Legends For The Dark

[dem bones]

Peter Haining (ed.) - Legends For The Dark (Nel, 1968)

Introduction - Peter Haining

Arthur Porges - Solomon’s Demon
Robert Sheckley - The Altar
August Derleth - Here, Daemos!
Basil Copper - The Academy Of Pain
Robert Bloch - Floral Tribute
Wesley Rosenquest - The Secret Of The Vault
Jules Verne - The Ordeal Of Dr. Trifulgas
Edward D. Ludwig - A Night With Hecate
H. P. Lovecraft - Beyond The Wall Of Sleep
Ray Bradbury - The Scythe

This book was to have been sealed - to keep the horrors in. As it is not, read at your peril.

No-one has ever proved that RAY BRADBURY, ROBERT BLOCH, AUGUST DERLETH and their legendary companions in the dark are not practicing warlocks or ghouls. So no guarantee is given of a safe passage through their tales of secret rituals, Occult religions and Black Magic.

Of course, we can always recommend a good undertaker ….

This one is perhaps of most interest because, as mentioned, Haining gives it something of a pasting in his introduction to Summoned From The Tomb.

"Finally, let me add that in revising this volume I have added to it one or two stories from another subsequent collection of mine, Legends For The Dark, which is similarly out of print and while not in my opinion being worthy of reissue itself, did contain some gems which should not suffer because of the dross they appeared with"

So, if I'm not very much mistaken, here's some of the "dross" ....

Arthur Porges - Solomon’s Demon: Barry Selden inherits his Uncle George's ramshackle old New England home under the proviso that he neither sells or demolishes it as there is something dangerous lurking in the cellar. Sifting through the old man's antiques he discovers a plate of yellow ivory hideously engraved and bearing the commemoration:

"The encounter of the men of the Sarah Hackett with a malignant spirit of the Night. How an evil demon, sealed up since the days of Solomon, was accidentally released by Captain Barker. It tore off the face and right arm of First Mate Ezekiel Sharpe, and then daunted by the light, which it cannot abide, retreated below decks. It was driven back into the box by the Voodoo Priestess, Mamaloi Hannah, who was freed as a reward. June, 1841."

That'll be the inhabitant of the cellar then.

Robert Sheckley - The Altar: North Ambrose, New Jersey: Mr. Slater bumps into an urbane foreign gent who asks him directions to the Altar of Baz-Matain. It transpires that he is Elot, the group’s new business manager during a time of fierce local competition from the other occult aggregates who proliferate in the area. Mr. Slater is appalled that his respectable town should be given over to these blasphemers and telephone’s the mayor to demand he do something about it. In his turn that worthy tells Mr. Slater that he’s been strung a line. Determined to prove the mayor wrong, the next time he meets Elot Mr. Slater asks if he can attend the next ceremony …

August Derleth - Here, Daemos!: The Rev. Martin Welby, formerly of Whitechapel ("not a savoury environment"), arrives in Millham to learn that the parish funds are all but depleted. On the plus side, local legend has it that the tomb of Sir Nicholas Millham, undisturbed these past three centuries, contains all his lovely treasure. Against the advice of the superstitious yokels he orders a swift exhumation. But Sir Nicholas was a noted Demonologist and he's not about to let the church get their grubby hands on his ill-gotten gains.

Wesley Rosenquest - The Secret Of The Vault: Since the death of Aunt Helena, Uncle has become obsessive in his visits to the family vault in an ostentatious show of public grief. His nephew (our narrator) doesn't think anyone could have loved the old trout that much and his suspicions prove correct when he discovers that books on necromancy proliferate in Uncle's library.

Rosenquest's earlier Weird Tales contribution, Return To Death is great fun but this is very disappointing. Overwritten and overlong, it reads like the very worst Lovecraft revision, but at least it demonstrates that Haining was sifting the glorious WT back catalogue for work by its lest illustrious contributors.

And he's being very harsh on Sheckley, Porges and Derleth.

[redbrain]

Peter Haining quotes a Lovecraft sonnet in his introduction. When D F Lewis pointed this out to me in the summer of 1968, it was the first intimation either of us had that Lovecraft had written any verse. I currently own a copy of The Ancient Track (the fat volume that collects all of Lovecraft's verse). My guess is that Mr Lewis doesn't have a copy of this available for his life's closing down sale.