Customer Reviews

THE SHUNNED HOUSE ...

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I order'd this booklet from Amazon because I so love the cover illustration. Alas, this publisher does not give credit to the artist--Virgil Finlay. I think they stole the drawing from the Arkham House book, MARGINALIA, where I believe this fine illustration had its first appearance.

This publisher is rather weird, for they incorrectly refer to "The Shunned House" thus: "A Posthumous story of immense power..." Then, again, on the following page: "His ability to create and sustain a mood of brooding dread and unnamable horror is nowhere better shown than in the posthumous tale presented here..." Posthumous? What the hell are they talking about? Perhaps they are thinking of the unfortunate fate of the story's first appearance--or non-appearance. Here is its history as detailed by S. T. Joshi:

"'The Shunned House' was written in mid-October 1924. It was the first of HPL's major stories to be rejected by Weird Tales, editor Farnsworth Wright maintaining in September 1925 that it began too gradually. Curiously enough, a few months earlier HPL had submitted it to Detective Tales, edited by Edwin Baird. Baird was Weird Tales's first editor (1923-24), who had accepted everything HPL had sent him, but he rejected the story. W. Paul Cook, HPL's amateur associate, initially wished to use it in his magazine, The Recluse, but the one and only issue ever published (1927) had too much other material to accomodate the story, so Cook decided to publish it as a separate booklet. Although he set the story in type (Lovecraft read the proofs in June 1928) and printed three hundred copies, financial and personal misfortunes prevented Cook from binding them. A few copies were bound by R. H. Barlow in 1934-35, but the story did not receive widespread distribution until it appeared in Weird Tales (October 1937)."

Thus we see that the story is by no means "posthumous"--merely unfortunate, and that some few copies were bound and distributed in Lovecraft's lifetime. The text of this edition seems sound and is the editorial work of S. T. Joshi, who receives no acknowledge in this book. Since Joshi's Corrected Text are his property, this publication may in fact be illegal.

The story is quite wonderful and has many elements that are unique unto it. This is an attractive chapbook edition--although it is quite useless if one has the story in other collections of Lovecraft's Tales, such as the magnificent Penguin Classics edition, THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, where the story is completed annotated by editor S. T. Joshi.

But, gawd, that cover illustration sure is awesome.

Lovecraft mastered the eerie mood, the sense of creeping horror. This short story captures that sense, from the first glimmerings of something not quite right to murderous, supernatural forces, to the human domination of that unknown evil. In all those ways, this matches the best of Lovecraft's eldritch oeuvre.

I can't say this story miscarries, just that it never quite comes to term. The evil force barely materializes before being erased with a very special cleaning solution. Great mood, great evocation of massive, mysterious forces, but no reall carry-through. If you can find this free (and you can), it will be worth every cent.

-- wiredwierd