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We are currently witnessing both a
resurgence of interest in the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, and the appearance of
the new discipline of Lovecraft scholarship. Whether the latter has come about
from recognition that HPL deserves the same serious treatment that "real
literature" claims is not ours to say. It may simply be that many literary
critics and scholars happen to enjoy Lovecraft, and that doing Lovecraft
scholarship is one more way they can enjoy him.
At any rate, both prongs of the wave of
interest in HPL have produced a hunger for more. Besides new printings
and editions of his standard works (fiction, poetry, letters, essays) a
detective search for new items of juvenilia and marginalia is underway. Anything
by Lovecraft will interest his true devotees. Again, motivations for this may be
many. Such a quest may indicate that the quester possesses no discrimination and
so finds "The Beast in the Cave" and "The Dunwich Horror"
equally to his liking. Or, Lovecraft may be deemed such a prophet of truth that
any logion of his, however obscure, is to be treasured. Or it may be good old
curiosity and the collector's desire to have everything. In any case, in
the spirit of such "completist" lust we offer the present small
volume, Ashes and Others.
These materials fall neatly into two
categories. First there are some rare and neglected "revision" items.
The title story is the fourth of Lovecraft's revisions for his friend and client
C. M. Eddy, Jr. Unlike its companion pieces "The Loved Dead", "The
Ghost-Eater", and "Deaf, Dumb and Blind", this one was not included in the
Arkham House collection The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. It
has long been moldering in the pages of Weird Tales (the March 1924
issue) and has actually been suppressed by Lovecraft scholars since its
connection with Lovecraft was rediscovered. Another Lovecraft-Eddy tale
("The Loved Dead") was banned from newsstands because of its shocking
treatment of necrophilia, but one suspects that "Ashes" was hidden
away more from the embarrassment of the Lovecraft enthusiasts who had unearthed
it. Whatever its literary merits, we are all indebted to S. T. Joshi for finally
bringing it to light.
"The Sealed Casket" by Richard
F. Searight was not revised by Lovecraft, but he did have a hand in it. Or, one
might better say, he should have. Lovecraft had written a substantial passage
from The Eltdown Shards to head the story, which his friend Searight had
shown him in manuscript. But when "The Sealed Casket" appeared in Weird
Tales (March 1935), Lovecraft's "Fragment from the Eltdown Shards"
was omitted. It did survive", however, reproduced in a letter to Clark Ashton
Smith. We present for the first time "The Sealed Casket" as it was
intended to appear, with Lovecraft's heading. Incidentally, since The Eltdown
Shards is never mentioned in the story itself, we may conclude that this
fictitious work of esoterica, which HPL used again in "The Challenge from
Beyond" and elsewhere, was his own invention, and not that of Searight as
has sometimes been suggested.
"The Sorcery of Aphlar" is a
rather scarce Lovecraft revision, this time for his young friend Duane W. Rimel.
The extent of Lovecraft's involvement in this brief tale is a subject of debate.
According to a manuscript notation by R. H. Barlow, HPL did indeed revise the
tale, yet a reference in one of Lovecraft's letters might be taken to suggest
that he provided little more than the title.
Very glad to see the new tale
--- which
reminds me somewhat of Dunsany. I'm returning it with a few changes which I
think would help somewhat. . . . I've taken the liberty of changing the name of
the hero --- since the common English name of Alfred hardly fits in with the
fabulous setting --- the city of Bel-haz-en, the river Oll, and the mountains of
Azlakha! Hope you'll find Aphlar suitable as a successor.
--- HPL to Duane Rimel, 23 July 1934
There are several echoes of Lovecraft
stories including "The Quest of Iranon", "The Other Gods", and
"Polaris". These might indicate Lovecraft's hand, or might simply
mean that the story is largely an attempt by Rimel to pastiche Lovecraft. It is
difficult to tell. But the story does bear Lovecraft's mark and so may count as
an adjunct to his "Dunsanian" canon. The tale appeared first in The
Fantasy Fan (December 1934), then in the Tri-State Times (Spring 1937), and most
recently in Lovecraft's Uncollected Prose and Poetry (Necronomicon Press, 1978)
now out of print.
The last piece in this section is a
remarkable poem, long credited to Duane W. Rimel, but largely the work of Lovecraft. It is called "Dreams of
Yith", and is strongly reminiscent, in
content as well as title, of the "Fungi from Yuggoth" sonnet cycle.
Rimel had entitled his draft "Dreams of Yid". Lovecraft pointed out
that "Yid" had an unfortunate "slang connotation" and
suggested that "Yith" be used instead, thus creating the name he would
use for the home world of the Great Race in "The Shadow out of Time". Of Rimel's original, only the draft of the sixth stanza is extant. (Lovecraft
said Robert L. Barlow had a hand in revising at least this stanza.) Comparison
with the final version makes it evident that Lovecraft virtually rewrote the
poem, leaving only a few words intact. If the reviser's hand lay so heavily upon
the rest of the work, "Dreams of Yith" may be attributed as much (if
not more) to Lovecraft as to Rimel. The poem first appeared in The Fantasy
Fan,
July and September, 1934.
S. T.
Joshi's zealous researches have uncovered various pre-Lovecraftian drafts and
notes for some of Lovecraft's more commonly-known revision tales, and these form
our second group of materials. The first piece included here is "Dreams of
Yid", Rimel's draft stanza mentioned just above.
Next we have William Lumley's rough draft
for "The Diary of Alonzo Typer". Very light editorial changes have
been necessary here, mainly by way of supplying punctuation and dividing a few
run-on sentences.
It may come as something of a surprise
that Lovecraft's two revisions for Adolphe de Castro ("The Electric
Executioner" and "The Last Test") were rewritten from "The
Automatic Executioner" and "A Sacrifice to Science", stories actually
published some years earlier in In the Confessional and the Following (New York:
Western Authors' Publishing Association, 1893). These stories are reproduced
here.
Finally, we are happy to present "The
Lord of Illusion", E. Hoffmann Price's draft for his collaboration with
Lovecraft, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key". It has survived in
manuscript in the John Hay Memorial Library of Brown University. It appears here
for the first time.
We now make all these pre-Lovecraftian
writings available to the reading public, partly for curiosity's sake, but
mainly for scholarly interest. For the appearance of these drafts makes possible
for the first time real scientific redaction criticism of Lovecraft's revisions
and collaborations. By comparing them to the originals, we may gauge precisely
the nature and scope of the Lovecraftian contribution in each case.
One word of caution. Readers should not
necessarily form their opinion of the literary talents of Lumley, De Castro, and
Price on the basis of the stories herein printed. In all cases they are either rudimentary
drafts, not polished tales, or stories later recognized by their
author as deficient and in need of revision. Yet in another sense, reading these
early versions can give us new appreciation for their authors, since their
contribution to the finished versions of the tales has often been vastly
underestimated.
Finally, an explanatory note: the present
collection does not follow the format of an ordinary issue of Crypt of
Cthulhu,
but it counts as Volume 2, Number 2, in the series. And it is the first of two
parts in that Volume 2, Number 3, though it will resume the usual format, will
feature articles expounding and commenting on Lovecraft's revisions. These will
include, among others, "Lovecraft's Revisions --- How Much of Them Did He
Write?" and "Who Wrote 'The Mound'?" by S. T. Joshi, '"Yig',
'The Mound', and American Indian Lore" by Michael DiGregorio, and
"The Revision Mythos" by the present writer.
Robert M. Price
Yuletide 1982
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