Customer Reviews

The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions

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Because there are so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may be useful to prospective buyers to know what's actually in this volume:

[By S. T. Joshi:] A Note on the Texts; [By August Derleth:] Lovecraft's "Revisions"; [Hereupon stories effectively ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft:] The Green Meadow; The Crawling Chaos; The Last Test; The Electric Executioner; The Curse of Yig; The Mound; Medusa's Coil; The Man of Stone; The Horror in the Museum; Winged Death; Out of the Aeons; The Horror in the Burying-Ground; The Diary of Alonzo Typer; [Hereupon stories moderately revised by Lovecraft:] The Horror at Martin's Beach; Ashes; The Ghost-Eater; The Loved Dead; Deaf, Dumb, and Blind; Two Black Bottles; The Trap; The Tree on the Hill; The Disinterment; "Till A' the Seas"; The Night Ocean

Contrary to the claim on the dustjacket that this "collection includes all known revisions and collaborations undertaken by Lovecraft", it actually misses several: "Under the Pyramids" (a.k.a. "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"), ghosted for Harry Houdini; "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", a collaboration with E. Hoffmann Price; several revisions for and collaborations with R. H. Barlow; and participation in "The Challenge from Beyond", a pulp magazine's round robin. Still, this volume is just about indispensable for anyone seeking to build a textually sound collection of the complete fiction of Lovecraft.

One of the means by which Lovecraft supported himself was in revising stories written by younger, would-be writers. These revisions are problematic because it is virtually impossible to say how much of Lovecraft himself is to be found in them. I believe that, with a few exceptions, the master of the macabre did not lend much of his influence in the retelling of these inferior tales, but a certain few of them do possess sufficient traces of Lovecraft to make them of interest to those followers in his footsteps. Oddly enough, the two stories that actually list Lovecraft as co-author, The Crawling Chaos and The Green Meadow, are the worst of the bunch. Both of these Elizabeth Berkeley stories are flights of fancy which forego any real plot in favor of lofty, dream-enshrouded flights of fancy which cannot even begin to compare to the Dunsanian, dream-cycle myths that Lovecraft perfected on his own. William Lumley's The Diary of Alonzo Typer is a rather formulaic tale of ancient evil and the discovery of a stranger's ancestral lineage upon his return to the home of a dead forebear. It gives lip service to such Lovecraftian gods as Shub-Niggurath but falls short of dramatically gripping the reader. Wilfred Blanch Talman's Two Black Bottles is another unoriginal attempt to horrify the reader by invoking a soul-reclaiming restless spirit from the confines of a dark, defiled church's cemetery; this story succeeds rather well but possesses no real pizzazz. Adolphe de Castro contributes The Electric Executioner, a rather enjoyable story that cannot but ultimately disappoint in regards to its highly improbably ending.

