The Horror in the Museum [Hardcover]

One of the means by which Lovecraft supported himself was in revising stories written by younger, would-be writers. These revisions are problematic because it is virtually impossible to say how much of Lovecraft himself is to be found in them. I believe that, with a few exceptions, the master of the macabre did not lend much of his influence in the retelling of these inferior tales, but a certain few of them do possess sufficient traces of Lovecraft to make them of interest to those followers in his footsteps. Oddly enough, the two stories that actually list Lovecraft as co-author, The Crawling Chaos and The Green Meadow, are the worst of the bunch. Both of these Elizabeth Berkeley stories are flights of fancy which forego any real plot in favor of lofty, dream-enshrouded flights of fancy which cannot even begin to compare to the Dunsanian, dream-cycle myths that Lovecraft perfected on his own. William Lumley’s The Diary of Alonzo Typer is a rather formulaic tale of ancient evil and the discovery of a stranger’s ancestral lineage upon his return to the home of a dead forebear. It gives lip service to such Lovecraftian gods as Shub-Niggurath but falls short of dramatically gripping the reader. Wilfred Blanch Talman’s Two Black Bottles is another unoriginal attempt to horrify the reader by invoking a soul-reclaiming restless spirit from the confines of a dark, defiled church’s cemetery; this story succeeds rather well but possesses no real pizzazz. Adolphe de Castro contributes The Electric Executioner, a rather enjoyable story that cannot but ultimately disappoint in regards to its highly improbably ending.

The revised work of two authors, Hazel Heald and Zealia Bishop, do merit a closer look. Not only are their tales enjoyable and reasonably well-crafted, they do bear certain imprints of the master revisionist’s singular hand. Heald’s Winged Death has nothing at all to do with the Cthulhu Mythos, instead offering the chronicles of a scientist’s mad, wretched, and ultimately self-destructive plot to ingeniously kill a colleague whom he accuses of discrediting his work. Heald’s other tale, The Horror in the Museum, does attain a nice level of creepiness and a touch of cosmic horror. The museum in question is a wax museum, and the strange owner suggests that his distinctly horrible wax figures are more than mere wax. The protagonist, whose friendly interest in the singular artist turns to concern and fear at his increasingly mad utterings, agrees to spend a night alone in the dark museum, surrounded by horrible waxen figures and only two doors away from a creature the artist makes incredible claims about, eventually stating that it is a beast he has called down from Yuggoth itself, a beast through which the return of the Old Ones to Earth can be secured. There is plenty of Cthulhian chanting and references to be found in this story, although it does not follow the letter of the original Mythos. Zealia Bishop’s tales also convey Mythos elements, yet her stories take the reader to Mexico and underneath the plains of Oklahoma, transplanting the abodes of ancient otherworldly creatures beneath the ground and reinterpreting the Mythos references in a Mexican-Spanish tradition. The Curse of Yig invokes a snake-devil of Indian legendry who exacts a most bitter revenge on those who would harm his children among the snake population, one much more malign and vengeful than death itself. The Oklahoma setting of The Curse of Yig is greatly expounded upon in the most significant tale of this collection, Bishop’s The Mound. An ancient mound is guarded by Indian spirits, and all white settlers who have dared explore the area have either returned no more or returned as raving madmen. A scientist of the twentieth century cannot be expected to put stock in such tales, though, so our protagonist vows to explore the mound and finally uncover its secrets. In a major discovery, he comes across a centuries-old account of a sixteenth century Spanish explorer who claims to have journeyed into an alien world underneath the mound, one where some well-known Lovecraftian otherworldy gods are spoken of, remembered, and worshipped. It is rather fascinating to see a sort of conflated Mythos cosmology transplanted deep beneath the earth and to read of references to ancient gods such as Tulu that correlate with the Great Cthulhu. Among the revisions in this collection, The Mound most clearly bears the influence of Lovecraft himself, and while one should by no means place it in the canon of his horrific literature, it does hold a power sure to hypnotize the seekers of Lovecraftian knowledge with its implications and parallel take on the Mythos itself.

[I reproduce below S. T. Joshi's "A Note on the Texts" for this edition:]

In this corrected edition of H. P. Lovecraft's revisions and collaborations, we have attempted not merely to restore the texts but to arrange the tales in accordance with the presumed degree of Lovecraft's involvement with them. What we have called "primary" revisions are those that were wholly or almost wholly written by Lovecraft (although a plot-germ or occasionally an actual draft was supplied by the revision client); the "secondary" revisions are those in which Lovecraft merely touched up--albiet sometimes extensively--a preexisting draft.

The two collaborations with Winifred Virginia Jackson, "The Green Meadow" and "The Crawling Chaos," are interesting in that they are among the few works (the others are "Poetry and the Gods," "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," and "In the Walls of Eryx") where Lovecraft affixed his name along with that of his collaborator, even though here both used pseudonyms. Nevertheless, there is little evidence to suggest that Jackson contributed any prose to either tale.

For the two tales revised for Adolphe de Castro, "The Last Test" and "The Electric Executioner," we have de Castro's original versions; they were published in his collection IN THE CONFESSIONAL (1893), under the titles "A Sacrifice to Science" and "Automatic Executioner." Lovecraft has rewritten both stories completely, preserving only the skeleton of each work. It should be noted that in Lovecraft's only reference to the first tale he calls it "Clarendon's Last Test"; it is not certain whether he or someone else made the change. Lovecraft also speaks in letters of a third story revised for de Castro, but this has evidently been lost.

