Disclosures in Scarlet by Carl Jacobi

[cromagnonman]

Arkham House 1972



Jacket art Frank Utpatel

This was the last of the three story collections of Carl Jacobi issued by Arkham House. It is also almost certainly one of the last Arkham books which August Derleth himself had any personal involvement with. Derleth died in 1971, the year prior to the book's publication.

For the most part the book draws upon Jacobi's post pulp work although it does include one story dating back to an issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories from 1939 and another originally printed in 1948. No less than seven of the stories were originally commissioned by Derleth for inclusion in his own original anthologies thereby demonstrating what a good friend and reliable patron Derleth was to Jacobi over the years. Doubly fitting therefore if this was indeed his final publishing project.

Aquarium: [DARK MIND, DARK HEART] - The house off of the Brompton Road had originally been the property of Horatio Lear, the noted undersea explorer and conchologist. He had co-habited there with his brother Edmund, and the two had rowed incessantly about Horatio's increasingly wild theories concerning life forms at the lower depths. Horatio's conviction that there existed a mollusc capable of assuming the attributes of the things it fed upon seemed to be taking serious academic research into the realms of superstition and demonology. But then Edmund had mysteriously disappeared and when Horatio himself expired of a heart attack the only relic of the debate was the enormous aquarium which Horatio had had installed in the library to house his collection of shells salvaged from the ocean floor.


When painter Emily Rhodes and her friend Edith Halbin rent the house Edith develops an almost morbid obsession with the aquarium. One which not even the "overpowering smell of putrefaction" from the stagnant water nor the mysterious disappearance of one of her kittens can shake her from. Eventually the obsession comes to rather consume her.



What an excellent tale this one was, showing that Jacobi had certainly learnt a thing or two from his pulp heyday. Characters are plausibly motivated instead of being driven by unfathomable urges and impulses as was his wont. The premise is genuinely clever and authentically repulsive. And even though Jacobi indulges his old habit for having libraries at hand for convenience of exposition then at least on this occasion its a natural extension of the premise.

A terrific read, and now I can't wait to get stuck into the rest. I have a sneaking suspicion this might prove to be a treat.   

[cromagnonman]

The Unpleasantness at Carver House: [TRAVELERS BY NIGHT]: Another story. Another library. Another representative from Jacobi's seemingly inexhaustable stable of "queer creatures". Mind you the isolation of Carver House and its unappealing prospect of the cemetery opposite is enough to send anyone off their trolley. But at least the narrator has his mushroom farm in the dank cellar to occupy him. And there is always his sister to keep him company. Not that she seems to say or do very much. Or indeed anything at all frankly. Not even when he takes her out for a spin in the old jalopy. At least the three visitors from the East Coast appear more companioniable. Not that the sherrif proves very impressed to find them sitting in the music room. Looks like he wont be collecting that order of formaldehyde after all.

I'm afraid this one rather lost me. I couldn't decide whether the accident at the story's opening had any bearing on the narrator's behaviour and if it didn't what the significance of it was. Were the figures on the lawn ghosts or hallucinations? What all this business about building on the cemetery had to do with things. And, when all was said and done, I found I couldn't care less.

Mind you it was better than the preceeding story, "The Player at Yellow Silence" [Galaxy June 1970] which as far as I could make out was all about stopping a war between humanity and aliens by having them compete in a golfing tournament instead organised by Jesus. File that one under B for Barking.  

[helrunar]

Thanks for these, Richard. I'd be interested to read more if you decide to persist with the book. I know I've read a couple of Jacobi's stories here and there but whatever they were, they failed to make much of an impression. It sounds from what you have reported thus far as if his work was quite uneven.

cheers, Steve

[cromagnonman]

Feb 7, 2020 0:14:47 GMT helrunar said:

Thanks for these, Richard. I'd be interested to read more if you decide to persist with the book. I know I've read a couple of Jacobi's stories here and there but whatever they were, they failed to make much of an impression. It sounds from what you have reported thus far as if his work was quite uneven.

cheers, Steve

You've called it Steve; uneven is definitely the word to describe Jacobi's output. When he was good - as he was with things like "Carnaby's Fish" - then he bordered on being great. But, oh dear, when he was bad......

The real problem with this book though is the awkward mishmash of genres which it collects together. The SF and the macabre make for ungainly bedfellows. I'm no connoisseur of SF by any stretch of the imagination but Jacobi doesn't appear to have been a particularly accomplished exponent of it. The weird seems to have better suited his abilities and the next story has provided welcome incentive to persevere with the book.

[andydecker]

Inspired by this I checked if I could find a story by him. I just found "A Pair of Swords" in the 100 Wild Little Tales of Weird Tales. But this is a short short and nothing special. The Panther collections are on sale at the moment, but I can't decide if I really need them.