The revised work of two authors, Hazel Heald and Zealia Bishop, do merit a closer look. Not only are their tales enjoyable and reasonably well-crafted, they do bear certain imprints of the master revisionist's singular hand. Heald's Winged Death has nothing at all to do with the Cthulhu Mythos, instead offering the chronicles of a scientist's mad, wretched, and ultimately self-destructive plot to ingeniously kill a colleague whom he accuses of discrediting his work. Heald's other tale, The Horror in the Museum, does attain a nice level of creepiness and a touch of cosmic horror. The museum in question is a wax museum, and the strange owner suggests that his distinctly horrible wax figures are more than mere wax. The protagonist, whose friendly interest in the singular artist turns to concern and fear at his increasingly mad utterings, agrees to spend a night alone in the dark museum, surrounded by horrible waxen figures and only two doors away from a creature the artist makes incredible claims about, eventually stating that it is a beast he has called down from Yuggoth itself, a beast through which the return of the Old Ones to Earth can be secured. There is plenty of Cthulhian chanting and references to be found in this story, although it does not follow the letter of the original Mythos. Zealia Bishop's tales also convey Mythos elements, yet her stories take the reader to Mexico and underneath the plains of Oklahoma, transplanting the abodes of ancient otherworldly creatures beneath the ground and reinterpreting the Mythos references in a Mexican-Spanish tradition. The Curse of Yig invokes a snake-devil of Indian legendry who exacts a most bitter revenge on those who would harm his children among the snake population, one much more malign and vengeful than death itself. The Oklahoma setting of The Curse of Yig is greatly expounded upon in the most significant tale of this collection, Bishop's The Mound. An ancient mound is guarded by Indian spirits, and all white settlers who have dared explore the area have either returned no more or returned as raving madmen. A scientist of the twentieth century cannot be expected to put stock in such tales, though, so our protagonist vows to explore the mound and finally uncover its secrets. In a major discovery, he comes across a centuries-old account of a sixteenth century Spanish explorer who claims to have journeyed into an alien world underneath the mound, one where some well-known Lovecraftian otherworldy gods are spoken of, remembered, and worshipped. It is rather fascinating to see a sort of conflated Mythos cosmology transplanted deep beneath the earth and to read of references to ancient gods such as Tulu that correlate with the Great Cthulhu. Among the revisions in this collection, The Mound most clearly bears the influence of Lovecraft himself, and while one should by no means place it in the canon of his horrific literature, it does hold a power sure to hypnotize the seekers of Lovecraftian knowledge with its implications and parallel take on the Mythos itself.

I thought that I had a complete collection of Lovecraft's stories. However, references to "K'n-yan", "red-litten Yoth", and "Yig, Father of Snakes" would crop up and I didn't know to what it referred. By using my handy-dandy Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (whose primary function is to look in what story a particular nameless entity crops up) I discovered that I should be reading "The Horror in the Museum" and "The Mound." Wonderful, but where should I look for these tales? Enter THE HORROR IN THE MUSEUM AND OTHER REVISIONS.

This book contains 10 stories to which Lovecraft added his stamp (some of which he practically ghost-wrote). As in "The Challenge From Beyond", it is often not difficult to see the transition to Lovecraft's ... particular ... style of narration.

For the purposes of completeness of Lovecraft's corpus, I would recommend reading "The Horror in the Museum" and "The Mound". As far as I know, these stories are unavailable elsewhere. "Winged Death" and "The Curse of Yig" are in addition effective at evincing chills. The rest are so-so, and may strike your fancy, and for others will fall quite flat.

The Del Rey trade paperback edition, with its wonderful introduction by Stephen Jones, reprints the Corrected Text edition published in hardcover by Arkham House. The other paperback editions probably reprint the corrupted text of the original hardcover, which was edited and in some cases distorted by August Derleth (he altered the ending of "Medusa's Coil" to conceal Lovecraft's original racist last line of the tale).

Here is S. T. Joshi's "A Note on the Texts," first published in his Corrected Text edition for Arkham House and included in the superb Del Rey trade pd edition:

In this corrected edition of H. P. Lovecraft's revisions and collaborations, we have attempted not merely to restore the texts but to arrange the tales in accordance with the presumed degree of Lovecraft's involvement with them. What we have called "primary" revisions are those that were wholly or almost wholly written by Lovecraft (although a plot-germ or occasionally an actual draft was supplied by the revision client); the "secondary" revisions are those in which Lovecraft merely touched up--albiet sometimes extensively--a preexisting draft.

The two collaborations with Winifred Virginia Jackson, "The Green Meadow" and "The Crawling Chaos," are interesting in that they are among the few works (the others are "Poetry and the Gods," "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," and "In the Walls of Eryx") where Lovecraft affixed his name along with that of his collaborator, even though here both were pseudonyms. Nevertheless, there is little evidence to suggest that Jackson contributed any prose to either tale.

For the two tales revised for Adolphe de Castro, "The Last Test" and "The Electric Executioner," we have de Castro's original versions: they were published in his collection IN THE CONFESSIONAL (1893), under the titles "A Sacrifice to Science" and "The Automatic Executioner." Lovecraft has rewritten both stories completely, preserving only the skeleton of each work. It should be noted that in Lovecraft's only reference to the first tale he calls it "Clarendon's Last Test"; it is not certain whether he or someone else made the change. Lovecraft also speaks in letters of a third story revised for Castro, but this has evidently been lost.