All three stories revised for Zealia Bishop--"The Curse of Yig," "The Mound," and "Medusa's Coil"--were, as Lovecraft notes, based on the scantiest of plot-germs and are accordingly close to original works by Lovecraft. The persistent rumor that Frank Belknap Long assisted in the writing of "The Mound" is false; Long, as Zelia Bishop's agent, merely abridged the story in a vain attempt to place it with a pulp magazine; after these efforts failed, the original version of the story as written by Lovecraft was restored, remaining in manuscript until Lovecraft's death. August Derleth then radically revised and abridged both "The Mound" and "Medusa's Coil" and marketed them to Weird Tales. This edition represents the first unadulterated publication of both works.

There is abundant evidence that Lovecraft wrote nearly the entirety of all five stories revised for Hazel Heald; Heald's contention that Lovecraft's role in "The Man of Stone" was somewhat less extensive than in the others does not seem to be borne out by the text.

For "The Diary of Alonzo Typer" we have both a draft by William Lumley (the title is his) and Lovecraft's rewriting. Again Lovecraft has preserved only the nucleus of the plot, and all the prose is his. Lumley's draft was first published (along with the original versions of the two Adolphe de Castro tales) in a special edition of Crypt of Cthulhu, ASHES AND OTHERS (1982).

Of the secondary revisions, Sonia H. Greene (Davis) reports that Lovecraft "revised and edited" "The Horror at Martin's Beach" (the title "The Invisible Monster" was supplied by Weird Tales), hence we can assume a preexisting draft. The other tale by Greene thought to be revised by Lovecraft, "Four O'Clock," was written, as Greene tells us, only at Lovecraft's suggestion and does not seem to bear any Lovecraftian prose or content; it has accordingly been omitted from this edition.

In recent years Lovecraft's revisory hand has been detected in a number of tales by his friends and colleagues, and five stories have been added to this edition. Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., first observed that Lovecraft in letters refers to four tales revised for C. M. Eddy, Jr.; all were probably based on existing drafts by Eddy, who wrote many tales in his own right. "Ashes" appears to be the earliest of these stories, and Lovecraft's hand in it is probably very light. In the other three--"The Ghost Eaters," "The Loved Dead," and "Deaf, Dumb, and Blind"--the two authors probably contributed equally.

It is difficult to ascertain how much of Lovecraft remains in Wilfred Blanch Talman's "Two Black Bottles," as Lovecraft's letters suggest that Talman was annoyed at Lovecraft's extensive revisions in the story and may perhaps have reinstated his own prose in the final draft.

I discovered Lovecraft's role in Henry S. Whitehead's "The Trap"; in a letter to R. H. Barlow (25 February 1932)he reports writing the entire central section of the story. In letters Lovecraft refers to another story by Whitehead, "The Bruise," for which he supplied a synopsis; and although William Fulwiler, who brought this matter to our attention, believes that Lovecraft may have actually written the story (published as "Bothon" in WEST INDIA LIGHTS), I am not convinced that Lovecraft contributed any prose to this work.

Lovecraft's letters to Duane W. Rimel indicate that e was reading and reviewing many of Rimel's tales during the 1930s, and in two of them he seems to have had a hand. Scott Connors noted Lovecraft's involvement in "The Tree on the Hill," and Robert M. Price and I confirmed it. Rimel has stated that Lovecraft wrote the entire third section of the tale, as well as the citation from the mythical CHRONICLE OF NATH in the second section. Will Murray first suspected, on internal evidence, Lovecraft's role in "The Disinterment." Rimel maintains that Lovecraft's revisions in the story were very light, and letters by Lovecraft unearthed by Murray and myself appear to confirm that claim.

For R. H. Barlow's "'Till A' the Seas" we have a typescript by Barlow (apparently a second draft) with exhaustive revisions by Lovecraft in en. Dirk W. Mosig discovered Lovecraft's hand in Barlow's "The Night Ocean," as cited in a letter to Hyman Bradofsky (4 November 1936). Mosig believed the tale to be nearly entirely written by Lovecraft; but documents subsequently consulted by me suggest that he played a much smaller role in the genesis and writing of the tale. The work was probably largely Barlow's, although with heavy revisions and additions by Lovecraft at random points.

For a more detailed discussion of the degree of Lovecraft's involvement in these stories, see my article "Lovecraft's Revisions: How Much of Them Did He Write?" Crypt of Cthulhu 2 (Candlemas 1983): 3-14.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is an excellent collection of Lovecraftian weird fiction. All of Lovecraft's revisions and collaborations have now been edited and annotated by S. T. for a two volume set to be published by Arcane Wisdom Press, the first volume of which will be published this year (2011).

I'm not sure how much input Lovecraft had in these stories as Carrol & Graf give absolutely no information regarding where the revisions are. Two writers (represented by 5 stories) Hazel Heald and Zealia Bishop really do show some talent, but they are at their best when they are not doing Lovecraftian-style writing. I guess I got spoiled by "The Annotated Lovecraft", edited by S.T. Joshi. There is no lack of info. in that book, (merely a lack of stories).