. He’s perfect for Halloween. Check out The Dunwich Horror, At the Mountains of Madness or The Shadow over Innsmouth. I am not ashamed to say that Lovecraft has had a singificant influence on my own writing. —Lisabet Sarai, “The Shadow over Des Moines”
Two of the elements that make parody work are juxtaposition and exaggeration. The Lovecraftian parodist doesn’t just copy the most obvious or characteristic elements of Lovecraft’s prose, they often enhance them to the point of ridiculousness. Made all the more obvious by contrasting the Lovecraftian aesthetic with an area of the country least associated with anything eldritch.
The surprising thing is, it doesn’t come off badly. The prose is a little purple, but the Midwestern setting itself isn’t exaggerated. It’s more like a Lovecraftian protagonist moved into a suburb than an attempt to reveal the hidden horrors of home-made blueberry pie and calf-length skirts. The humor and horror of the story don’t come at the expensive of the innocent metropolis of Des Moines, but in the quirky Lovecraftian excess of the protagonist—and the fact that this is an erotic parody.
Leonora encouraged me to drop by and visit anytime, but I doubted that I would act on her suggestion. Shivers ran down my spine as a I watched her swaying hips retreat down my path and across the street to her own dwelling. Nevertheless, I found my body reacted to her as if I were fifteen instead of fifty four. I found it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour reading Popular Mechanics before my tumescence subsided. —Lisabet Sarai, “The Shadow over Des Moines”
The outlines of the story are familiar; basically Fright Night with a sexy Lovecraftian twist and trappings. The fact that so much of it is played straight-faced makes the occasional play on words all the more effective (“Mrs. Gratsky’s gate swung silenly open, as if well-lubricated.”) If it leans a little too hard into some of the stereotypes of Lovecraftian pastiche, it also works to deliver a carefully-curated erotic aesthetic that balances vivid description with an older, quainter verbiage. The end result is as absurd as it is utterly appropriate. Where else but in such a story as this will you get such turns of phrase as “unhallowed anus?”
Like most erotic Lovecraftian ebook fare, things wrap up fairly swiftly after the climax. The pacing is set up for this single encounter, not a longer series of repetitive erotic adventures a la the Booty Call of Cthulhu series. Yet this is a very competent, self-contained example of this mode of fiction. If I had any suggestion for a sequel, it would be to make more use of Des Moines itself; it feels like there was room to make more use of this most un-Lovecraftian addition to Lovecraft country.
I’ve lived for long, uncounted eons Since Time and I were young; I dwell in hidden crypts and eyries, And speak with witch’s tongue.
When blood drips from the horned moon, And wild winds lash the sea, And men and ships die in the night, I laugh with demon-glee.
For well I know my evil curse— That I shall never die; My soul will dwell with snakes and toads, and bats that blindly fly.
I walk my dark, forbidden ways, And none of human race Can ever flee my awful spell, Who look upon my face.
And when the sun at last grows cold In its vain, ageless quest, I’ll seek once more the alien land Where I was born unblest. —Pauline Booker, “The Eldritch One”
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Pauline Booker was a pulp poet during the 1940s and 50s with a long list of verse published in magazines like All-Story Love, Love Book Magazine, Max Brand’s Western Magazine, New Love Magazine, Rangeland Romances, Romance Western, Sweetheart Love Stories, Star Western—and three poems in Weird Tales. Of her life and broader career, practically nothing is known. All we can say for certain is that she had her finger on the pulse of weird fiction, at least a little.
H. P. Lovecraft did not coin the word “eldritch”—did not even use it in the majority of his stories, and only once or most twice in any given story (although he did use it three times in “Supernatural Horror in Literature.”) Yet it is a keyword that has become associated with Lovecraft and his mode of fiction as surely as “cosmic horror,” “squamous,” “non-Euclidean,” or “tentacle.” Eldritch has become part of the vocabulary of cosmic horror, used and abused with love and affection by all manner of writers.
When did that transition happen? Google’s n-gram viewer is a handy snapshot for a word’s use, and the word was decreasing in frequency, almost at the nadir of its use until the 1910s—and forms a little peak around the time when Weird Tales began to be published in 1923. Is the recent spike in usage all down to Lovecraft and the fiction he inspired? Maybe. Andrew Eldritch, lead singer of Sisters of Mercy, and Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964) probably also contributes to the trend. Yet Pauline Booker was writing during a period when “eldritch” was on the decline again, at least outside of Mythos pastiches.
Yet how many fans of Lovecraft and weird fiction would not have caught her meaning, just from the title?
While it is tempting to try and connect “The Eldritch One” to some specific inspiration from Lovecraft, the imagery of the poem is rather traditional, combining favorite elements from Weird Tales, and not anything specific to one of Lovecraft’s stranger horrors. There are hints of witchcraft, of gorgons, immortality or the undead. A miscellany of horror, a real witch’s brew of familiar elements, but nothing concrete. Yet in its own way, as with all good poetry, it is timeless, as relevant and enjoyable to horror fans now as it was then.
Weird Tales May 1948 (art by Fred Humiston)
“The Eldritch One” was published in Weird Tales May 1948. It has not been reprinted.
What follows is an extended deep-dive into the history of one of the most contentious affairs in pulp science fiction in the 1940s, the Shaver Mystery, and its interactions with H. P. Lovecraft’s Mythos, which was also beginning to coalesce in the same period. The ramifications of their interactions would spill over into science fiction fandom, conspiracy circles, and occult literature, with long-lasting effects on popular culture. Because this is very long, the following internal links are provided for those who would like to jump to specific sections.
I am certainly inclined to believe that [Shaver] has been inspired by the success of Lovecraft in attempting to create a literary mythos with much the same basic motif as he developed in his stories of the Old Ones. But, unlike Lovecraft, Mr. Shaver is not an artist. —Alan Devereux, “Mr. Shaver’s Memories” in Fantasy Review (Oct-Nov 1948) 11
The entire Shaver mythos is so obviously derived from the Lovecraftian fictional background that it is hard today to imagine that it impressed any experienced readers. The first Shaver story told how the people of ancient Earth were endangered by a degenerated elder, how the hero and his followers learned of the danger, and how escape was achieved with the help of immortal elder gods. —Harry Warner, Jr., All Our Yesterdays: an informal history of science fiction fandom in the 1940s (2004), 234
In 1926, Hugo Gernsback had founded Amazing Stories as the first pulp magazine devoted to science fiction. Mismanagement cost Gernsback the magazine, and it went through several hands; by the late 1930s it was owned by pulp publisher Ziff Davis and its readership in decline. In 1938, the editorship of Amazing was given to Ray Palmer, a young and enthusiastic pulp writer and editor who had cut his teeth in science fiction fandom, writing, editing, and publishing fanzines.
Palmer worked to improve the magazine’s circulation by aiming at younger readers, with more adventure, sensational illustrations, and less hard science. Small hoaxes in the pages of Amazing were not uncommon, with stories written by pseudonymous authors accompanied by fake biographies and critical comments from Palmer. At the same time, editor John Campbell had just taken over rival magazine Astounding Stories and was aiming for a more high-brow market. The dichotomy polarized science fiction fandom—Palmer became known as a hack, or at least a purveyor of junk fiction. But Amazing’s circulation increased.
In the October 1943 issue of Writers’ Digest, in the small personal ads are buried two notices from a “Shaver, Barto, Pa.” One was a lonely heart advertisement, the other was more unusual: advice requested for a newly discovered ancient language.
What response was received from these advertisements is unclear, but the response was likely unsatisfactory, because in December 1943 a letter from a Pennsylvania steelworker named Richard S. Shaver arrived at the offices of Amazing Stories. Shaver claimed to have discovered an ancient alphabet for a universal language (later called “Mantong”), supposedly of a pre-human race with connections to Atlantis.
Crank letters were a part of the business every pulp editor had to deal with, along with unsolicited manuscripts and fanmail. However, Palmer saw potential reader interest, and printed the entire letter as “An Ancient Language?” in Amazing Stories Jan 1944. Moreover, Palmer encouraged readers to try out Shaver’s language. Readers responded. As Palmer put it:
Many hundreds of readers’ letters came in, and the net result was a query to Richard S. Shaver asking him where he got his Alphabet.
The answer was in the form of a 10,000 word “manuscript” typed with what was certainly the ultimate in non-ability at the typewriter, and entitled “A Warning To Future Man.”
I read it through, every single word, and then sat back. What was it I had here? Certainly not an attempt by an “author” to sell a story. Mr. Shaver wanted no money for hia manuscript. It wasn’t a manuscript, but a letter. Mr. Shaver seemed anxious that it be published, not for notoriety, but out of sincere (apparently) desire that the world be warned of a terrible danger it faced, and informed of a wonderful heritage it had lost, and which should be recovered if at all possible. —Ray Palmer, The Secret World(1975), 36-37
Palmer continued to correspond with Shaver, who sent him a 10,000-word letter or manuscript titled “A Warning to Future Man.” Ray Palmer bought the manuscript, and re-wrote it.