All three stories revised for Zelia Bishop--"The Curse of Yig," "The Mound," and "Medusa's Coil"--were, as Lovecraft notes, based on the scantiest of plot-germs and are accordingly close to original works by Lovecraft. The persistent rumor that Frank Belknap Long assisted in the writing of "The Mound" is false; Long, as Zelia Bishop's agent, merely abridged the story in a vain attempt to place it with a pulp magazine; after these efforts failed, the original version of the story as written by Lovecraft was restored, remaining in manuscript until Lovecraft's death. August Derleth then radically revised and abridged both "The Mound" and "Medusa's Coil" and marketed them to WEIRD TALES. This edition represents the first unadulterated publication of both works.

There is abundant evidence that Lovecraft wrote nearly the entirety of all five stories revised for Hazel Heald; Heald's contention that Lovecraft's role in "The Man of Stone" was somewhat less extensive than in the others does not seem to be borne out by the text.

For "The Diary of Alonzo Typer" we have both a draft by William Lumley (the title is his) and Lovecraft's rewriting. Again Lovecraft has preserved only the nucleus of the plot, and all the prose is his. Lumley's draft was first published (along with the original versions of the two Adolphe de Castro tales) in a special edition of CRYPT OF CTHULHU, ASHES AND OTHERS (1982).

Of the secondary revisions, Sonia H. Greene (Davis) reports that Lovecraft "revised and edited" "The Horror at Martin's Beach" (the title "The Invisible Monster" was supplied by WEIRD TALES), hence we can assume a preexisting draft. The other tale by Greene thought to be revised by Lovecraft, "Four O'Clock," was written, as Grenne tell sus, only at Lovecraft's suggestion and does not seem to bear any Lovecraftian prose or content; it has accordingly been omitted from this edition.

In recent years Lovecraft's revisory hand has been detected in a number of tales by his friends and colleagues, and five stories have been added to this edition. Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., first observed that Lovecraft in letters refers to four tales revised for C. M. Eddy, Jr.; all were probably based on existing drafts by Eddy, who wrote many tales in his own right. "Ashes" appears to be the earliest of these stories, and Lovecraft's hand in it is probably very light. In the other three--"The Ghost-Eater," "The Loved Dead," and "Deaf, Dumb, and Blind"--the two authors probably contributed equally.

It is difficult to ascertain how much of Lovecraft remains in William Blanch Talman's "Two Black Bottles," as Lovecraft's letters suggest that Talman was annoyed at Lovecraft's extensive revisions in the story and may perhaps have reinstated his own prose in the final draft.

I discovered Lovecraft's role in Henry S. Whitehead's "The Trap"; in a letter to R. H. Barlow (25 February 1932) he reports writing the entire central section of the story. In letters Lovecraft refers to another story by Whitehead, "The Bruise," for which he supplied a synopsis; and although William Fulwiler, who brought this matter to our attention, believes that Lovecraft may have actually written the story (published as "Bothon" in WEST INDIA LIGHTS), I am not convinced that Lovecraft contributed any prose to this work.

Lovecraft's letters to Duane W. Rimel indicate that he was reading and reviewing many of Rimel's tales during the 1930s, and in two of them he seems to have had a hand. Scott Connors noted Lovecraft's involvement in "The Tree on the Hill," and Robert M. Price and I confirmed it. Rimel has stated that Lovecraft wrote the entire third section of the tale, as well as the citation from the mythical CHRONICLE OF NATH in the second section. Will Murray first suspected, on internal evidence, Lovecraft's role in "The Disinterment." Rimel maintains that Lovecraft's revisions in the story were very light, and letters by Lovecraft unearthed by Murray and myself appear to confirm that claim.

