Mr George and Other Odd Persons by August Derleth

[cromagnonman]

In my estimation - such as it is - August Derleth was a better writer of weird yarns than he is often given credit for. Far better certainly than anyone only familiar with his feeble and formulaic Lovecraftian fiction would readily believe. But its equally true to say that he didn't do his cause any favours with the sort of admissions and qualifications found in the introduction to this book. In a strange mix of self-effacement and ego he glibly claims to have knocked off its entire compliment of seventeen stories in the space of a single month "under conditions in which the average writer could not have begun to function." Each tale, apparantly, was written in the small hours and mailed off unrevised to Weird Tales with the morning light. When one stops to think of his idol Lovecraft, labouring wretchedly over a single manuscript for weeks or even months on end which would, as likely as not, get bounced in the end anyway the contrast could hardly be more pronounced.



Admissions of this kind cannot fail to feed the impression of an incorrigible hack. But Derleth was certainly not one of those, and if such readable copy as is to be found here came so easily to him then it only goes to prove the ready knack he had for writing it. Most of the stories don't readily betray the haste in which they were written. They are however undeniably repetitious in their themes although that is only a failing apparant in the collecting of them together and wouldn't have been anywhere near as obvious in their original magazine appearances.

All of the stories were originally run under the Stephen Grendon alias, a pen name which came to accrue a more favourable response than Derleth's own name did much in the manner of Henry Kuttner and Lewis Padgett.

There are only two stories here that I would classify as absolute clunkers which by rights should have been left to moulder unmourned in their pulp paper graves instead of being exhumed for re-examination: they are "The Extra Passenger" and "The Wind in the Lilacs". All of the remaining stories are never less than imaginative and entertaining and frequently delightful. Arguably the best stories are "A Gentleman From Prague" in which a grave robber gets a home visit from an affronted lich, the poignant "Miss Esperson" and the compelling "The Night Train to Lost Valley" which owes a little to Howard's "The Black Stone". Though I don't mind owning up to a particular fondness for the more whimsical "Balu" and "Blessed Are the Meek".

One of the more curious aspects to this book lies is its recurrent themes of child neglect and outright abuse. They feature in no less than five of the seventeen stories. I have no idea what the circumstances of Derleth's own upbringing were but it is surely suggestive that there is so little joy found in the childhoods that he writes about here. They are the complete opposite of the sort of experiences that Bradbury was writing about at the same time which cannot help but lead one to wonder whether they were written in reaction to them. But grim as some of the treatment meted out by unfeeling in-laws and wicked step-mothers is to read its comparably satisfying to read the retributions such invariably incur.

All in all an excellent book to have upon the shelf.    

[David A. Riley]

I remember buying and reading this book in the sixties and being impressed by it. I must admit I agree with you: he is much better when not writing his tather laborious Lovecraftian pastiches, which are some of the worst ever penned outside amateur circles - and possibly within!

Oddly enough, I was also impressed by his admission to having written all these stories in the space of one month - a feat I would love to be able to emulate but never have - and am certain I never will!

[helrunar]

Wonderful cover! Thanks for the scan.

"Mr George" was one of the stories dramatized on Boris Karloff's Thriller series in the early Sixties. As I recall it, the dramatization was quite well done. It might be on youtube now.

cheers, H.