" It is new, indeed for I made it last night in a dream of strange cities: and dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the
contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon" The Call of Cthulhu

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Lovecraft Manuscript Found

Lovecraft Manuscript Found



The Dark Brotherhood, (Nice) Jacket 
by Wisconsin artist Frank Utpatel

"The Cancer of Superstition, a non-fiction treatise commissioned from author H.P. Lovecraft, was found in a memorabilia collection in a defunct magic shop. Magician Harry Houdini asked Lovecraft to ghostwrite the text for a book project, but died shortly thereafter. Now it goes to auction."

The quote above is from boingboing



It seems the manuscript was a collaboration between Lovecraft and C.M. Eddy at the request of Harry Houdini. The entire work was never completed due to Houdini's death. A synopsis and one chapter, "The Genesis of Superstition" was published in the Arkham house volume  The Dark Brotherhood and Other Pieces in 1966. S.T. Joshi provides an excellent overview of the collaboration in the Guardian article below. C.M. Eddy collaborated with Lovecraft on a number of works including "Ashes", "The Ghost Eater", "Deaf, Dumb, and Blind", and "The Loved Dead" probably the most, at the time, controversial story Lovecraft ever wrote. All of these stories as well a a number of 
Lovecraft's other collaborations and revisions can be found in the volume  The Horror in the Museum, Arkham House Publishers Inc. 1989. This volume also provides S.T. Joshi's  (he's everywhere) notes discussing the working relationship between Eddy and Lovecraft. 

The Horror in the Museum, Jacket by Raymond Bayless

Lost HP Lovecraft work commissioned by Houdini escapes shackles of history
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/16/hp-lovecraft-harry-houdini-manuscript-cancer-superstition-memorabilia
Long-lost H.P. Lovecraft manuscript found



http://boingboing.net/2016/03/17/long-lost-h-p-lovecraft-manus.html


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