The Development of the Weird Tale

by S. T. Joshi

  [131]. As “The Torturers.”

  [132]. As “The Prey.”

  [133]. As “The Ultimate Vision.”

  [134]. Steve Behrends has directed me to a letter by Wandrei to August Derleth (27 November 1945; State Historical Society of Wisconsin) in which he discusses the revision of these son­nets: “I’ve been at the SONNETS OF THE MIDNIGHT HOURS the past week-end; there were 26 in all, but unless some of them can be greatly improved, they will be reduced to 20 or 22. I have made revisions on all but 4 or 5.”

  [135]. John Gawsworth, “Foreword” to The Best Stories of Thomas Burke (London: Phoenix House, 1950), 16.

  [136]. Richard Bleiler, “Thomas Burke,” in Late Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists: Second Series (Dictionary of Litreary Biography 197), ed. George M. Johnson (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1999); Jessica Amanda Salmonson, “Introduction” to Burke’s The Golden Gong and Other Night-Pieces (Ashcroft, BC: Ash-Tree Press, 2001).

  [137]. Anne Veronica Witchard, “Thomas Burke, the ‘Laureate of Limehouse’: A New Biographical Outline,” English Literature in Transition 48, No. 2 (January 2005): 164–87; Thomas Burke’s Dark Chinoiserie: Limehouse Nights and the Queer Spell of Chinatown (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009).

  [138]. Stanley Unwin, The Truth about a Publisher: An Autobiographical Record (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960), 133.

  [139]. Gawsworth, 8–9.

  [140]. Witchard, “Thomas Burke,” 176–77.

  [141]. G. M. Hyde, D. H. Lawrence (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan Education, 1990), 4.

  [142]. Janice Hubbard Harris, The Short Fiction of D. H. Lawrence (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984), p. 224.

  [143]. Graham Hough’s bizarre criticism of Lawrence’s ghostly tales is representative of the inability of mainstream critics to understand the rhetoric of the supernatural: “Ghosts should be raised in fiction by people who believe in them or by those whose aim is to produce a shudder of the nerves. Lawrence belongs to neither of these classes, and his ghostly visitants only produce effects that in his more vigorous moods would have been achieved through the conflict of character and circumstance.” Graham Hough, The Dark Sun: A Study of D. H. Lawrence (1956), quoted in Weldon Thornton, D. H. Lawrence: A Study of the Short Fiction (New York: Twayne, 1993), 138. Very few writers of ghost stories actually believe in ghosts, and very few aside from hack writers are interested only in producing a shudder. The supernatural can—and, in Lawrence’s work, does—enhance the “conflict of character and circumstance” that is the goal of many weird writers.

  [144]. For the uninitiated, the title is a parody of C. S. Lewis’s autobiog­raphy, Surprised by Joy.

  [145]. “Through Hyperspace with Brown Jenkin,” in Lovecraft’s The Dark Brotherhood and Other Pieces (Arkham House, 1966), 166; also rpt. in my H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criti­cism (Ohio University Press, 1980), 142.

  [146]. New York: Harcourt Brace Jo­vanovich, 1977. All references to this volume will be derived from this edition and will be made parentheti­cally in the text.

  [147]. Collected Fiction: A Variorum Edition, ed. S. T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2015–17), 2.538.

  [148]. lbid., 2.392.

  [149]. See S. T. Joshi, God’s Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003), 273–78.

  [150]. Ambrose Bierce, A Sole Survivor: Bits of Autobiography, ed. S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998), 215–16.

  [151]. Judy Oppenheimer, Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1988), 213–15.

  [152]. Shirley Jackson, The Sundial (1958; New York: Penguin, 2014), 168–69. Subsequent citations will occur in the text.

  [153]. Harvey Swados, “What Is This World?” New Republic (3 March 1958): 19–20.

  [154]. David L. Stevenson, “The Lost Audience,” Nation (2 August 1958): 58.

  [155]. William Peden, “The ‘Chosen Few,’” Saturday Review of Literature (8 March 1958): 16.

  [156]. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), 6.

  [157]. Charlie Rose, Interview with Guillermo del Toro (2 July 2009).