I put a clean piece of paper into my typewriter, and using Mr. Shaver’s strange letter-manuscript as a basis, I wrote a 31,000-word story which I titled “I Remember Lemuria!” although I added all the trimmings, I did not alter the factual basis of Mr. Shaver’s manuscript except in one instance. Here, perhaps, I made a grave mistake. However, I could not bring myself to believe that Mr. Shaver had actually gotten his Alphabet and his “Warning to Future Man” and all the “science” he propounded from actual underground people. Instead, I translated his thought-records into “racial memory” and felt sure this would be more believable to my readers, and a reasonable and perhaps actual explanation of what was going on was in Mr. Shaver’s mind—which is where I felt it really was going on; and not in any caves or via any telaug rays or telesolidograph projections of illusions from the cavern ray operators. —Ray Palmer, The Secret World(1975), 38
For those of you who will read on and carefully weigh what I am about to tell you I am convinced there will be no thought of puns. Instead, when you consider the real truths behind what I say—and even better, experiment and study to corroborate them—it seems to me to be inevitable that you will forget that I am Richard Sharpe Shaver, and instead, am what science chooses to very vaguely define as the racial memory receptacle of a man (or should I say being?) named Mutan Mion, who lived many thousands of years ago in Sub Atlan, one of the great cities of ancient Lemuria! —Richard S. Shaver & Ray Palmer, The Shaver Mystery Compendium, Vol. 1, 8
In the original manuscript, Shaver had made more explicit reference to Atlantis, not Lemuria; Palmer’s change brought a Theosophical bent to the re-written work (see The Book of Dzyan for other examples of Theosophical influence on the pulps). A footnote interpreted “Mutan Mion” through Shaver’s universal language, which shows the long build-up to this particular story.
In the words of Mutan Mion (amplified by many explanatory footnotes from Palmer), the readers are introduced to a scientifically advanced civilization that lives in underground caverns as protection from the damaging rays of the sun. As the advanced, nigh-immortal Titans and Atlans prepare to migrate to a different solar system, Mutan Mion and Sub Atlan are faced with the threat of the dero.
Pressed for a more complete explanation, Mr. Shaver has defined ‘dero’ for us:
“Long ago it happened that certain (underground) cities were abandoned and into those cities stole many mild mortals to live, at first, they were normal people, though on a lower intelligence plane; and ignorant due to lack of proper education. It was inevitable that certain inhabitants of the culture forests lose themselves and escape proper development; and some of them are of faulty development. But due to their improper handling of the life-force and ray apparatus in the abandoned cities, these apparatii became harmful in effect. They simply did not realize that the ray filters of the ray mechanisms must be changed and much of the conductive metal renewed regularly. If such renewals are not made, the apparatus collects in itself—in its metal—a disintegrant particle which gradually turns its beneficial qualities into strangely harmful ones.
“These ignorant people learned to play with these things, but not to renew them; so gradually they were mentally impregnated with the persisitently disintegrative particles. This habituates the creature’s mind, its mental movements, to being overwhelmed by deterimental, evil force flows which in time produce a creature whose every reaction in thought is dominated by a deterimental will. So it is that these wild people, living in the same rooms with degenerating force generators, in time become dero, which is short for detrimental energy robot.
“When this process has gone on long enough, a race of dero is produced whose every thought movement is concluded with the decision to kill. They will instantly kill or torture anyone whom they contact unless they are extremely familiar with them and fear them. That is why they do not instantly kill each other—because, being raised together, that part of their brain that functions has learned very early to recognize as friend or heartily to fear the members of their own group. They recognize no other living thing as friend; to a dero all new things are enemy.
“To define: A dero is a man who responds mentally to dis impulse more readily than to his own impulses. When a dero has used old, defective apparatus full of dis particle accumulations, they become so degenerate that they are able to think only when a machine is operating and they are using it; otherwise they are idiot. When they reach this stage, they are known as ‘ray’ (A Lemurian word not to be confused with ray as it is used in English.) Translated, ray means ‘dangerous or deterimental energy animal.’ Ray is also used to mean a soldier—one of those who handles beam weapons (note how the ancient meaning has come into our modern word).” —Richard S. Shaver & Ray Palmer, The Shaver Mystery Compendium, Vol. 1, 28-29
Mutan Mion finds aid from Mars and the Nortans (yet another advanced subterranean people), sometimes referred to as Elder Gods and Goddesses. After getting some upgrades and falling in love, Mutan Mion returns to free the Atlans from the dero—who, it turns out, are also cannibals:
These devilish abandondero had a meat market in the lower floors, filled with human flesh; and a pile of choice cuts I saw was composed mainly of Atlan girl breasts! These dero things were cannibals and lived off immortal Atlan flesh! —Richard S. Shaver & Ray Palmer, The Shaver Mystery Compendium, Vol. 1, 73
The story ends with Mutan Mion victorious, the dero temporarily thwarted but not utterly destroyed, and he heads off to a new planet with his love. His warning to the future is inscribed on “telonian message plates” and left for the wild men left behind on the planet to discover. Implicitly in this story, those wild men are the ancestors of homo sapiens today—and the threat of the dero remains.
“I Remember Lemuria!” took clear inspiration from hollow earth fiction such as Jules Verne’s Voyage au centre de la Terre (“Journey to the Center of the Earth,” 1864), Edgar Rice Burrough’s Pellucidar novels beginning with At the Earth’s Core (1914), and A. Merritt’s “The Moon Pool” (1918) and “Conquest of the Moon Pool” (1919)—the latter of which are known to have been in Shaver’s library (see “Dick Shaver’s Library” in Shaverology); Shaver also specifically cited Merritt’s works in his “Open Letter To The World” (Amazing Stories Jun 1945). Palmer’s re-casting of the story as one of “racial memory” or recalling a past life was not novel. Past-life stories such as Jack London’s The Star Rover (1915), Lovecraft’s “Polaris” (1920), and Robert E. Howard’s “People of the Dark” (1932) were well-known among science fiction and weird fiction fans.
Yet these works were all presented as fiction. What was remarkable about “I Remember Lemuria!” was not the content—but because Shaver insisted it was true, and Palmer steadfastly claimed to believe him. The reader response, both positive and negative, was tremendous. Letters poured in. Fans debated and denounced the stories. Issues of Amazing Stories sold well.
From 1945 to 1948, more Shaver material appeared in Amazing Stories. Palmer assisted with the prose, but encouraged by publication Shaver continued to develop and expand on his new artificial mythology. Many science fiction fans derided it as a hoax; others bought into it. There’s always a wild conspiratorial fringe in any population, and Shaver’s talk of malicious dero, conspiracies to restrict access to technology, and invisible rays afflicting people caught the imaginations of few.
Palmer left Ziff Davis in 1949, and would go on to help publish more of Shaver’s material in smaller independent magazines and fanzines; he would also be influential in the development of ufology, and founded Fate magazine, among others. He was a titan in the development, spread, and popularization of fringe ideas like flying saucers and various conspiracy theories, and thanks to him Shaver’s Mystery has an outsized cultural footprint, such as the subterranean Derro race in Dungeons & Dragons. Shaver himself continued to write, publish, and evolve his strange little world of paranoid fantasies, with the dero becoming more sexually sadistic and voyeuristic.
In 1934, the death of Shaver’s brother severely impacted his mental health; he began experiencing auditory hallucinations, and was institutionalized at the Ypsilanti State Hospital. When he got out two years later, he found his wife had died (accidentally electrocuted) and their daughter taken into the custody of her maternal grandparents. The following years are poorly-documented but apparently involved rough living and an arrest trying to cross the border to Canada, and culminated in a stay at the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Michigan, from which Shaver was discharged in May 1943 into the care of his parents. (This is a highly abridged version of the account given in The Man from Mars: Ray Palmer’s Amazing Pulp Journey (2013) by Fred Nadis). The letter to Amazing Stories would come about six months later after his release from Ionia.
Shaver was not unique, however. In the 1930s, a fan named G. P. Olson (or Olsen) of Sheldon, Iowa began to write bizarre fan letters expounding theories about vampires and physics to writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Hugh B. Cave, Henry S. Whitehead, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith. In 1932, Cave wrote to Carl Jacobi suggesting that he mine Olson for ideas for his own fiction (see “The Fool Olson” in Weird Talers)—and I suspect that is ultimately what Palmer did with Shaver, at least in the early part of their correspondence and friendship. Whether Palmer’s encouragement of Shaver’s paranoid fantasies, and the resultant negative response from fans, was detrimental to his mental health is hard to say; that Palmer ultimately exploited Shaver is impossible to ignore.
Lovecraft’s influence on Shaver is also difficult to assess. “I Remember Lemuria!” includes references to Elder Gods, but these do not seem to be the Elder Gods of Lovecraft’s fiction. Nor did Lovecraft go in very much for hollow earth stories, though he certainly had cannibalistic underground peoples in stories like “The Lurking Fear” and “The Rats in the Walls,” and the ruins of an advanced alien civilization feature prominently in At the Mountains of Madness (1936). Probably the closest Lovecraft approached Shaver’s mythos was in “The Mound” (1940) by Zealia Bishop & H. P. Lovecraft—and, as it turns out, this is the one Lovecraft story we know Shaver read.