[cromagnonman]

The Cocomacaque: [The Arkham Collector # 8]: The Victoria branch of the Farmers & Merchants Bank look like a pushover to bank robber Billings and his moll and accomplice, the oddly named Spider (on account of her black eyes). But Billings's confidence takes a knock when the sees the spectre of the town's former police marshall Charlie Yarboro, stalking the streets in broad daylight and carrying "the biggest shillelagh (stick)" Billings has ever seen. It turns out that what Yarboro's ghost is really packing is a Haitian war club called a cocomacaque carved from a branch that once shaded a mamaloi's grave back on the black island.

But Billings isn't given to primitive superstition and goes ahead with his plans to blow the bank's safe that very night, leaving Spider as lookout by the getaway car. Loaded down with loot Billings is aghast to find Spider gone and Charlie Yarboro's ghost standing guard by the car instead. There is a brief struggle and Billings succeeds in wrenching away the club and beating his opponent to a pulp. Which, with hindsight, is something he is going to come to regret.


Ah, now this is more like it. A very entertaining yarn and indicative of how good he could be when he properly applied himself. It has echoes of "The Cane" (found in REVELATIONS IN BLACK) but what I find significant about it is the Haitian connection; something which is also found in "The Aquarium". Seems reasonable to presume that the premise of each story was inspired by his long friendship with Hugh Cave who lived out in those parts for many years and was a well of West Indian lore.

[cromagnonman]

Feb 8, 2020 13:40:54 GMT andydecker said:

Inspired by this I checked if I could find a story by him. I just found "A Pair of Swords" in the 100 Wild Little Tales of Weird Tales. But this is a short short and nothing special. The Panther collections are on sale at the moment, but I can't decide if I really need them.

Personally I wouldn't classify REVELATIONS IN BLACK as an essential addition to anyone's weird library in the way I would, say, Henry Whitehead's JUMBEE. It has a couple of excellent stories in it, a few really good ones and the rest are mostly mediocre. But if you're in the mood for a laugh then it's worth getting just for "Cosmic Teletype" which is truly one of the most hilariously inept pieces of pulp hackwork you're ever likely to find. 

[cromagnonman]

Kincaid's Car: [OVER THE EDGE]: A railroad freight car rolls into the town of Bayou City early one July morning. No one seems able to ascertain who sent it and the consignee - the Standard Chair Factory - had gone bust decades before. And so the car, with its mysterious cargo of "wish suppliers" sits unclaimed outside the company's old premises. Until a woman, strangely dressed in turn of the century fashion and whom no one has ever seen before, arrives and organises an auction of the cargo. In short order the lucky recipients are having their fondest wishes granted. Which is great for them. But by the laws of cause and effect what constitutes one man's good fortune is by necessity another man's worst luck. And suddenly Durgan Kincaid finds himself the unwilling recipient of the consequences of everyone else's sudden prosperity. Armed with a heavy iron bar he descends on the abandoned freight car determined a test a sudden suspicion he has arrived at about exactly what is going on.


This is an amusing tale, part social commentary and part whimsical fantasy. If I hadn't known otherwise I would cheerfully have credited it to Mary Elizabeth Counselman. Originally written for Arkham's silver jubilee volume OVER THE EDGE where the contributors conciously attempted to summon up the essence of the defunct Weird Tales. I'd say Jacobi's yarn achieves that quite successfully. 

[cromagnonman]

The Singleton Barrier: [DARK THINGS]: When his wife and one of his two daughters had disappeared Peter Onquay had been arrested. Largely on the strength of the two graves discovered to the rear of his isolated woodland property. But the graves had been found to be empty and the case had never come to trial. Onquay had subsequently abandoned the house and moved to another property nearby, living there with his congenital idiot of a surviving daughter. But that had all been ten years ago. The way the locals figure it is that it was the wife who murdered the child and that she only got what she deserved; her being a gypsy witch and all.

This is the story Vance Singleton disinters after his car breaks down on the woodland road and he discovers a strange brick wall enclosing a derelict house. The wall has a curious design built into it which -  so he is subsequently informed - is a Lesangre, a Romany symbol for the purposes of warding off the Evil Eye. Unfortunately for Singleton he only learns all this after he has explored the grounds beyond the wall and rashly drunk from a spring he finds there. Pretty soon Singleton is experiencing morbid dreams and suffering hallucinations of gypsy gatherings. Drawn by a irresistable compulsion to revisit the abandoned property events culminate with a gruesome encounter at the open grave.



What a blinder of a story this one is. Jacobi at his absolute best. Well worth anyone's while in tracking down, which is not a claim many people would be likely to make about the SF stories which needlessly clutter up this book. Eerie and atmospheric and genuinely creepy with a climax which will make you gulp at the very least.  