  [158]. Daniel Zalewski, “Show the Monster,” New Yorker (7 February 2011). Available at www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/07/110207fa_fact_zalewski?currentPage=all.

  [159]. See note 2.

  [160]. Michael Guillen, “Pan’s Labyrinth—Interview with Guillermo del Toro,” twitchfilm.com; available at twitchfilm.com/2006/12/pans-labyrinthinterview-with-guillermo-del-toro.html.

  [161]. Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, “Embraced by Many Religions, ‘Labyrinth’ Allows Broad Discussion of Faith Issues,” sfgate.com (2 March 2007); available at www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Embraced-by-many-religions-Labyrinth-allows-2612375.php.

  [162]. H. P. Lovecraft, “The Dunwich Horror,” in Collected Fiction: A Variorum Edition, ed. S. T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2015–17), 2.452.

  [163]. H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness, in Collected Fiction: A Variorum Edition, 3.91–92.

  [164]. Ibid., 3.40.

  [165]. Guillermo del Toro, “Haunted Catles, Dark Mirrors,” in American Supernatural Tales, ed. S. T. Joshi (New York: Penguin, 2013), 25.

  [166]. See note 3.

  [167]. Clark Collins, “‘Prometheus’ vs. ‘At the Mountains of Madness’: How Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ Prequel Killed Guillermo del Toro’s Dream Project,” Entertainment Weekly (10 June 2012); available at insidemovies.ew.com/2012/06/10/prometheus-ridley-scott-guillermo-del-toro-lovecraft/.

  [168]. H. P. Lovecraft, letter to R. H. Barlow, [11 May 1935]; Selected Letters 1934–1937, ed. August Derleth and James Turner (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976), 160.

  [169]. The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature, ed. S. T. Joshi (New York: Hippocam­pus Press, 2nd ed. 2012), 88.

  [170]. Ibid., 28.

  [171]. Lovecraft, letter to the Gallomo [c. April 1920]; Letters to Alfred Galpin, ed. S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2003), 73.

  [172]. Lovecraft, letter to Vincent Starrett (6 December 1927); Selected Letters:1925–1929, ed. August Derleth and Donald Wandrei (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1968), 211.

  [173]. See Mike Ashley, Algernon Blackwood: An Extraordinary Life (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001), 189–90.

  [174]. Lovecraft, letter to Willis Conover (10 January 1937); Selected Letters: 1934–1937, 384.

  [175]. I wrote a brief entry on Ransome and The Elixir of Life in Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2005).

  [176]. “They [the stories] are fantasy; but they are fantasy in which some symbolic meaning is evidently intended. And they are put forward, not as vague pictures of mood, in the manner of most prose-poems, but with the definite imaginary logic which the relation of an event requires. Poe has done things of the kind; and the influence of Poe is in some of Mr. Ransome’s stories pretty clear.” [Lascelles Abercrombie], Review of The Hoofmarks of the Faun, Times Literary Supplement No. 488 (18 May 1911): 192.

  [177]. Ransome, Letter to Dora Collingwood (27 February 1915), Signalling from Mars: The Letters of Arthur Ransome, ed. Hugh Brogan (London: Jonathan Cape, 1997), 22.

  [178]. The Autobiography of Arthur Ransome, ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (London: Jonathan Cape, 1976), 175.

  [179]. Ibid., 175–76.

  [180]. [Walter de la Mare], “New Novels,” Times Literary Supplement No. 714 (23 September 1915): 321.

  [181]. “Just now I am reading ‘The Elixir of Life’, by Arthur Ransome, one of several books lent me by W. Paul Cook. While thre is considerable vapid romanticism in it, a pall of genuine horror hangs over the setting; & I do not hesitate in pronouncing it distinctly worth perusal.” H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 20 August 1928; Essential Solitude: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth, ed. David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2008), 1.153.

  [18
2]. See my afterword to Herbert Gorman’s The Place Called Dagon (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2003), 186–87.

  [183]. See Peter Hunt, Arthur Ransome (Boston: Twayne, 1991), 23.

  [184]. Hugh Brogan, Ransome’s biographer, makes the remarkable claim that “The only thing of interest . . . is the character of the uncle.” See The Life of Arthur Ransome (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984), 102.