Palmer published a number of letters from fans in the pages of Amazing Stories as the Shaver Mystery stories unfolded. Being typical fans, some of these were hoax letters, and slipped past the editorial radar. One such letter that saw print:
THE NECROMINICON [sic]
Sirs:
In line with your research on the Lemurian question, may I refer you to the “Necrominicon” [sic] of Abdul Alhazred, and also, the singularly famous “Das Inausprechlichen Kulten” [sic] by Von Junzt.
Both of these volumes may be found in the reserve room of Miskatonic University’s library at Arkton [sic], Massachusetts.
I am a graduate in occult sciences of this university, and have been engaged in conflict with Mr. Shaver’s “underground deros” since my graduation there in 1935.
Translation of the seventh chapter of the “Necronominicon” [sic] using the “Lemurian alphabet” should aid greatly in discovering the missing plates.
I regret deeply that a certain interest in the (deleted by the editor for very good reasons) keeps me from aiding you materially in your search, but a hint to so fertile a brain as Mr. Shaver’s should be enough. And I feel quite sure that after you have read the above-mentioned volumes, many things should be clear that are now confused and dark.
This was all in good fun, and Palmer seemed to know that Poldea was pulling his leg—yet it may also have suggested possibilities to Palmer. In an undated letter to August Derleth of Arkham House publishers, Palmer wrote asking for copies of Lovecraft’s The Outside and Others (1939), Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943), and Marginalia (1944), and added:
I wonder if you were right when you said Lovecraft did not believe a word of what eh wrote. Strangely enough, I have received some interesting comments on “truth” contained in his writings which, together with corroborative evidence in support of those comments, intrigues me very much.
Also, do you have on your lists the name of John Poldea? An affirmative answer would be very interesting to me.
A copy of Derleth’s answer is not in his file of correspondence with Palmer at the Wisconsin Historical Society, but it was likely very much in the negative on both accounts. In a follow-up letter, Palmer wrote:
I am slightly amazed at your reaction to my question concerning Lovecraft. I understand little about the matter, except that it seems you’ve built up a “legend” about Lovecraft and his creations. Would you mind explaining briefly.
I published a letter which I knew was fake, in order to get the reaction, which was terrific, regarding the Miskatonic U and the books Das Unaussprechlichen Kulten and the Necronomicon of Alhazred.
Maybe you wouldn’t be surprised to know how many people believe there are such things—and maybe you wouldn’t be surprised to know how many people know there are not—and yet are fascinated by your “legend”.
You say you’d jump on any statement that Lovecraft believed what he wrote with both feet. This fascinates me. Personally I believe he did believe what he wrote, and further, I think I could even prove it.
I might even be able to produce what he wrote about! —Ray Palmer to August Derleth, 20 Jun 1945, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
For Palmer, this was just another possible dimension by which to extend the Shaver Mystery; and even Shaver wasn’t sure how much of it he believed in or not, so long as it got a reaction from people. What Palmer probably had no idea of was how he was crossing nearly every possible line with Derleth, who had worked and sweated to build Arkham House in part on Lovecraft’s reputation as a literary figure, not a general pulp writer and certainly not as part of some cockamamie hoax running in Amazing.
A carbon copy of Derleth’s answering letter was immediate, and makes the Arkham House founder’s position clear—including an unsubtle legal threat if Palmer decided to push the matter any further:
You ask about Lovecraft. Contrary to your belief, we have NOT been building any “legend” about Lovecraft and his creations. We have been doing all in our power to keep him a straight literary figure, even to the extent of my taking time to write a brief critico-biography of him when I have little time for anything off-trail, and when you write that you “believe he did believe what he wrote and think” you “could prove it” this is simply to anyone who knows a plain bid to use the memory of a dead man in a cheap bid for publicity, which I construe as plain fraud and which would force me and the Lovecraft estate into legal action against the Ziff-Davis Company, regrettable as that is. I know very well what you are getting at when you say you might “even be able to produce what he wrote about”—crackpots have offered to write a NECRONOMICON for us, and you may be sure that such a purely Lovecraft creation would again, if fraudulently offered, bring action from us.
Where you got the idea we have built up a legend about HPL and his creations is beyond me. Certainly there are a lot of people who believe in the NECRONOMICON, and so forth; the origin of all these things is correctly set down in my H. P. L.: A MEMOIR, coming in book form in a month or so. I suggest you get hold of a copy and inform yourself before falling into any belief pattern. The UNAUSSRPECHLICHEN KULTEN was Howard’s invention, and I still have in my possession letters between R. E. Howard and HPL, with some of my own, showing that I contributed the UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN to the title in place of another word Howard wanted to use. Other titles came from other writers with Lovecraft’s permission.
Naturally, when, in the face of the contention of the man who has read more of the Lovecraft papers and letters than any man alive, you still say you “believe” to the contrary and contemplating offering “proof”, I have no other course but to think that you are contemplating some cheap plan to involve HPL and his mythos in a publicity plan for the Z-D magazines. I might expect that from Davis, but hardly from you, and you are right when you suggest that I might be “shocked”. I frankly hope that I am very much wrong.
Before going into the publication of any NECRONOMICON etc., you might look into the legal aspects of copyright in this matter; you will find that we have very solid grounds to take action against anyone purporting to offer “THE” book. I am thoroughly familiar with the copyright laws, and your use of a NECRONOMICON in this way is the equivalent of anyone else’s use of a w–k character or device under copyright. —August Derleth to Ray Palmer, 21 Jun 1945, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
In strict point of fact, Derleth’s legal position was probably weaker than it looked. He had an arrangement with the estate of Lovecraft to reprint his works, in cooperation with Lovecraft’s literary executor R. H. Barlow (then in Mexico), but his stated control over the copyrights was mostly bluff and bluster. Yet it was an effective threat, because Palmer had no way of knowing that. Nor was Palmer aware that he had inadvertently threatened everything Derleth had built at Arkham House by confusing the nascent Mythos with Shaver’s Lemurian stories. Certainly, Palmer didn’t appear to have any idea of Derleth’s personal involvement with the Mythos, as with the naming of Robert E. Howard’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten (for which see “Unspeakable! The Secret History of Nameless Cults”).
For Palmer, it was all potential fodder for the expanding Shaver Mystery—and his own weird capability of believing things. As it was, in Palmer’s answering letter he did his best to defuse the situation and cover his ass.
Your information is interesting. Some of my readers informed me there was a “business” being built up about the “cthulhu mythos”. I understand Esquire has purchased an article about Lovecraft hinting such a buildup. You see, I am not without foundation for that idea. […]
Nor did I mean that I had any mss to present. I meant that I (and numberless readers) believe Lovecraft’s writings to a certain extent, and that excludes those fictional books and university. You see, what I said I could prove was the existence of the “beings” Lovecraft writes about. I’ve had some quite entertaining experiences with them of a personal nature. But before you think me mad, we’ll drop my little dabblings into demonology, as they are personal, and get back to the “proof” I could offer that many readers believe in Lovecraft, and dis-believe in his Necronomicon and Kulten books, and the Miskatonic U. they believe in his demons, because they’ve seen them. I have dozens of sincere letters addressed to my Discussions columns, affirming that these experiences are true, and that they are identical with Lovecraft’s so-called fictional ones. Of course, suggestion is a powerful thing, and Lovecraft’s writings can be said to be powerful. Believing them is a matter of personal choice. I believe that more people believe them sincerely than accept Lovecraft asa great writer. This should interest you, since you are not trying to build up anything but his reputation as a writer.
On a purely personal vein, I know Lovecraft believed his basic theories, and his choice in taking that field for expression of his art was not just because he liked weird things. But of course, this has nothing to do with your reaction.
Regarding “hoaxes”, you remember I asked if you had a certain name on your list? You said no, which absolved you of being an innocent party to a rather filthy trick that was played on me, to discredit my Lemurian stories through the Lovecraft “mythos”. I have since discovred the unprincipled gentlemen were those who call themselves the “fans” of science fiction, and you know who they are.
[…] But, since the “fans” have taken up Lovecraft’s creations as a club to show that mine are the same attempt at “falsifying”, I will retaliate by publishing those letters which show a sincere belief in Lovecraft does exist Naturally these letters are authentic. I have thousands of letters from persons who believe in Shaver, many more than those who believe in Lovecraft. but most significant, all belief in both because they present the same basic theory (I’ll not call it fact, because I’d rather have the scientific world go on calling the Shaver material “metaphysics” or whatever they choose. I am prepared to present the positive scientific proof of the Shaver stories, by producing the caves, the machines, and the people. But this must wait until I am prepared scientifically. Amazingly, we have uncovered a vast storehouse of new knowledge, which if not handled carefully, might be very ineptly applied to our bloodthirsty civilization.)
But please be assured I have no manuscripts, or any ideas of producing Lovecraft’s fictional pieces as the real McCoy. But perhaps I will produce one of his “monsters”. It would look very well in the local park along with the giraffes and the anteater. —Ray Palmer to August Derleth, 22 Jun 1945, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
In his memoir The Secret World (1975), Palmer wrote of some remarkable experiences he had when he visited Shaver and his wife in Pennsylvania; this may or may not have been the personal experiences that Palmer spoke of. It is hard to tell because Palmer never seemed to be able to turn the huckster or hoaxer part of himself off; it wasn’t just a poise, it seemed to be fundamental to his being to believe whatever he was selling at the moment, at least to some degree. However, he had badly miscalculated his audience: Palmer had misunderstood or misread Lovecraft, and Derleth knew it.
