August Derleth and H.P.Lovecraft - The Shuttered Room

[andydecker]

August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft – The Shuttered Room (Ballantine Books, 1971, 166 p., Original Arkham House 1959, 313 p.))

(John Holmes)

CROSS FRONTIERS OF FEAR INTO CHILL REALMS OF TERROR

The strange and terrible universe of H.P.Lovecraft is yours in these tales of dread secrets, strange beings, and the mind-wrenching horror that lurks beyond the borders of experience.

The stories, left uncompleted by H.P.Lovecraft at the time of his death, were completed by his longtime friend and fellow-writer August Derleth.

Content:

The Shuttered Room (1959)
Witches' Hollow (1962)
The Horror from the Middle Span (1967)
The Shadow in the Attic (1964)
The Fisherman of Falcon Point (1959)
The Dark Brotherhood (1966)

This is a cut in half version of its original, which maybe gave its reader more context to the roots of these stories. There were a few essays on Lovecraft by Derleth, Lin Carter and others. And while they surely cemented the party line about Derleth's version of the Mythos – an educated guess, I don't have access to the Arkham House editions -, at least there were some original Lovecraft stories included. And I imagine the reader could guess these were just HPLs plot ideas developed by Derleth and not stories just missing the last chapter.

In this paperback edition the impression is just the other way around; the stories are left uncommented. If you didn't catch the back-text, you'd assume this is Lovecraft with some embellishing by Derleth. From todays perspective it is quite interesting to see how much effort Derleth put in connecting the Mythos stories. Clearly he was a man with a mission.  The Shuttered Room for instance is mainly about establishing that the characters of The Dunwich Horror and Shadow over Innsmouth are directly connected through family ties, right down to monstrous off-springs imprisoned in the attic. The actual plot is not important.

As can be read in Joshi's Lovecraft biography the ideas for these stories were just one of two sentences. Derleth's stories are mostly formula, a guy inherits a house, finds forbidden books - insert the Derleth Mythos run-down - and at the end finds some monster or other. Some potentially interesting new ideas are never developed. It reads like a blueprint for pastiche writing, while rewriting the original concepts according to the gospel of August.

But the cover is a classic.

[helrunar]

Thanks for those interesting notes about this book, Andreas.  I remember this paperback and others in the series--I still have my copy of Tales from the Cthulhu Mythos, volume I, with another fine cover by the same artist. I think I must have figured out somehow that The Shuttered Room wasn't really by HPL, because I don't even recall browsing through the book when it was on the racks, way back when. 

There was a film version of the title story in 1967, with a cast that included Gig Young, Carol Lynley (a "scream queen" of the era), and Flora Robson--supposed to be quite bad, but again, I never saw it. I guess Old Auggie made some dough selling the film rights. His agent must have had some "industry" connections as other stories of Auggie's were dramatized on series such as Boris Karloff's Thriller and Rod Serling's Night Gallery.

Best wishes, Steve

[fritzmaitland]

The Fisherman Of Falcon Point - August Derleth. For October 24th, I went with this very slight little story. A fisherman in the vicinity of Innsmouth nets what would seem to be a female Deep One. He casts her back into the sea, but her batrachian allure never leaves him. He becomes more introverted and stand-offish, foregoing the tavern, until one day he ...disappears. Investigators find damp prints of what appear to be webbed feet going to and from the bed he last slept in, but of the man himself, no trace... not much too it at all, but I rather liked it's simplicity.

PS H - I've seen the film of The Shuttered Room a couple of times. It draws bizarre comparisons with Straw Dogs (1971) because it's set out in the boondocks, with a sophisticated city couple visiting, Carole Lynley being menaced by Ollie Reed and his gang of inbred Whately hillbillies. Dame Flora Robson is good value, having a pet bird of prey and living in a ruined windmill/lighthouse/watchtower/whateveritis. I bought this book to read the story. It's more Lovecraftian that the film, which is more like the traditional British there's something nasty in the attic/cellar which isn't really that nasty (like The Oblong Box/Beast In The Cellar/Tower Of Evil etc).

[helrunar]

Fritz, just now seeing your comment. I found this thread using the google search tip Andreas clued me into. Had forgotten all about it.

I purchased a copy of this paperback from an Abebooks vendor and have been reading it. (I also now have a decent copy of The Mask of Cthulhu to peruse; the one I bought from another online vendor arrived so mildewed I was unable to do anything except consign it to the rubbish.) I agree with whomever commented recently that "The Shuttered Room" is good Lovecraft fanfiction from Derleth. I admit that I laughed out loud when I got to the "horrifying" revelation.

"Witches' Hollow" is like Derleth on autopilot. I imagine he churned this one out in a day or two.

The stories work for me because I treat them as camp. I've become curious about the volume of letters exchanged between Derleth and Ramsey Campbell. The library where I work holds this book and I will have to have it paged.

H.

[helrunar]

"The Horror from the Middle Span" has a neat little twist (or maybe it's simply a concept) inserted into the standard template. The story moved along briskly enough.

Shockingly, "The Shadow in the Attic" is the first of the tales to feature a strong female character--and the woolgathering male protagonist actually finds himself accidentally fondling a naked female nipple when suddenly awakened in his bed in the middle of the night! The nipple and its attendant breast prove to be spectral, but I needed to lie down after reading about that. It is only thanks to the no-nonsense intercession of the human female of the tale (who has taken an unaccountable interest in his welfare) that this particular dithering male narrator is saved from his own idiocy. A cautionary tale for fans, perhaps?

I thought "The Fisherman of Falcon Point," which was the shortest tale in the book, was also the best, and part of the reason is that in this one, Derleth departs from custom and pastiches Lovecraft's Dunsany period, though the story itself is yet another spinoff from the Innsmouth material. The style of the story is less hidebound as a result. And there's an unusually nuanced portrait of a Deep One, another female character I seriously doubt would ever have crossed HPL's mind, at least not in this guise.

"The Dark Brotherhood" closes out the volume. It was the title tale of a 1966 Arkham House anthology. And it begins promisingly with Derleth's evocation of a character clearly modeled on HPL himself ("Arthur Phillips"). Unfortunately about halfway through it becomes much less interesting, but I was still entertained. An odd bit of synchronicity is that I finished reading this story (and this volume) on the evening of July 18, on my commute home. The final paragraph of the tale is a short excerpt from a Providence Journal news cutting dated July 17. For a moment I thought I saw the spectre of Little Augie grinning over my shoulder.

These tales are fun if you're in the right mood. If you're not in that mood, and if you think the "Derleth Mythos" was the worst thing ever to happen to Lovecraft's legacy, it's hardly necessary to say that it's best to stay away.

H.