  [185]. Although Lovecraft apparently prepared his revised edition in the summer of 1933, the section of ch. 8 discussing Sinister House did not appear in the Fantasy Fan serialisation (Oct. 1933–Feb. 1935); it first appeared in The Outsider and Others (1939).

  [186]. Machiavelli: A Comic Opera in Two Acts. Book and lyrics by Guilliaem Aertsen, Jr. Music by Leland B. Hall. Boston: Printed by C. F. W. Schlimper, 1905.

  [187]. [Unsigned], review of Sinister House, New York Times Book Review (2 February 1919): 53.

  [188]. [Unsigned], review of Sinister House, Nation 108 (15 February 1919): 259.

  [189]. H. W. Boynton, “Advetures and Riddles,” Bookman 49 (May 1919): 322.

  [190]. [Unsigned], review of Sinister House, Dial 66 (22 March 1919): 314.

  [191]. See HPL to August Derleth, 8 April 1932; Essential Solitude 2.473.

  [192]. D. H. Olson, “Ingram, Eleanor M[arie],” in Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia, ed. S. T. Joshi and Stefan Dziemianowicz (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), 2.598–99.

  [193]. The Game and the Candle (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1909; New York: Grosset & Dunlap, [1909?]); The Flying Mercury (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1910); Stanton Wins (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1911); From the Car Behind (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1912); The Unafraid (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1913); A Man’s Hearth (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1915); The Twice American (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1917); The Thing from the Lake (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1921).

  [194]. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 16 May 1927; Essential Solitude, 1.89.

  [195]. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 17 June [1927]; Essential Solitude, 1.95.

  [196]. Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, ed., Twentieth Century Authors (New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1942), 1565.

  [197]. Herschell Brickell, “New Brett Young Novel Not Up to His Best Work,” Literary Review (New York Evening Post) (21 November 1925): 2.

  [198]. John W. Crawford, review of Cold Harbour, Literary Digest International Book Review 3, No. 12 (November 1925): 822.

  [199]. [Unsigned], review of Cold Harbour, Times Literary Supplement No. 1193 (24 November 1924): 794. The online edition of the Times Literary Supplement now identifies the author of this review as one Orlo Williams.

  [200]. “The idea of a Roman settlement in America is something which occurred to me years ago—in fact, I began a story with that theme (only it was about Central America & not U.S.) in 1906 or 1907, tho’ I never finish’d it.” HPL to Lillian D. Clark, 14–19 November 1925; cited in S. T. Joshi, I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2010), 1.119.

  [201]. “I must now get hold of ‘Cold Harbour’, by Francis Brett Young, which Belknap has just finished. He says its quality of horror is very notable, & that it must certainly be included in my present survey of the weird tale. It is a full-length novel with a highly sinister background.” HPL to Lillian D. Clark, 27 March 1926; Letters from New York (San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2005), 286.

  [202]. HPL to Frank Belknap Long, 25 May 1926 (ms., Arkham House Transcripts).

  [203]. HPL to Frank Belknap Long, 11 June 1926 (ms., Arkham House Transcripts).

  [204]. H. P. Lovecraft, Letter to August Derleth [12 February 1928]; Essential Solitude, 1.135.

  [205]. HPL to August Derleth [late December 1933]; Essential Solitude, 2.616.

  [206]. “R. E. Spencer,” Wilson Bulletin for Librarians 6, No. 4 (December 1931): 262, 320.

  [207]. [Unsigned], Review of The Lady Who Came to Stay, Saturday Review of Literature 8, No. 25 (9 January 1932): 447.

  [208]. Margaret Wallace, “A Drama of Spiritual Antagonisms,” New York Times Book Review (11 October 1931): 7.

  [209]. Martha Dodd, “The Conflict of Two Wills,” New York Herald Tribune Books (18 October 1931): 12.

  [210]. La Maison des ombres, tr. G. Camille (Paris: Les Editions Rieder, 1934).

  [211]. Kenneth White, The Lady Who Came to Stay: A Play in Seven Scenes (New York: Samuel French, 1941).

  [212]. Brooks Atkinson, Review of The Lady Who Came to Stay (drama), New York Times (3 January 1941): 13.