The end result was that Shaver and Palmer never made any attempt to shoe-horn the Cthulhu Mythos into the Shaver Mystery, at least not in the pages of Amazing. Ray Palmer acknowledged Poldea’s fake letter in Amazing Stories Dec 1945 with a good-natured shrug and didn’t pursue that particular development of the Shaver Mystery further.
However, some of the fans were more critical than Poldea. In the popular fanzine Vampire published by Joe Kennedy, a scathing review was published in issue #4 of Maxin 96, a Lemurianist/occultist/Shaver Mystery zine published by fan David D. Dagmar. The review caught the eye of Amazing Stories’ competitor Startling Stories, which reprinted it in the Summer 1946 issue as part of a regular feature that reviewed science fiction fan publications. In response, Shaver sent a rebuttal to Kennedy, who would report:
Up until a couple moths ago, I corresponded with Shaver. He wrote me when a highly unfavorable comment on the Lemurianist fanzine, Maxin-96, was reprinted from Vampire in Startling’s fanzine review. Shaver seemed to welcome the chance to blast somebody’s ears off for the opposition which the “Shaver mystery” had evoked from the majority of actifandom. Misspellings and simple errors displaying marked ingorance of the fundamental rules of English grammar abounded in his letters. For the publication in Vamp he forwarded me a four-page “prose poem” which, as a piece of literature, was mildly amazing. The thing started off in undistinguished blank-verse style, rambled on another page, with references to Palmer and the deros becoming more and more frequent, bubbled and forthed into an attack on the opposing fan element (supposedly dero-controled!), then broke into straight prose, meandered on as a letter for a page or two, with intermittent ravings, then came to a decidedly abrupt conclusion. I sent it back to him. However, the main reason it was impossible to correspond with the guy, although I tried to give his side of the story a fair chance, was that all my arguments concerning the Shaver “truths” were either completely ignored or raidly passed over with but sparse comment. You can’t argue with a chap who just keeps drilling, over and over, THE DEROS ARE POWERFUL! YOU MUST BELIEVE! I’ve compared the Shaver letters and certain portions of his Palmer-rewritten published stories with examples of psychoneurotic literature quoted in psychology texts. The resemblance is remarkable, and indicative of far more than pure coincidence… No, I don’t correspond with R.S. Shaver any more. —Joe Kennedy, Gruzlak #1 (Oct 1946), 14-15
Eventually, Kennedy and Shaver agreed to a rewritten version of this rebuttal as “Lovecraft and the Deros” by Richard S. Shaver. This piece was first published in the fanzine Vampire #6 (1946); it was later republished in another fanzine, Spicy Armadillo Stories #5 (1991). The entire text is reproduced below.
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LOVECRAFT AND THE DEROS
((EDITOR’S NOTE: Since much has been written in the fan press against the Lemurian series in Amazing Stories, we believe that it is no more than fair that Dick Shaver be given an opportunity to tell his side of the story. We are completely convinced of the author’s sincerity, although the following article does not necessarily reflect the views of Vampire’s staff.))
Up to twelve years ago I was a stf fan, much like yourself, I suppose. I thought I knew exactly what was true in science and what could happen and that I could draw a precise line in my reading between fact and fantasy.
Then it happened, almost exactly as I tell it in the stories I write. Things that couldn’t happen except through a wonder-science never produced by modern men of science at all.
There were three conclusions. The first that these machines and rays came from space (visitors). The second was that they were modern secret science—things that science had developed and kept to itself as a monopoly, for the power and wealth the advantages of using these apparatuses would give them. This second conclusion was my conclusion until I knew more about it, which took many years. It is the usual deduction of the person first contacting secret ray.
The third deduction came after long experience with the phenomena I talk about in my stories. That this thing was a persistence of the same thing the medieval were talking about when they raised such a hullabaloo about witchcraft. The same thing Homer was talking about when he mentioned the immortal gods. I did a lot of research, believe it or not. And this last deduction is the correct one. The caverns I saw were not modern—they were not even built fairly recently by space travelers who stopped here long enough to leave such gigantic traces—were built before Man had a history. They are the big missing portion of history, and they have a history all of their own far more important in many ways than our own surface history.
Witchcraft, fairy tales, legends of the underworld—are not all antique fiction. It is surprising how well they describe some things that are done with with the machines. Merlin, in King Arthur, had a cave full of machines; and he died in it. In Deirdre—a ray from nowhere cuts down the heroes at the climax. The list of references is endless—I know—I looked them up. Take “The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel”—a fifth century Irish MSS.—translated in the Five Foot Shelf—The Men From the Elfmounds are mentioned over and over. The underworld was well known in the past and it shall be in the future. It has been the monopoly of a little group of savagely monopolistic people for a few centuries.
Read Lovecraft’s rewrite for a woman friend of his—”The Mound” in Beyond the Wall of Sleep, quite a long story and as good a picture of the underworld as ever I read. Take off about twenty per cent for Lovecraft’s weird ideation and ornamentation—and you have an exact picture of the underworld—except for the radioactive light.
As for Maxin 96 ((The Lemurianist fanzine—ed.)) I find it unfortunate that all the occultists have leaped to my banner—for I never meant to inferno that spirits had anything to do with what I am talking about. In fact the ray phenomena I mention explain away all spiritualist phenomena as ray work—of my despised dero—incidentally—the real explanation of all evil is dero, detrimental energy robot. These mysterious ray phenomena do exist and occur regularly. I always thought it was wool and lies and fakers myself just as you probably do—’till they happened without benefit of a medium within miles. No, I didn’t leap to the conclusion that they were spirits. I figured out the real reason—and it is some answer. naturally it is hard to swallow offhand, mainly because you don’t get all the background. Read “Da Derga’s Hostel” and Lovecraft’s “The Mound.”
I note in Vampire how the fans booed me at the convention in Newark. All this active fan opposition hurts like hell—but the truth of it is—they lose so darn much I could give them—if THEY UNDERSTOOD! But they are not my worst worry. My worry is the mad dero of the caverns—and they do our country even more harm. Some of those fans who are most loud in denouncing my “LIES” are directly used by the dero ray for that purpose. DON’T BE USED! The very copulation by which those same fans were conceived was watched over a telaug by a dero or a tero—humans who inherit a long line of conditional variational factors from a surrounding entirely different from our own—was watched for the vicarious entertainment received from the augmented emotional and sensory impulses which is greater than ordinary human.
Under our feet is a world of scientific wonder beyond any writer’s power of description, but there before Earth had a sun. Those metals don’t rust—those caves are as dry and hot as a desert—perfectly preserved, they wait for modern scientists to wrest their ancient secrets from those machines. That no scientist will accept this “impossible” truth is the only stumbling block between men and a wonder world. Our race was not the only race on earth; there were greater races and greater times. We are in truth the degenerate descendants of a great race, and not the apre’s mutant brother evolutionists would have us think. If you had been to Mars on an unannounced trip—how would you tell about it? Prove it, people would say. Well, it’s a hard job, but we may get it done—this proof you want is growing every day. Pluto did live, and strangely enough Dante’s concept of the nether world and the city of Dis has its counterpart in actuality.
There was a semi-sequel to this article, in the form of an answer to a letter to Shaver from J. O. Cuthbert in 1948 that opens “Dear Mr. Shaver: L—la-ngai-ygg—Ia—Shub-Niggurath. Ph’nglui mglw ‘nafh Cthulhu R’lyan wgah ‘hagl fhtagn.”, Shaver’s response to that reads:
Dear J. O. Cuthbert:
Did you ever read Lovecrafts [sic] protege’s story, The Mound? Better than Lovecraft, and it has some true data on the caves mingled with Lovecraft expansion. In a Lovecraft collection of storys [sic]. —Richard S. Shaver, The Shaver Mystery Magazine (1948), vol. 2, no. 2, 34
Beyond the Wall of Sleep, which reprinted “The Mound,” was published in 1943, the same year that Shaver began corresponding with Palmer, and a year before Shaver wrote “A Warning to Future Man.” It isn’t clear when Shaver read Beyond the Wall of Sleep, though, and there are many disparate threads of science fiction, fantasy, and folklore that could (and probably did) work to inspire Shaver besides Lovecraft. The Togail Bruidne Dá Derga is a real Irish story reprinted as part of Harvard Classic’s Five-Foot Shelf of Books line in volume 49, Epics and Sagas (1937).
In 1964, a portion of Richard S. Shaver and Ray Palmer’s correspondence in the 1940s was published in the Shaver Mystery zine The Hidden World (issues A-13, -14, -15, and -16). These letters give some insight into Shaver’s life, thoughts and habits, and working relationship with Palmer. Direct references to Lovecraft only occur in two of the published letters, but are relevant. The first is:
The mention of Merritt is good I think—there are several reasons—the Lovecraft cult of writers uses his name all the time to good effect—and certainly Merritt is more worthy of such honor—as well as the corroboration of my contentions which his work offers and the enticement of his followers is also commercially valuable as they are legion. —Richard S. Shaver to Ray Palmer, [n.d., c.mid-Oct 1944], The Hidden World A-14, 2443-2444
There are a number of mentions of A. Merritt and his stories, particularly “The Snake Mother” (1930) in Shaver’s letters and other writings. Shaver was likely discussing “Open Letter to the World” (Amazing Stories Jun 1945), which mentions Merritt repeatedly. The “Lovecraft cult of writers” references the growing popularity of Lovecraft (who was published in an Armed Services Edition during the war), and emulators and pasticheurs like August Derleth.