[helrunar]

That one does sound quite cool. Thanks for sharing it with us. Anything with an Arkham imprint always seems to be priced quite high whenever I actually spot them out in the wild.

cheers, Stve

[cromagnonman]

Feb 16, 2020 19:54:04 GMT helrunar said:

That one does sound quite cool. Thanks for sharing it with us. Anything with an Arkham imprint always seems to be priced quite high whenever I actually spot them out in the wild.

cheers, Stve

I think the high prices generally apply to all the titles that Derleth and Wandrei were personally responsible for. Most of the titles post 1971 appear much more affordable. This one was a gift from a friend in the States but I don't believe its particularly scarce or expensive. A cursory browse on Abe shows a jacketless copy currently being offered for 9 bucks.

[ramseycampbell]

Feb 11, 2020 0:01:52 GMT cromagnonman said:

This is an amusing tale, part social commentary and part whimsical fantasy. If I hadn't known otherwise I would cheerfully have credited it to Mary Elizabeth Counselman. Originally written for Arkham's silver jubilee volume OVER THE EDGE where the contributors conciously attempted to summon up the essence of the defunct Weird Tales. I'd say Jacobi's yarn achieves that quite successfully. 


I confess my contribution wasn't meant to recall Weird Tales, though I would happily have done so if August had asked. In December 1962 he simply wrote "By the way, don’t forget that I shall soon have to see stories for our 1964 anthology."

[cromagnonman]

Feb 17, 2020 14:24:57 GMT ramseycampbell said:

Feb 11, 2020 0:01:52 GMT cromagnonman said:

This is an amusing tale, part social commentary and part whimsical fantasy. If I hadn't known otherwise I would cheerfully have credited it to Mary Elizabeth Counselman. Originally written for Arkham's silver jubilee volume OVER THE EDGE where the contributors conciously attempted to summon up the essence of the defunct Weird Tales. I'd say Jacobi's yarn achieves that quite successfully. 


I confess my contribution wasn't meant to recall Weird Tales, though I would happily have done so if August had asked. In December 1962 he simply wrote "By the way, don’t forget that I shall soon have to see stories for our 1964 anthology."

A misconstruction on my part then clearly. With more than half the contributors being stalwarts of the defunct pulp it seemed a logical inference to make. Appreciate the correction. Still seems odd to me that whether the book was intended mostly to celebrate Arkham House or Weird Tales that no space was found in it for Henry S Whitehead. He qualified on both counts. Even if there was no appropriate unpublished stuff to be scavanged from his literary effects there remained plenty of obscure stories from 20s pulps to be had that had never been reprinted including from Weird Tales itself.

Back when Wordsworth published their VOODOO TALES volume I spent a number of hours at the British Library unearthing half a dozen extra weird stories for them which had been omitted from the book. They were delighted to receive them and promised to incorporate them into any reprint. But when reprint time came around this intention went unremembered. And now of course the book is oop and most unlikely to surface again. Very much a missed opportunity I still believe as the book would then have incorporated every single one of Whitehead's Weird Tales contributions. Which is something many people would be glad to see, I think.

[andydecker]

Feb 18, 2020 19:06:56 GMT cromagnonman said:

Back when Wordsworth published their VOODOO TALES volume I spent a number of hours at the British Library unearthing half a dozen extra weird stories for them which had been omitted from the book. They were delighted to receive them and promised to incorporate them into any reprint. But when reprint time came around this intention went unremembered. And now of course the book is oop and most unlikely to surface again. Very much a missed opportunity I still believe as the book would then have incorporated every single one of Whitehead's Weird Tales contributions. Which is something many people would be glad to see, I think.

[/quote]

This is interesting. I always had the impression that Wordsworth didn't regulate the size. I skipped most of the programm except the Holmes and the Crowley which was a big book. I had the Whitehead on the list, but didn't order it. I tend to get stuck in most of the WT writers. It is easy to overdose. Or to find boring. I had such high hopes for Belknap Long, but gave up after a few stories.

[helrunar]

Hi Richard, those Whitehead stories sound like an amazing find, and it's a pity they were not included in a revised edition of the book you mention. I'd seen Whitehead's name here and there since my teenage years but never read anything by him until 2018 when I became curious from reading HPL's letters around the time of Whitehead's sudden death in the early 1930s. There are some interesting blog articles out there about Whitehead. I've been able to read a couple of the stories that are available online and the folkloric elements are so well used in those. He sounds like such an offbeat character. It's hard to know if there is "profiling" going on with his exclusion from anthologies due to certain things about his life and interests, or if what he wrote simply doesn't stimulate modern sensibilities in the way that other authors from that period and circle have done.

cheers, Steve