For R. H. Barlow's "'Till A' the Seas'" we have a typescript by Barlow (apparently a second draft) with exhaustive revisions by Lovecraft in pen. Dirk W. Mosig discovered Lovecraft's hand in Barlow's "The Night Ocean," as cited in a letter to Hyman Bradofsky (4 November 1936). Mosig believed the tale to be nearly entirely written by Lovecraft; but documents subsequently consulted by me suggest that he played a much smaller role in the genesis and writing of the tale. The work was probably largely Barlow's, although with heavy revisions and additions by Lovecraft at random points.

For a more detailed discussion of the degree of Lovecraft's involvement in these stories, see my article "Lovecraft's Revisions: How Much of Them Did He Write?" CRYPT OF CTHULHU 2, (Candlemas 1983): 3-14.

Our editorial practice for this disparate body of work must of necessity be cautious. Autograph manuscripts (or Lovecraft's autograph corrections) exist for only two tales in this volume--"'Till A' the Seas'" and "The Diary of Alonzo Typer." Typescripts exist only for "The Mound" and "Medusa's Coil," although both were prepared by Frank Belknap Long and contain several errors and incoherencies, the apparent result of Long's inability to read Lovecraft's handwriting. The texts for all other works must be based upon publications in amateur journals or pulp magazines. For the primary revisions we have reinstated Lovecraft's normal punctuational, stylistic, and syntactic usages, on the principle that nearly all the prose in these tales is his; for the secondary revisions we have only corrected obvious misprints or internal inconsistencies of usage in the original publications.

[Note from ye Reviewer: S. T. Joshi recently announced in his blog that he is working on a two-volume edition of this book, to be called THE ANNOTATED REVISIONS AND COLLABORATIONS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT. The book will be published by Bloodletting Press.]

Having read and enjoyed most of Lovecraft's other works, I picked up this book for a diversion - curious to see how the collaborations worked out. I was unprepared for the fantastic quality of some of the stories, which in my opinion rank with his best work. My two personal favorites include "The Last Test" and "The Mound." Those two stories are worth the price alone. Not all of the stories, of course, are equally successful, and Lovecraft's level of involvement varied. One thing that remained clear, however, was that Lovecraft was ahead of his time, and no modern horror/weird fantasy writer has yet to catch up.

This book is all short stories, great ones, in which H.P. Lovecraft edited stories other writers had thought of and had written, at least partially, but which he expanded into prose, into something that was essentially his. Imagine prose and horror in the same story. It's like someone who commissions a painting and says, " okay I envision a bridge in NYC. Can you do that?" The painter paints the Brooklyn Bridge in Impressionist style with a melange of colors, with snow, steam, lights, and fog--with something creepy coming out of the fog. The idea is one thing. Creating the mood, the characters, the minute details that lead one to believe this scariness is possible. This could happen. To me, even. That's what Lovecraft is like. He takes you inside museums you've never been before, with untold abominations. Care for a carefree Sunday drive in the country? Lovecraft is driving.

I also found that Lovecraft had a pretty uncanny vision of how the Universe and our solar system will end. This was speculation on his part back in his day, but I've watched enough science shows to know that he was really on the mark--at least as far as our scientists today speculate with what they have, which is way more than they had in his day, nearly one hundred years ago.

The book was in excellent condition. This was very important to me, I hate books that falling apart, or look as if they have been dragged through the mud. The book was nice and clean, and I was very happy to have it.

Though this book does not go into any specific detail as to what revisions were made where, it remains an important collection for fans of Lovecraft. Here we see not only his influence, but his very hand in the stories presented. It's fascinating to read these mostly quasi-Lovecraftian tales, knowing that the master himself picked them apart at some point. On top of that, they're pretty entertaining too. Just don't go in expecting full-on Lovecraft.

Oke, this book gets five stars for collectors. If you are into Lovecraft, by it. That's why I give it 5. But for the overall quality of the stories is average. I believe this is because Lovecraft wrote them for hardneeded money. Revisions in this case mean: an idea by writer, Lovecraft doing the whole work. He said himself in a letter, that he would not like his name associated with this stuff. Still, stories like The Mound and The Museum are still good. The rest is oke, but not 'Lovecraftian'.

When i bought the book, it cost me a lot,but it's worth it. It's so good that if you read it on the night you will not sleep or you will dream about it.