The second reference to Lovecraft in Shaver’s letters to Palmer is more extensive:
Reading in Lovecraft’s “Marginalia” which Bob sent me—noted a concept of his directly opposed to one of yours—wish you would think about it—for to a degree he is right.
He is talking in a chapter entitled “Notes on Interplanetary Fiction”.
“The characters, though they must be natural, should be subordinated to the central marvel around which they are grouped. The true ‘hero’ of a marvel tale is not any human being, but simply a set of phenomena.”
I have thought that perhaps you said the reverse in order to get me to think more carefully of character work in my writing, and in the main you agree with Lovecraft here. Personally, I think he is right, and that if the characters are too natural, we lose the illusion of other worldliness we are trying to create. I think then motivations of such characters should be different, as out of the ordinary as the settings, and thus the whole behavior of your characters, too, becomes the reverse of what we call “natural”—so here I disagree to an extent with Lovecraft, too. I admit the characters behaviour [sic] should be logical, and I stop there.
Personally I think Lovecrafts [sic] buildup for his marvels gets a little tiresome, but old stf fans are apt to be immune to the usual fanfare of intense surprise attempted by the stf writer.
In stf we have to write about marvels, we have to do it in a way that the average man can understand and enjoy as much as he does his Sunday supplement, and it is here that I agree and endorse your views. But that does not necessarily mean the characters can all be “natural”, meaning everyday people, at all. Some of the characters must of course be natural to set off the unnaturalness of those who are motivated by an other-world set of values.
Granted we all agree if boiled down to it. I thought you would be interested in his idea—the “hero of a marvel tale is a set of phenomena.” —Richard S. Shaver to Ray Palmer, [n.d., c. Mar 1945], The Hidden World A-15, 2632-2633
“Bob” is Robert McKenna, a friend of Shaver’s who would also help improve Shaver’s prose and ghostwrite for him. Arkham House published Lovecraft’s Marginalia in 1944; which included his essay “Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction,” which Derleth had excerpted from one of Lovecraft’s letters. The fundamental idea of the weird phenomena taking center stage rather than the human characters who witness it is very much at the core of Lovecraft’s fiction, exemplified in stories like “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Colour out of Space,” and more fully expressed in his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature.”
Shaver’s focus on this bit of writing advice is a glimpse behind the curtain of the Shaver Mystery. While Shaver seems to have very much believed in Deros, rays, et al, he was also keenly aware that what he and Ray Palmer were creating was fiction—perhaps as a way to get the truth out there to the masses, but still very clearly a creative exercise, which involved plotting, narratives, characters who required development, motivations, etc. Palmer, as something of a pulp hack, knew the advantages of character-driven stories, and probably steered Shaver in this direction with his fiction in Amazing Stories; Shaver’s fiction outside of those pages tends to be far less character-focused. With Lovecraft’s advice opposing Palmer’s, Shaver struggled to find his own course and his own voice somewhere between the two.
Despite Harry Warner’s proclamation that Shaver’s Mystery was derived from Lovecraft, in the corpus of Shaver’s writing references to Lovecraft and his work are so few that it cannot be said that the Lovecraft Mythos inspired the Shaver Mystery—but Lovecraft certainly seems to have been one of the influences on Shaver. Lovecraft and Shaver shared some inspirations in common, such as A. Merritt’s “The Moon Pool,” which explains a few of their similarities, but at no point does Lovecraft’s artificial mythology impinge on Shaver’s Atlantis and Lemuria. “Lovecraft and the Deros” emphasizes how much Shaver dismisses Lovecraft’s Mythos in favor of recasting “The Mound” in terms of his own artificial mythology. I suspect that if Lovecraft was a more substantial influence on Shaver, more references to “The Mound” would have found their way into Shaver’s writing at some point…yet all we have, really, is “Lovecraft and the Deros.”
Henry S. Whitehead, “Bothon,” & the Shaver Mystery
Recalling the “old days” brings us to a mention of Henry S. Whitehead’s “Bothon” in this issue. Reverend Whitehead is, of course, dead, but this unpublished story of his is far from dead. We consider it a very fine piece of work, and as we read it, we remember that Henry S. Whitehead was himself a researcher into the unusual, and we wonder what he would have said about the stories of Mr. Shaver? It is a very astounding fact to consider that in this story “Bothon,” Reverend Whitehead’s story is similar in all details to many letters we have from readers who claim to remember, or be reincarned, or have contact with some weird occult record which describes the events Whitehead describes so graphically in his story. Could it be that “Bothon” is itself a “thought record or a “racial memory” or did he believe eh was reincarnated and the story that formed in his mind was really memory of that former life? It is introguing to wonder what the truth behind “Bothon” really is. —Ray Palmer, Amazing Stories Aug 1946
The Reverend Henry St. Clair Whitehead was an Episcopal priest and pulp writer, a friend and correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft, E. Hoffmann Price, and Robert E. Howard who wrote for pulps like Adventure, Weird Tales, and Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror. He was best known for his “jumbee” stories, based on the folklore of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which he would visit during the 1920s, as well as “The Trap,” a story written with Lovecraft, and “Cassius,” a story written based on one of Lovecraft’s ideas. At the time of his death on 23 Nov 1932, Whitehead apparently had several unpublished manuscripts, including one called “The Bruise.”
I’m helping Whitehead prepare a new ending for a story which Bates rejected. It was about a man in 1923 who got a bruise on the head which caused him to hear strange cataclysmic sounds—that turned out to be the Tokyo earthquake. The bruise had made a sort of radio of his ears! In my new version, the bruise excites certain cells of hereditary memory & causes him to hear the destruction of one of the cities of fabulous Mu—the sunken continent of the Pacific—20,000 years ago. —H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 31 Mar 1932, Essential Solitude2.469
I’m now helping Whitehead prepare a new ending & background for a story Bates has rejected. The original told of a young man who bumped his head & thereafter heard sounds of a mighty cataclysm, although the city around him was quiescent. It was supposed to be due to a result of the bruise—which made the fellow’s head a natural radio & enabled him to hear the Japanese earthquake—which was occurring at the time. Bates rightly thought this tame, so I am having the cataclysm & its cause somewhat different. I am having the bruise excite cells of hereditary memory causing the man to hear the destruction & sinking of fabulous Mu 20,000 years ago! —H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 4 Apr 1932, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 361
He had a splendid tale under way called “The Bruise”, which (at my suggestion) involved the lost & fabulous Pacific continent of Mu. I am wondering whether it was ever finished. —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, 7 Dec 1932, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price & Richard F. Searight 38
Whitehead also had another story under way—his old tale “The Bruise”, with a new ending (suggested and mapped out by myself) involving the fabulous lost continent of Mu 20,000 years ago; but whether this was ever put in final publishable shape I don’t know. —H. P. Lovecraft to Farnsworth Wright, 6 Jan 1933, Letters to Woodburn Harris & Others75
Harry Bates was editor of Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror (1931-1933), a short-lived competitor to Weird Tales that Whitehead contributed to, and Astounding Tales of Super-Science (1930-1933).
Years after Whitehead and Lovecraft’s death, August Derleth, co-founder of Arkham House, pursued the publication of Whitehead’s collected weird fiction, which eventually resulted in two books: Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales (1944) and West India Lights (1946). This required dealing with Whitehead’s heirs; a confusing situation where a woman named Edna Black owned the copyrights, but a woman named Mary Starr owned several of the actual manuscripts. Included in a letter from Starr to Derleth dated 8 Nov 1943 is a list of unpublished manuscripts; at the bottom are two stories labeled “Scar-Tissue” and “Bothon.”
Mss. Wisconsin HIstorical Society, August W. Derleth Archive
It isn’t clear what some of these annotations mean, such as the checkmarks; possibly those indicate that the completed manuscript had been submitted to a given market (which suggests that “Scar-Tissue” at least may have been sent to Weird Tales, and was presumably rejected).
“Scar-Tissue” involves Gerald Canevin, a series character in Whitehead’s fiction, and a Dr. Pelletier who encounter a patient named Joe Smith who not only remembers Lemuria, but carried a physical scar that corresponds with a wound obtained in a past life as a gladiator. Canevin and Pelletier had previously appeared together in “The Great Circle” (Strange Tales Jun 1932). “Bothon” follows the general plot laid down by Lovecraft: a man bangs his head, and the bruise unlocks memories of his past in Lemuria. The story ends with a reference to a man named Smith who had similar memories.
