Eldritch Tales (88 page)

Some years later, after August Derleth commissioned Wilson to create the cover illustration for the 1970 Arkham House anthology
The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
(‘Which I did, and for which Derleth broke all payment speed records by sending his check for the artwork via return mail!’), the artist thought to ask Derleth if he could help with the map of Arkham.

‘He responded at once and positive by saying he’d love to see such a map printed in
The Arkham Collector
and giving me what he could recall of the missing bits and some valuable addresses,’ explains Wilson. ‘I drew up a revised map using Derleth’s contributions and a few notions of my own (all labelled) and sent copies to people like Frank Long and Bob Bloch and others who had known HPL and surely had asked him Arkhamish questions.

‘They all answered (bless their hearts) with generous contributions and brand new suggestions based on what they had been told by the “old Gentleman” (how he would have loved living to be as old as I am now!), giving all sorts of helpful information not only on Arkham itself, but where it sat in relation to Innsmouth and Dunwich and other such matters.

‘I sent out another fleet of letters to all concerned to straighten out contradictions and, based on what they told me, drew yet another map, sent it out for their approval and, having got it, did the final map which Derleth printed on the centre double-page in the very next issue of the
Collector
.’

Thirty-eight years later that incredibly detailed map formed the distinctive end-papers of
Necronomicon: The Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
.

Since its initial publication in 2008, Gollancz’s ‘Commemorative Edition’ of Lovecraft’s stories has gone through multiple printings (even outstripping the remarkable success of the imprint’s ‘Conan’ collection). Now, with the publication of
Eldritch Tales: A Miscellany of the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft
, Gollancz finally has – for the first time ever – all of the author’s major stories (along with a number of obscure ‘revisions’, his most important weird poetry and some notable non-fiction) in print in Britain at the same time.

It has been a long and often complicated journey since Victor Gollancz wrote that letter to August Derleth from his New York hotel room in May 1950. Despite the occasional misunderstanding or minor upset, Lovecraft’s fiction has enjoyed a healthy publishing history in the United Kingdom, even to the extent that some compilations have been unique to this country.

Now Lovecraft’s body of work has finally returned to Gollancz, its spiritual home in the UK, in a prestige format that once again re-establishes the author as one of the most original and influential horror writers of his or any other generation. Nearly seventy-five years after his premature death and exactly sixty years after his books first appeared on these shores, the cosmic wheel has finally turned full circle.

H.P. Lovecraft is definitely back in Britain.

London, England

OTHER COLLABORATIONS AND REVISIONS

The following is a list of H.P. Lovecraft’s primary collaborations and revisions not included in the present volume.

‘The Ghost-Eater’ (with Clifford M. Eddy, Jr.), originally published in
Weird Tales
, April 1924.

‘The Loved Dead’ (with Clifford M. Eddy, Jr.), originally published in
Weird Tales
, May-July 1924.

‘Deaf, Dumb, and Blind’ (with Clifford M. Eddy, Jr.), originally published in
Weird Tales
, April 1925.

‘The Curse of Yig’ (with Zealia B. Bishop), originally published in
Weird Tales
, November 1929.

‘The Man of Stone’ (with Hazel Heald), originally published in
Wonder Stories
, October 1932.

‘The Horror in the Museum’ (with Hazel Heald), originally published in
Weird Tales
, July 1933.

‘Winged Death’ (with Hazel Heald), originally published in
Weird Tales
, March 1934.

‘Out of the Aeons’ (with Hazel Heald), originally published in
Weird Tales
, April 1935.

‘“Till A’ the Seas”’ (with Robert H. Barlow), originally published in
The Californian
Vol.3, No.1, Summer 1935.

‘The Night Ocean’ (with Robert H. Barlow), originally published in
The Californian
Vol.4, No.3,Winter 1936.

‘The Disinterment’ (with Duane W. Rimel), originally published in
Weird Tales
, January 1937.

‘The Horror in the Burying-Ground’ (with Hazel Heald), originally published in
Weird Tales
, May 1937.

‘The Diary of Alonzo Typer’ (with William Lumley), originally published in
Weird Tales
, February 1938.

‘Collapsing Cosmoses’ (with Robert H. Barlow), originally published in
Leaves
No.2, 1938.

‘Medusa’s Coil’ (with Zealia B. Bishop), originally published in
Weird Tales
, January 1939.

‘Within the Walls of Eryx’ (with Kenneth Sterling), originally published in
Weird Tales
(as ‘In theWalls of Eryx’), October 1939.

‘The Tree on the Hill’ (with Duane W Rimel), originally published in
Polaris
, September 1940.

‘The Mound’ (with Zealia B. Bishop), originally published in
Weird Tales
, November 1940.

‘The Battle That Ended the Century (MS. Found in a Time Machine)’ (with Robert H. Barlow), originally published in
The Acolyte
Vol.2, No.4, Fall 1944.

‘Four O’Clock’ (with Sonia H. Greene), originally published in
Something About Cats
(Arkham House, 1949).

‘Satan’s Servants’ (with Robert Bloch), originally published in
Something About Cats
(Arkham House, 1949).

‘The Survivor’ (with August Derleth), originally published in
Weird Tales
, July 1954.

ENDNOTES

1
.
Rome and Byzantium: A Study in Survival
(Waukesha, 1869), Vol.XX, p.598.

2
.
Influences Romains dans le Moyen Age
(Fond du Lac, 1877), Vol.XV, p.720.

3
. Following Procopius,
Goth
. x.y.z.

4
. Following Jornandes, Codex Murat. Xxj. 4144

5
. After Pagi, 50–50

6
. Not till the appearance of Schweinkopf’s work in 1797 were St Ibid and the rhetorician properly re-identified.

2
. Motto of
A Descent Into the Maelstrom

3
. Prescott,
Conquest of Mexico

HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1890. A life-long antiquarian who had an interest in astronomy, his early work was initially published in the amateur press. His tales of horror and the macabre did not see print professionally until the early 1920s, and even then the bulk of his work appeared in such pulp magazines as
Weird Tales
, along with a handful of hardcover anthologies. A voluminous letter-writer, the only book of his fiction due to be published during his lifetime was the privately printed
Shadows Over Innsmouth
(1938). Following his untimely death in 1937, Lovecraft’s work was initially kept in print by Arkham House publishers and today his fiction – notably the influential Cthulhu Mythos – is known all over the world and forms the basis for countless books, movies, comics, collectibles and role-playing games.