The interrelation between “The Great Circle,” “Scar-Tissue,” and “Bothon” is unclear. Canevin and Pelletier form a link between “The Great Circle” and “Scar-Tissue,” while “Scar-Tissue” and “Bothon” share much common ground, including the character Bothon, and the latter “Bothon” appears to reference the character of Smith in “Scar-Tissue”; but there is no Canevin or Pelletier in “Bothon.” Was this the aborted start of an intended series, or the tail end of an ongoing one? We may never know. All three stories are also somewhat uncharacteristic of Whitehead’s typical pulp product, with more action and fantasy, but that was a direction that some of his fiction was headed toward near the end of his life.
It is unknown if one or both stories were complete at the time of Whitehead’s death, or existed in draft. “Scar-Tissue,” if it was submitted to Weird Tales as the above list implies, must have been in decent shape. Lovecraft’s involvement appears to have been primarily suggestion and plotting for “The Bruise”—he never mentions “Scar-Tissue” nor contributed any actual text to “The Bruise.” Though there have been claims that someone else may have written or completed the stories:
It is not certain that Whitehead ever finished the revision and expansion of “The Bruise” before his death. As late as December 1932, Lovecraft speaks of the process being still “under way” ([see letter to Price above]). It is possible, therefore, that the story was finished and retitled by August W. Derleth, who oversaw the editing and assembling of West India Lights, where it appeared. Derleth fleshed out a number of Lovecraft’s plots and notes into complete stories (see The Survivor and Others, 1957), and frequently wrote fiction pseudonymously. It has been claimed, for example, that in Night’s Yawning Peal (1952), an anthology he edited, there were three such tales, Derleth appearing (in addition to an entry under his own name) as Stephen Grendon, Michael West, and—J. Sheridan le Fanu! See Jack L. Chalker, “Arkham House & Sons, part 2,” Fantasy Review, no. 97 (December 1986): 19. —A. Langley Searles, “Fantasy and Outré Themes in the Short Fiction of Edward Lucas White and Henry S. Whitehead) in American Supernatural Fiction: From Edith Wharton to the Weird Tales Writers (1996), 75n62
As mentioned in the review of “The Murky Glass” (1957) as by August Derleth & H. P. Lovecraft, Derleth’s approach to “posthumous collaboration” was often one of entirely original writing based around an extent bit of text or story synopsis. Derleth did use pseudonyms as well; this was a common practice in the pulps, and “Stephen Grendon” was an established alternate name that Derleth used many times. So Derleth was certainly capable of writing or revising a story and publishing it under a different name, and had done so. But did he do it?
Before or concurrent with the publication of West India Lights, both “Scar-Tissue” and “Bothon” were published in Amazing Stories in 1946, in the July and August issues respectively. While there is no copyright notice or reference to Derleth attached to the stories, and unfortunately no letters with Starr or Black from this period attest to any deal or payments for publication, Derleth’s letters to Ray Palmer show that he submitted the stories, and brokered their sale at the same time as he was arguing with Palmer about Lovecraft:
Yes, I’d like to look at the Whitehead things concerning Lemuria, etc. Would appreciate your sending me the manuscripts. —Ray Palmer to August Derleth, 20 Jun 1945, MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
I will send along the Whitehead stories—BOTHON and SCAR-TISSUE—just as soon as my secretary gets around to typing them: in a fortnight or so. They are very good stories of the Lemuria type which you seem now to tbe seeking. —August Derleth to Ray Palmer, 21 Jun 1945, MSS. WHS
Thanks for getting the Whitehead stories in shape for me to look at. —Ray Palmer to August Derleth, 22 Jun 1945, MSS. WHS
This was followed up some months later by a receipt of sale:
MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
Derleth submitting stories on behalf of Whitehead’s heirs isn’t unusual. In the early 1950s, Derleth had arranged for the reprinting of two of Whitehead’s stories in the pages of Weird Tales (“The Tree-Man,” WT Sep 1953 and “Passing of a God,” WT Jul 1954), so we know Derleth did sometimes act as agent for such stories. Whether Derleth was acting as agent or ghost-writer, some of this money should have gone to Edna Black; unfortunately, the correspondence for this period between Black and Derleth is lacking.
There are some substantial textual differences between the text in Amazing Stories and West India Lights, with the Amazing Stories version of the text being substantially shorter and punchier. Probably Palmer cut the text down for publication to better fit the space in the magazine. To give one example of the differences:
“Do you get that picture? Here we were, prisoners of war — after a couple of months of the hardest training I have ever known, in the Ludektan gladitorial school, about to shed our blood to make an Atlantean holiday! Yes, Ludetka was the southernmost province of Atlantis, the cultural center of the continent. There had been innumerable wars between the Atlanteans and Lemuria. Like Rome and Carthage.
“Do you get that picture? Here we were, prisoners of war — after a couple of months of the hardest training I have ever known, in the Ludektan gladitorial school, about to shed our blood to make an Atlantean holiday!
“Scar-Tissue,” West India Lights 233
“Scar-Tissue,” Amazing Stories (Jul 1946) 149
Practically all of the changes in the Amazing Stories text represent a condensation of the story, truncating some of the battle scenes and speeding up the pacing. The above is a rare instance where a bit of the “lore” of the setting was excised. Was this done by Palmer so that Whitehead’s story dovetailed more closely with the Shaver Mystery? Given that so much setting material was left intact, probably not.
What is remarkable about “Scar-Tissue” and “Bothon,” and what might be most suggestive of Derleth’s involvement, is not so much the existence of two salable manuscripts by Whitehead that finally saw print after fourteen years—but that both such stories were directly relevant to the current trend in Amazing Stories. The timing is key: just when Amazing Stories was pushing the Shaver Mystery hard, here comes two stories of essentially similar theme from a different, established author, that could almost have been written to order.
Whether Derleth saw an opportunity to market Whitehead’s stories and took it, or Derleth re-worked one or both of the stories to fit isn’t clear, but it seems more than coincidence that two such atypical stories from a fortunately deceased author could emerge at just this time in Amazing Stories. That topicality makes them suspect. Yet without access to the original manuscripts there is no way to know for sure.
Despite Searles’ surety that someone other than Whitehead was involved, the evidence for Derleth revising, completing, or writing “Scar-Tissue” or “Bothon” is entirely circumstantial. We know at least from Lovecraft’s letters that “The Bruise” contained recognizable elements to be found in “Bothon,” and the 1943 manuscript list from Mary Starr clearly lists both stories. So it seems likely that if Derleth did touch up the manuscripts, he at least had some manuscript to work with, rather than writing the tales out of whole cloth, or based only on the synopsis in Lovecraft’s letters about “The Bruise.”
There is undoubtedly more to the story of how these two Whitehead works ended up at Amazing Stories. It’s notable that the publication in those magazines does not mention Lovecraft, Derleth, Arkham House, or West India Nights; for a tireless self-promoter and champion of Lovecraft like Derleth, it seems odd he wouldn’t make more of the opportunity for some free advertising, or to at least promote the Lovecraft connection elsewhere. In fact, when Clark Ashton Smith commented on “Bothon” in a letter to Derleth after West India Nights came out, Derleth’s reply didn’t mention Lovecraft at all (Eccentric Impractical Devils 370).
There are several Lovecraftian traces in “Bothon” that are not present in “Scar-Tissue.” The simian slave-class is called “Gyaa-Hua”; compare with “The Mound” (1940) by Zealia Bishop & H. P. Lovecraft, where the slave-class is called the “gyaa-yothn.” Two transcribed bits of ancient Lemurian speech in “Bothon” are: “Iï, Iï, Iï, Iï;—R’ly-eh!—Ieh nya, —Ieh nya; —zoh, zoh-an-nuh!” and “Ióth, Ióth,—natcal-o, do yan kho thútthut,” which bare similarities to some of Lovecraft’s alien speech,” especially the appearance of”R’y-eh” is particularly close to “R’lyeh” from “The Call of Cthulhu,” and “kho thútthut” could be a phonetic rendering of “Cthulhu.” Either Whitehead or Derleth could easily have inserted these references; though given Derleth’s contretemps with Palmer over adding anything Lovecraftian to the Shaver Mysteries, why he would insert such a reference is unclear. It is perhaps notable that when Lovecraft used Mu in his fiction in “Out of the Æons” (1935) by Hazel Heald & H. P. Lovecraft, he made no reference to either R’lyeh or the gyaa-yothn/gyaa-hua.
The connection between Lovecraft, “The Bruise,” and “Bothon” does not appear to have become publicly known until after Derleth’s death, when Selected Letters IV (1976) was published, which book contains the references in letters to E. Hoffmann Price and Clark Ashton Smith. Without access to concrete evidence in the form of drafts, letters, or business records to clarify matters, this small tangent to the Shaver Mystery and its almost-connection to the Lovecraft Mythos must remain a mystery.
Manly Wade Wellman, The Necronomicon, & the Shaver Mystery
“Suppose,” said Thunstone, “that I wanted a copy of the Necronomicon?”
“Suppose,” rejoined the old woman, “that I gave it to you?” She turned to a shelf, pulled several books out, and poked her withered hand into the recess behind. “Nobody else that I know would be able to look into the Necronomicon without getting into trouble. To anyone else the price would be prohibitive. To you, Mr. Thun—”
“Leave that book where it is!” he bade her sharply. —Manly Wade Wellman, “The Letters of Cold Fire” in Weird Tales May 1944
Lovecraft and Wellman overlapped a bit at Weird Tales, but never corresponded. Nevertheless, Wellman had respect for his elder in weird fiction, and paid homage to Lovecraft in several stories, including “The Terrible Parchment” (WT Aug 1937) and “The Letters of Cold Fire” (WT May 1944), which feature the Necronomicon, and “Shonokin Town” (WT Jul 1946) where Lovecraft is mentioned as an expert in eldritch lore.
Wellman came into his own in Weird Tales during the 1940s, when his occult detective character John Thunstone ran in a successful series of tales. Like Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and others, Wellman had learned to build up a degree of interconnectedness in his stories for greater verisimilitude—Thunstone mentions Weird Tales authors H. P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price, Seabury Quinn’s occult detective Jules de Grandin (who would also mention Thunstone in his own stories), and several of Wellman’s characters exist in the same general setting, and sometimes face the same enemies—notably the pre-human, magically adept beings known as the Shonokin.
One of the details revealed in Richard S. Shaver’s correspondence with Ray Palmer in The Hidden World is that Shaver himself read Weird Tales, at least occasionally, and even submitted short fiction to the magazine. One story that caught his eye was “The Letters of Cold Fire” by Manly Wade Wellman:
In a tale in Weird Tales mag. recently it spoke of THE DEEP SCHOOL of Magic. I think you will find this is pertinent. Men who had been through the school could no longer stand the light at all. The underworld – hereditarily – have extra large eyes. This was in the Rowley Thorne – Dunstone [sic] series – runs regularly in Weird Tales and the author may know something though it’s hard to tell among all his magic wool. He should not be hard to contact and writers can explain what they mean. I hope he is not one who believes really the common concept of magic. —Richard S. Shaver to Ray Palmer, 8 Jun [1944], The Hidden World A-14 2338-2339
It isn’t known if Shaver ever attempted to contact Wellman. In Weird Tales Jul 1946 and in the fanzine Sunspots #28 (Fall 1946), Wellman claims to have received letters form those who were convinced the Shonokin were real and could tell him more. Could Shaver have been among them? Perhaps, perhaps not; Shaver’s further letters to Palmer don’t mention any such attempt.
What is known is that Shaver remembered “The Letters of Cold Fire,” and later when the subject of grimoire came up after reading William Seabrook’s Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today (1940), Shaver was inspired to an elaboration on his theories.
Such writers as your firned [sic] friend of Weird Tales mention such EVIL books—the book from the DEEP SCHOOL etc. etc.—and such wonderful things can be done with formula in them—is standard weird talk for witch stories through the ages—why—because once that was true and magicians—or mag-neticians—did save those books and work wonders with but they were not numerous to save that wisdom for us—or they lived in the caves and all that history of theirs still lies down there waiting for us—but if my observations of dero are right they are still using the ancient libraries for toilet paper and fire starting as in the ancient days. —Richard S. Shaver to Ray Palmer, Jan 12 [1945], The Hidden World A-15, 2570
There is something strange and terrible about the image of a Dero, after evacuating last night’s cannibalistic feast, reaching for the age-softened, crumbling pages of the Necronomicon to wipe themselves clean—and that is an aspect of Shaver’s mystery that readers of Amazing Stories perhaps did not appreciate, the degree to which Palmer and other ghostwriters cleaned things up, for Shaver could be quite brusque about subjects like torture, sex, and some of the more unpleasant aspects of life in his stories.
Muriel E. Eddy, David H. Keller, & the Shaver Mystery
In a 1948 interview, David H. Keller, a prolific author of science fiction and weird tales and a contemporary of Lovecraft’s, was asked about the Shaver Mystery:
“What is your opinion of the Shaver controversy?”
“A healthy affair in some ways. After all there is not much difference between Shaver and Lovecraft as far as the basic idea is concerned. Even Jules Verne hinted at it in his JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. Merritt talked about those Old Ones and Lovecraft wrote constantly in regard to such a menace. […] —David H. Keller, interviewed by Jacob Hudson, Fantasy-Times #64 (Apr 1948), 5
Keller’s comparison of Shaver and Lovecraft is not unique; it’s a point that crops up repeatedly in the literature. One of the key points Keller makes is that “Lovecraft wrote constantly in regard to such a menace”—but did he really? At this date, Arkham House had brought Lovecraft into print in hardback, and in the mid-40s editions paperback editions were available through Bartholomew House and the Armed Services Edition. Weird Tales under Dorothy McIlwraith published or re-printed Lovecraft stories provided by August Derleth and Arkham House, as well as Derleth’s own pastiches. Derleth’s first “posthumous collaboration,” the novel The Lurker on the Threshold, was published in 1945.
While Lovecraft wrote of many terrors, some ancient and some underground, there was never a single unifying threat that ran through multiple stories as the Deros do through Shaver’s oeuvre. However, for casual readers who absorbed a great deal of Derleth along with Lovecraft, this fine distinction between the Mythos as Lovecraft wrote it versus how Derleth tended to play it up was easily lost. Derleth’s pastiches tended to emphasize a unity and structure to Lovecraft’s Mythos that wasn’t originally there, while Shaver seems to have had a very clear conception from the beginning of how things were in the underground caverns, even if he struggled with how to present this information to the audience.
This kind of comparison led to another tangential connection between Lovecraft and Shaver, in the pages of Fantastic Adventure, another Ziff Davis pulp magazine that was under the editorship of Ray Palmer. While the Shaver Mystery stories largely appeared in Amazing Stories, some of Shaver’s fiction also appeared in Fantastic Adventure, which was at least nominally dedicated to fantasy, although in practice Ray Palmer tended to run both fantasy and science fiction together in the magazine.
In Fantastic Adventure s(Feb 1948), Shaver’s story “Slaves of the Worm” ran. The story is not explicitly related to the Mystery—not a Dero in sight—and may owe something to Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom” (1929) and “The Valley of the Worm” (1934) as well as A. Merritt’s “The Face in the Abyss” (1923) and its sequel “The Snake Mother” (1930). Yet something about the story prompted a reader to write in and compare it to Lovecraft; and Ray Palmer agreed.
Not many would look to the letter-columns of Fantastic Adventures for a brief memoir about Lovecraft, yet that is part of the legacy of the Shaver Mystery too.
Robert E. Howard, Serpent People, & the Shaver Mystery
One of the hallmarks of conspiratorial literature is how quickly it is to absorb new ideas into its existing framework, and the same is true for the Shaver Mystery. In the August 1946 issue of Amazing Stories, Ray Palmer wrote a piece about the pamphlets of Maurice Doreal, an occultist, which presents his ideas of the hollow earth (drawing much inspiration from Theosophy), and wrote that:
I am advising that Doreal’s booklets be read by all students of the Shaver matter. I do not believe that he is correct in all his statements, but there may be a basis underlying them, and this knowledge should be known to students simply as a matter of theory.
In the October 1946 issue of Amazing Stories, an answering letter from Doreal was published, essentially confirming the subterranean evil Dero exist, and working the Dero into their schema.
Maurice Doreal (also M. Doreal, Morris Doreal, etc.) was a pseudonym for Claude Doggins, an occultist and conspiracy theorist inspired by both Theosophy and pulp fiction. One of Doreal’s most notable publications is The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean (n.d.). The esoteric poem includes a lot of material drawn from ancient Egyptian religion, Hermetic occultism, and Theosophy, but there’s one passage in particular which is basically a synopsis of Robert E. Howard’s story “The Shadow Kingdom (Weird Tales Aug 1929):
In the form of man they amongst us, but only to sight were they as are men. Serpent-headed when the glamour was lifted but appearing to man as men among men. Crept they into the Councils, taking forms that were like unto men. Slaying by their arts the chiefs of the kingdoms, taking their form and ruling o’er man. Only by magic could they be discovered. Only by sound could their faces be seen. Sought they from the Kingdom of shadows to destroy man and rule in his place.
While Doreal does not connect the dero to the serpent people directly, they share certain attributes, being evil, shape-shifting, and subterranean. It goes to show how flexible and adept at self-promotion Doreal was to latch onto the Shaver Mystery, however briefly. Doreal also borrowed from other pulp authors, notably referencing Frank Belknap Long Jr.’s “The Hounds of Tindalos” (Weird Tales mar 1929), also referenced in The Emerald Tablets:
Strange and terrible are the HOUNDS of the Barrier. Follow they consciousness to the limits of space. Think not to escape by entering your body, for follow they fast the Soul through angles. Only the circle will give ye protection, save from the claws of the DWELLERS IN ANGLES.
Like Shaver, Doreal’s writings influenced popular conspiracy theories, and his works tied together aspects of Theosophy, pulp fiction, and the nascent ufology culture. Michael Barkun in A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America(2013) notes that Doreal also authored a pamphlet giving a revisionist history of the world featuring this serpent race (Mysteries of the Gobi), where the perverted, underground Lemurians were supposedly the ancestors of all Semitic peoples. Another pamphlet, Flying Saucers: An Occult Viewpoint postulated the serpent people were extraterrestrials, which would help set the stage for popular depictions of reptilian humanoid aliens, such as the television series V. All of these have uncertain publication dates, but based on this letter we can definitely say they were around in the 1940s.
Doreal would be quoted extensively in David Icke’s Children of the Matrix: How an Interdimensional Race has Controlled the World for Thousands of Years—and Still Does (2001), which collates and updates the whole idea of shapeshifting reptilians for a 21st-century audience. Icke is noted for his antisemitism, and for his identification of members of the Jewish Rothschild family as secret reptilians (Barkun 146); the entire shape-shifting reptilian alien idea in popular culture has been tinged by Icke’s prejudice.
Robert E. Howard did not invent the idea of serpent people or reptilian humanoids; H. P. Lovecraft had played with the idea in “The Nameless City” (1921), A. Merritt had the eponymous Snake-Mother of Yu-Atlanchi in “The Snake-Mother” (1923); Frank Belknap Long, Jr. had a woman-headed serpent in “The Were-Snake” (1925); Edgar Rice Burroughs had underground serpent people in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core (1929-1930); Clark Ashton Smith had made serpent a part of his stories in “The Double Shadow” (1933) and “The Seven Geases” (1934); Edmond Hamilton, famous for his space operas, included reptilian alien humanoids in “Monsters of Mars” (1931) and “The Snake-Men of Kaldar” (1933), and John Murray Reynolds had similar Scaly Ones in “The Golden Amazons of Venus” (1939); E. Hoffmann Price played on Southeast Asian beliefs about the Naga in “Snake Goddess” (1939), and there are many other precursors and cases of independent invention. There is even a famous case in 1934, an engineer named G. Warren Shufelt even advertized that there was an underground city of lizard people beneath Los Angeles.
Richard S. Shaver had serpent-people in his Shaver Mystery fiction too—most notably in “The Fall of Lemuria” in Other Worlds Science Stories (Nov 1949). These snake-people probably owe more to Merritt’s “Snake-Mother” than to anything Howard or anyone else wrote.
Yet Howard’s serpent-people have gained pop-culture precedence—and entered conspiracy circle legend—because of several contributing factors. For Lovecraft, Smith, and many others, the reptilians and serpent people, whether beneficient or inimical to humanity, hatched no conspiracies, and dwelt underground and apart from humanity and its affairs. Howard’s were actively seeking to undermine and manipulate human civilization, and doing so with the aid of magical disguises to impersonate others.
Marvel Comics introduced serpent people to their universe through works adapted from and inspired by the work of Robert E. Howard; in the pages of Conan the Barbarian,Kull the Conqueror, and (oddly enough) Marvel Premiere #4, where Dr. Strange fights the spawn of Sligguth in a story that combines aspects of “The Shadow Kingdom” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” Robert E. Howard’s version of the serpent-god Set, and his serpent-people followers, would play a major role in the Marvel Universe during storylines like Atlantis Attacks! (1989), although since Marvel subsequently lost the license to Conan, the serpent-people have played substantially less of a role.
Roleplaying games have featured a number of reptilian and serpent-people, some of whom were inspired by pulp fiction, others of which are original. The Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game adapted Howard, Smith, and Lovecraft’s serpent-people lore and glossed and expanded it. Dungeons & Dragons have the Yuan-Ti, who were largely humanoid serpent-people with shapeshifting powers, that first appeared in Dwellers in the Forgotten City (1980); whether they were originally based on Howard’s serpent people or not, they embody many of the tropes—but there are innumerable fantasy serpent- and reptile-people in fantasy and science fiction, too many to narrow them all down to one single source. Publisher White Wolf would also borrow from Howard when creating the clan called the Followers of Set for Vampire: The Masquerade (1991), whose discipline of Serpentis gives them serpent-like powers and attributes.
The Followers have an Egyptian theme, despite the fact that the Egyptian god known as Set, Seth, or Sutekh does not have serpentine attributes—a common misconception which also affected the Marvel comics (where the Egyptian god Seth was a separate deity, though still serpent-themed) and even Dungeons & Dragons (where the Mulhorandi god Set was largely based on the Egyptian god, but also took on serpentine characteristics). Robert Bloch would commonly err in making the serpentine Set an Egyptian god in some of his early horror and fantasy stories. The confusion comes because in the Conan tales, Set is the god of the Stygians—who are intended to be strongly reminiscent of ancient Egypt, and to be the precursor civilization to it:
Meanwhile, also, a tribe of Vanir adventurers had passed along the Pictish coast southward, ravaged ancient Zingara, and come into Stygia, which, oppressed by a cruel aristocratic ruling class, was staggering under the thrusts of the black kingdoms to the south. The red-haired Vanir led the slaves in a general revolt, overthrew the reigning class, and set themselves up as a caste of conquerors. They subjugated the northern-most black kingdoms, and built a vast southern empire, which they called Egypt. From these red-haired conquerors the earlier Pharaohs boasted descent. —Robert E. Howard, “The Hyborian Age” (1936)
There is a terrible irony to Doreal and Icke’s adding bigotry to Howard’s serpent people: Howard was thinking about Jews when he wrote it. Howard’s original story “The Shadow Kingdom” was in part inspired by some of his own characterization of Jews in the Old Testament in his private letters (see Deeper Cut: Conan and the Shemites: Robert E. Howard and Antisemitism). However, a study of Howard’s letters do not show any definite awareness or belief in popular antisemitic conspiracy theories, and Howard never made any explicit connection between serpent people and Jews in his fiction. Howard did not confuse fantasy and real-world prejudice; he took a metaphor based on a personal reading of the Old Testament and wove into his fantasy fiction—making literal serpents out of the metaphorical manipulators of King Saul. This wasn’t a huge stretch for Howard, who had already included his antipathy to serpents and characters with snake-like attributes in several stories before Kull was created (see “Conan and the Little People: Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft’s Theory.”)
The 1930s and 40s saw the cross-pollination between pulp and popular fiction and fringe conspiracy theories, and what would become New Age movements, many of which were in a foundational stage during the interwar and WW2 period. Doreal’s letter in support of Shaver’s Mystery is an example of how easily these works incorporated ideas from science fiction and weird fiction into already-extent occult and conspiratorial ideologies about the hollow earth and hidden masters. It also demonstrates how antisemitic tropes can grow and spread, sometimes under unlikely guises.
Marebito (稀人, 2004)
Marebito(“Unique One,” 稀人) is a Japanese horror film from director Shimizu Takashi (清水 崇), based on a novel and screenplay by Konaka Chiaki (小中 千昭). As the film opens, freelance cameraman Masuoka (played by Tsukamato Shin’ya 塚本 晋也) is obsessed the nature of fear and with viewing the world through a camera lens. Masuoka investigates the apparent suicide of a terrified man underground that was captured on camera. His investigation leads him to a subterranean network of tunnels beneath Tokyo. Masuoka meets people who live in the tunnels and believe in Richard Shaver’s Deros; Masuoka himself finds a section of the underground that resembles ancient ruins and believes he has come to the Mountains of Madness spoken of by Lovecraft—although he acknowledges both Shaver and the hollow earth theory are fiction. Yet in that netherworld, fact and fiction seem to merge.
Throughout the film, possibly-supernatural events occur, and the line between what is real and what is just in Masuoka’s head is not clear. The film plays with aspects of voyeurism, documentary filmmaking, the nature of reality, and the uncertain nature of perception. The narrative is shot through with sudden transitions, artifacts of digital recording in settings of clear reality, impromptu encounters and conversations, and a growing uncertainty about who the characters really are and how much of this is really happening, or if Masuoka is just off his meds and reality and delusion are merging together inseparably.
The Deros are a repeated touchstone in the ideology of the film, not something seen on the screen much, but a pervasive idea. Likewise, while Lovecraft is seldom referenced directly, the questioning of the nature of fear is strongly reminiscent of his work. This is no accident, Konaka Chiaki has also written Cthulhu Mythos fiction, including the screenplay for a Japanese television adaptation of “The Shadow over Innsmouth” (インスマスを覆う影, 1992). In Marebito, Konaka gets to marry those ideas with the questioning of reality and memory that are trademarks of some of his anime work such as Serial Experiments Lain and The Big O.
Shimizu Takashi brings these ideas to the screen with an aesthetic that places it in the general oeuvre of the Ring films directed by Nakata Hideo (中田 秀夫) and the later documentary-style horror films of director Shiraishi Kōji (白石 晃士). While there is no single video artifact or ghost at the center of Marebito, the visual transition between watching what is “really” happening and watching the same through the lens of a camera introduces a layer of visual rhetoric that gives the film considerable depth. If Konaka adapted Shaver and Lovecraft for a new Japanese context, Shimizu adapted that script for a new Japanese syntax, translating the voyeuristic impulses of Shaver and the fear of the unknown in Lovecraft into present-day fears of video surveillance, the questionable fidelity of memory, and the pliable reality of recordings.
Which might be an interesting way of looking at the Shaver Mystery and the Lovecraft Mythos in the 21st century: not as literal truth, and not necessarily as something to copy and pastiche, but collections of ideas and images to use as a springboard for new work. Shaver and Lovecraft did not live to see the long tail of their creations influence popular culture, nor for the fringe of true believers to spread their ideas of ancient aliens from the pulps to the mainstream. Yet it is a new century now, and new voices find uses for old pulp ideas.
In this way, the Shaver Mystery and the Lovecraft Mythos live on.
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein 