MANTICHORE don’t know whether she will come

back to the house to live or will need

1, No 3 (June to go into fulltime nursing care; that’s
2006 e. v.) upset the household and has
A Contribution necessarily taken time away from
by Leigh creative work to some extent. On top
Blackmore for of that we have been running our
Sword & magical group, MoonSkin, which takes
Sorcery & much continuous planning and
Weird Fiction discussion, as well as actually running
Terminus rituals! It’s been one of the busiest
amateur press association. months on record for me, folks. I’ve
taught myself to use Powerpoint
presentations, as these are handy for
Leigh Blackmore, 78 Rowland Ave, uni tutorials and also for magical
Wollongong, NSW 2500. Australia. workshops I run (my next is Thelemic
Email: lvxnox@iinet.net.au Magick 3: Liber AL and Hexagram
Rituals, scheduled for July at Lotus
IN THIS ISSUE Bookshop here in Wollongong).
“Mantic Somehow managed to watch a ton of
Notes”………………………….1 DVD movies during the month as well,
“Lovecraftian Notes” but no time or space to review them
…………………..2 here. I’ve finished my first session at
“Where are the Women in the University of Wollongong (first half-
World year) doing Creative Writing and
of Fandom?”……………………………..3 Sociology, and now have a six-week
“Sherlock Holmes meets break during which Margi and I will
Cthulhu” .…3 attend Conflux, the Australian National
“The Todal SF convention in Canberra. I’ll also
Gleeps”…………………..18 read Terry Dowling’s yet-unpublished
Entries for “Supernatural horror novel Clowns at Midnight; and
Literature of Thicker Than Water by Zak Lucas, a
the World”………………………………20 manuscript co-written by the guy that
Mantichorus: Mailing runs one of the agencies I assess for.
Comments…...9 Haven’t had much luck with placing
my own stories lately; my ghost story
MANTIC NOTES “Cemetery Rose” is still looking for a
News: As I write, it’s early April 2006 home after being bounced from
and I am starting my June issue early. several anthologies, as is a more
Hopefully I’ll be able to keep ahead of recent sf tale “A Myriad of Stars”. I did
the game a bit and produce a better have a 500word short tale called
issue, rather than leaving things to the “Wave” published in Micro, a little mag
last minute as I did with my first two put out by third-year uni students. I
issues. want to get back to working on my
[Late May]. Well, I’m glad I did that Rossetti novel, Ghosts in the House of
because May has been a killer! I had Life, and will make that my main
tons of uni assignments, had to read writing project (except critical work)
and assess two very long fantasy novel for the next two years. [early June]
manuscripts for different agencies, and The household chaos continues, with
finish a long overdue piece on Thomas Margi’s mother being moved to Bulli
Harris for Ben Szumskyj’s critical hospital, and some ailments of my own
volume on Harris. In addition, my that are interfering with work. I had
partner Margi’s mother – 90 years old planned a longer issue, but I’m going
and near-blind – has gone into hospital to restrict this to a few pieces.
with fractures to her pelvis, and we

LOVECRAFTIAN NOTES
SOTA TOYS have a line of Nightmares of
Lovecraft toys which were released in
2005. These include Cthulhu from “The
Call of Cthulhu”, the Ghoul from
“Pickman’s Model” and Dagon from
“Shadow Over Innsmouth”. Each
Nightmare of Lovecraft ranges in size
and comes with multiple points of
articulation and ball-joints. See
http://www.sotatoys.com/news-archive-
display.asp?lngID=79 for some great
colour shots of these beasties.
CALL OF CTHULHU: DARK CORNNERS
OF THE EARTH: There has been a huge
MASTER OF DISGUST: There’s a very
anti-Lovecraft article, ‘Master of
Disgust” by Laura Miller, at
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/
2005/02/12/lovecraft/index.html. This
was a review of the Library of America
volume H.P. LOVECRAFT: TALES. Her
sniffy tone in discussing Lovecraft’s
work is reminiscent of the best (or
worst) of the Lovecraft critics such as
Edmund Wilson who have disparaged
Lovecraft for apparent faults in his
writing style, basing his work in his
neurosis, and a dismissive
categorization of his oeuvre as low-art.
In response, there are three pages of
letters from Lovecraft readers who were
offended by Miller’s article – see
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/letters/
2005/02/15/lovecraft/index2.html?pn=1
Stuart Gordon’s filmed version of

quantity of previews and reviews over Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch-
the last couple of years for the House” as part of Showtime’s major
Lovecraft-based computer game Call of MASTERS OF HORROR TV series in the
Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, USA has received much media
produced by Headfirst productions and attention. I dearly wish that such shows
Bethesda Software. It was finally were made
unleashed on the gaming world in available in
March this year and has garnered much Australia but
praise. It runs on PC (Microsoft) and generally they
Xbox. I have never been a gamer, aren’t, so it may
although back in the early eighties I be years until
used to buy modules of the Call of I’m able to track
Cthulhu role-playing game published by down a copy of
Chaosium. Those were the days when if this episode.
it was in any way Lovecraft-related, I Actually it’s
would try and buy it. It got way too available to buy
expensive considering I never played on DVD from Amazon.com - see
the board games, just collected these http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0
booklets. Anyway, I don’t have an Xbox 00E5KUMO/103-0004830-5771079?
but the release of this game almost v=glance&n=130 – but I just can’t
makes me want to get one. It looks very afford it.
high-quality and seems to pay homage
to Lovecraft in a faithful way. The In 2004 Seattle’ Open Circle Theater put
official website is at: on a production of some of Lovecraft’s
http://www.callofcthulhu.com/ stories under the title HP Lovecraft’s
Theater of Horrors. There’s a good
review at
http://www.greenmanreview.com/live/liv
e_lovecraft_1103.html and another at
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/theater/1
42751_horrorq.html. Sounds as though
it was a small but entertaining
production that also had some fun with
Lovecraft’s themes.
WHERE ARE THE WOMEN
IN THE WORLD OF
FANDOM?
A few brief reflections on the
general absence of women from the
ranks of critics and participants in the
worlds of (at least) Lovecraftian fandom
and of SSWFT. Have a look at the
SSWFT membership – all males, not one
woman. Why is that? When I was in
EOD, there were at least a couple of
participating women critics – the
brilliant Bernadette Bosky, and the
equally active Mollie Burleson. Yet
looking along the ranks of critical works
I have on my shelf about Lovecraft, I
note they are all by men – St Joshi,
Peter Cannon, Darrell Schweitzer,
Robert M Price, David E Schultz, Scott
Connors, Donald Burleson. I imagine the
same applies to the world of Robert E
Howard fandom, and to other fandoms.
I think we need to ask ourselves
why the small press at least seems to
be such a male province? Are there no
women who are interested in horror and
dark fantasy? Not the case – the award-
winning editor Ellen Datlow springs
immediately to mind; but where is the
gender polarity in SSWFT, for instance?
What do other members think about
this? Are we being exclusivist, or its
simply that women are not as
interested in these genres and their
criticism as men are? Are we
unconsciously creating a male
preserve? Do male members of the
SSWFT have women partners or
girlfriends? What is their general
attitude to the apa’s activities? Do they
not participate themselves because
they simply don’t have the impetus to
put out apazines, or is there something
about men’s brains that makes them
more naturally gravitate towards critical
activity in the literary forum. (I really
don’t think that’s the case). What do
other members think about this issue?
Fellow SSWFT-ers: please forgive me as
the following article is not completely
written up as an article should be; it is
largely there, but parts are in what
amount to notes form. This was given
as a talk and some parts I read
verbatim, while other parts I
extemporized. It had been my intention
to make this flow more smoothly before
printing it here, but limitations of time
prevent me. I still want to present it,
though, so I just ask that you excuse
the gaps and jumps here and there. –
LB
SHERLOCK HOLMES
MEETS CTHULHU:
C. DOYLE & H.P. LOVECRAFT
WITH PARTICULAR
REFERENCE
TO THE
INFLUENCE
OF
“THE HOUND OF
THE BASKERVILLES”
ON LOVECRAFT’S “THE HOUND”
With a Brief Excursus upon Solar
Pons
A Paper for the
Sydney Passengers
Sherlock Holmes
Society’s
Centenary Celebration
of The Hound of the
Baskervilles
Bishopthorpe Manor, NSW, Oct
2001
 By Leigh Blackmore the witch’s helper. (For a full
© 2001 discussion of the dog in mythology see
the five-page entry in Barbara G.
Walker.)
“The powers of evil can take many
forms – avoid the Moor when the Who can forget Shakespeare’s line
forces of darkness are exalted” “And my desires, like fell and cruel
– Peter Cushing as Holmes in hounds, E’er since pursue me” (from
HOUND (1959) “Twelfth Night”)
–
“There is more evil around us here Other spectral hounds often feature in
than I have ever encountered before” ghost and horror
(same source) literature, from Hans
Christian Anderson’s
“Do you imagine I can influence the fable “The Tinderbox”
powers of darkness?” – (same source) (?),

The Hound as Motif in

Supernatural Literature

The Hound as an evil supernatural through pulp tales

force has a long history in literature. post-dating Doyle,
One of the earliest examples comes such as “The Hounds
from classical of Tindalos” by Frank Belknap Long
Greek (1929) and on to modern examples of
mythology, the evil hound such as CUJO by
where Stephen King, THE GABRIEL HOUNDS
Cerberus, the by Mary Stewart, THE
three-headed HOUND OF DEATH by
dog, was Agatha Christie and
guardian of “The Whining” by
the entrance to the infernal regions. Ramsey Campbell.
Doyle drew on one of the hound’s most
long-lived symbolic interpretations, as There are even such
the guardian of the realm of the dead cheesy examples as the
Cerberus was the hell-hound in Greek movie ZOLTAN, HOUND
mythology that guards the entrance to OF DRACULA (1977), a genuine if
Hades, wagging his tail, he greeted unimportant contribution to the
every deceased person in a friendly subgenre of supernatural houndery.
manner, yet normally permitted no
living person to enter and no dead
person to leave. He is usually [Film adaptations of “The Hound
represented as having two or three of the Baskervilles”
heads and a snake as a tail, 1. 1914. German. Dir: Rudolf
symbolizing the horrors of death and Meinert
the irrevocability of life lost. (Becker 2. 1917. German. Dir: Richard
p.55) Oswald
3. 1921. Dir: Maurice Elvey
Dogs and wolves are associated with (Note there had been 3 film
witchery and deviltry throughout versions by the time HPL’s story
history, from their association with was published)
funerary customs in ancient Iran, to 4. 1929. German. Dir: Richard
legends of the black dog in medieval Oswald.
Europe as a form of the demon lover or 5. 1931. Dir: Gareth Gundrey.
 6. 1936. German. Dir: Karl Lamac
7. 1939. Dir: Sidney Lanfield
(Starring Basil Rathbone as
Holmes)
8. 1959. Dir: Terence Fisher
(Starring Peter
Cushing as
Holmes)(with a
TV remake in
1968)
9. 1972. TV
movie. Dir:
Barry Crane. (Stewart Granger
as Holmes; William Shatner in
cast!)
10. 1978. Comedy version. Dir: Paul
Morrissey. (Starring Peter Cook
and Dudley Moore as Holmes &
Watson)
11. 1982. Starring Vasilly Livanov
12. 1982. Starring Tom Baker
13. 1983 “The Hound of the
Scoobyvilles”
14. 1984. SHERLOCK HOLMES AND
THE BASKERVILLE CURSE
(animated). Peter O’Toole
15. 1988. Starring Jeremy Brett.
Christopher Frayling devoted an
episode of his TV series “Nightmare:
The Birth of Horror” to “The Hound of
the Baskervilles”. He gives a good
written summary of the film versions in
his entry on The Hound of The
Baskervilles in Newman’s BFI
COMPANION TO HORROR.]
Of the Hammer movie directed by
Terence Fisher, David Pirie has
observed that Fisher “uses Conan
Doyle’s plot to establish a stylish
dialectic between Holmes’ nominally
rational Victorian milieu and the dark
fabulous cruelty behind the Baskerville
legend”. The only letdown in this
otherwise fine adaptation proves to be
the hound itself, all too clearly a Great
Dane (called Colonel) wearing a badly
made papier-mache mask. But Howard
Maxford, author of HAMMER, HOUSE
OF HORROR says” but such are the
film’s compensations that this hardly
seems to matter” (Maxford p. 47). Phil
Hardy’s HORROR: THE AURUM FILM
ENCYCLOPEDIA also includes analyses
of numerous film adaptations of The
Hound.
Dartmoor is in Devonshire. Various
phantom hounds in the
legendry of the West
Country influenced Doyle
and his journalist friend
Fletcher Robinson. ‘Black
Shuck’ legend of Norfolk.
Grimpen Mire on
Dartmoor. ‘Red eyes,
dripping fangs’ nasty long pointy
teeth. Robinson and Doyle drew on
tales related by Harry Baskerville. Also
drew on Sabine Baring-Gould’s book
about Dartmoor legends.
Baring-Gould seems the
documenter of the
legend that “the baying
of gigantic hound” could
be heard on the moor.
This is interesting
because Lovecraft also used Baring-
Gould as a source of legendry,
(Primarily for his horror tale “The Rats
in the Walls”) as Steven Mariconda has
demonstrated.
Note that ‘Black Dog’ is a common
term for depression. We know that
Lovecraft suffered from this. Did
Doyle? One can speculate upon the
conflict between civilised rationality
(Holmes) and the uncivilised moor (the
black dog) as a conflict which seems to
have been part of Doyle’s own psyche.
Who Was HP Lovecraft?
We have not time to do more than
sketch briefly the life and work of H.P.
Lovecraft. He was born in 1890 in
Providence, Rhode Island,
where he lived most of his
life. Frequent illnesses in
his youth disrupted his
schooling, but Lovecraft
gained a wide knowledge
of many subjects through
independent reading and
study. He wrote many essays and
poems early in his career, but
gradually focused on the writing of
horror stories, after the advent in 1923
of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to
which he contributed most of his Poe’s detective Dupin is generally
fiction. His relatively small corpus of considered to
fiction – three short novels and about have influenced
sixty short stories – has nevertheless Doyle’s creation
exercised a wide influence on of Holmes.
subsequent work in the field, and he is
regarded as the leading twentieth- Lovecraft was
century American author of influenced by
supernatural fiction. HP Lovecraft died both writers. The
in Providence in 1937. influence of Poe
on Lovecraft was
In 1945, critic Edmund Wilson extensive, and is
published essays in the New Yorker much in
magazine regarding both Doyle and evidence in his early tales. “The
Lovecraft. His essay on Doyle, “Mr Hound” is extremely Poesque in theme
Holmes, they Were the Footprints of a and style, and there is a specific nod to
Gigantic Hound!” is kind to the Poe in the use of the phrase “red
fictional detective: “My contention is death” towards the end of the story,
that Sherlock Holmes is literature on a which is an illusion to Poe’s “The
humble but not ignoble level…the old Masque of the Red Death”; and
stories are literature, not because of indeed, the resplendent hangings of
the conjuring tricks and the puzzles, the underground lair of the thrill
which they have in common with many seekers of “The Hound” are
other detective stories, but by virtue of reminiscent of the lavish furnishings
imagination and style. These are fairy- with which Prince Prospero has
tales, as Conan Doyle intimated in his decorated his palace in the Poe story.
preface to his last collection, and they
are among the most amusing of fairy-
tales and not among the least Other Literary Influences on “The
distinguished”. By contrast, Wilson was Hound”
unkind to Lovecraft. He commented in
his well-known but fatheaded essay on The story of “The Hound” is fairly
Lovecraft “Tales of the Marvellous and simple. The tale concerns two men,
the Ridiculous” (1945; collected in the narrator and one St John, who have
Wilson’s CLASSICS AND devoted their lives to the study and
COMMERCIALS; reprinted in Joshi, aesthetic appreciation of the bizarre
FDC). that “the Lovecraft cult, I fear, is and the macabre. This pastime finds
on even a more infantile level than the expression in their robbing graves.
Baker Street Irregulars and the cult of During one such excavation, they
Sherlock Holmes”. Wilson rather lost discover a tomb in which rests a body
sight of Lovecraft’s work itself, instead wearing a jade amulet. They steal the
choosing to sneer at the fan attention amulet, only to discover that
that was paid to it by enthusiasts. possessing it summons forth the one
to whom it belonged. There can be
The easiest way to appreciate the little doubt that this early publishing
flavour of Lovecraft’s writing in success of Lovecraft was inspired by
comparison to Doyle’s would be that Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.
whereas Doyle had Holmes say “the
game’s afoot!” Lovecraft would have “The Hound” is thick with literary
preferred to say “the game’s a- references to writers that had
tentacle”. influenced Lovecraft. There is a nod to
Ambrose Bierce in
Influence of Poe on Doyle and the phrase “the
Lovecraft damned thing”, a
reference to Bierce’s story of that title over the moor”; “on the moor the faint
(1893). Lovecraft also includes baying of some gigantic hound”; “a
references to Baudelaire (1821-1867), faint, deep, insistent note as of a
French poet and translator of Edgar gigantic hound”; “a deep, sardonic bay
Allan Poe; to the Symbolists (whose as of some gigantic hound”. As
chief proponents were Stephane Shreffler rightly observes, “Surely,
Mallarme, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Lovecraft makes his point”.
Rimbaud) and to the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood, the late-nineteenth One of the main points about the
century group of artists and poets hound in Doyle’s novel is, of course,
including William Morris, Dante Gabriel that though Doyle uses the terrifying
Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. The element of suspected supernaturalism
whole story is imbued with the to heighten the suspense in the novel,
aesthetic of the Decadents, a group of in the rational world of Holmes where
French writers in the 1880s and 1890s all mysteries can be explained,
who emphasised futility, ennui and ultimately the hound is proven to be a
scorn of conventional morality. As fake, and the supernaturalism is
Stephen J. Mariconda has rationalised away. One may think of
demonstrated, a central literary the rationalised supernaturalism in
influence on the story is Joris-Karl “The Adventure of the Sussex
Huysmans’ A REBOURS (AGAINST THE Vampire” as a similar example of
GRAIN). The narrators’ “devastating Holmes’ scientific reductionism;
ennui’ is a reflection of the boredom Holmes famously declared in that case
that leads Huysmans’ protagonist, Des that his agency had its feet planted
Esseintes, to seek more and more firmly on the ground and that no
peculiar means to retain his interest in ghosts need apply.
life. Lovecraft had also read Huysmans
great novel of Satanism, LA BAS Doyle also, however, wrote many tales
(DOWN THERE). William Beckford’s of terror in which the world is not
Arabian tale VATHEK (1786) is another rational, the mystery cannot be
literary influence worth noting; explained and the terrifying and
Lovecraft was inspired by Vathek’s supernatural reign triumphant.
references to ghouls.
Doyle as Horror Writer
Given that Lovecraft frequently
referred to his correspondent Reinhart Lovecraft mentions Doyle somewhat
Kleiner as “Randolph St tangentially in his famous book-length
John”, the St John essay “Supernatural Horror in
character in “The Literature”, which has been oft-
Hound” can be said to reprinted in magazine and book form,
be based on Kleiner. in the chapter on “The Aftermath of
Gothic Fiction” as one of those authors
At the end of Chapter 2 who carried down the nineteenth
of Doyle’s HOUND OF century “the romantic, semi-Gothic,
THE BASKERVILLES, a quasi-moral tradition. Interestingly, it
character cries: “Mr Holmes, they were was Sherlockian Vincent Starrett, who
the footprints of a gigantic hound!” admired Lovecraft’s stories in Weird
Lovecraft echoes this phrase Tales magazine, who convinced
throughout “The Hound” making a published Ben Abramson to publish
motif of slight variants of this phrase, Lovecraft’s masterly non-fiction study.
what Shreffler refers to as “an amazing In the same year that Abramson issued
set of paraphrasings”: “the faint deep the first number of the Baker Street
toned baying of some gigantic hound”; Journal, 1945, he published Lovecraft’s
“the faint distant baying of some long essay SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN
gigantic hound”; “faint, distant baying LITERATURE IN BOOK FORM. Indeed,
Starrett it was who termed Lovecraft
“his own most fantastic creation.”
In the book, Lovecraft Doyle to “such
contemporary horror-tales as
specialise in events rather than
atmospheric details, address the
intellect rather than the impressionistic
imagination, cultivate a luminous
glamour rather than a malign density
or psychological verisimilitude, and
take a definite stand in sympathy with
mankind and its welfare” (SHIL p. 43).
Lovecraft of course sought not to have
any sympathy with mankind in his own
fiction.
In a later chapter, “The Weird Tradition
in the British Isles”, Lovecraft says of
Doyle: “Doyle now and then struck a
powerfully spectral note, as in The
Captain of the Pole-Star, a tale of arctic
ghostliness”, and Lot No. 249, wherein
the reanimated mummy theme is used
with more than ordinary skill” (SHIL p.
81). [Note: a recording including
Doyle’s Lot No. 249 and several other
of his horror and suspense stories is
available on CD: FOUR SHORT STORIES
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Naxos
Audiobooks, 2 CDs, read by Carl Rigg,
catalogue No. NA205012]. Released
1995.]
Unfortunately we don’t have time here
to deal with the whole of Doyle’s
supernatural output – for those
interested in pursuing this area
further, I recommend consultation of
the volumes edited by Bleiler and
Haining (see bibliography under
Doyle); also the entry on Doyle in
Sullivan’s PENGUIN ENCYCLOPEDIA.
Generally, Doyle’s impact on the world
of horror fiction is not considered to be
as influential as that he made on
mystery and detective fiction.
Though HOUND is the most
concentratedly horrific of the Holmes
canon, Doyle frequently confronts his
detective with the gruesome or the
apparently impossible – as in ‘the
Devil’s Foot” (1910), “The Creeping
man” (1923 and “The Sussex Vampire”
(1923). The gothic side of the stories
has gained equal prominence with the
deduction in the ensuing years,
especially in many of the film
adaptations of Doyle (especially in
those of the mid-40’s such as THE
SCARLET CLAW and their ilk). .
General Influence of Doyle on
Lovecraft
Arthur Conan Doyle has an honoured
place is Lovecraft’s literary pantheon.
While Poe was Lovecraft’s “God of
fiction”, Doyle was also a strong
influence.
A mere tot when the initial series of
Holmes adventures appeared in the
Strand, Lovecraft was fortuitously just
the right age, as he wrote to a friend in
1918, when the stories later collected
in The Return began their magazine
run. In 1903, at the age of thirteen,
Lovecraft and his school friends
established a gang they called the
Providence Detective Agency.
Lovecraft in 1918 describes it as
follows:
“As to “Sherlock Holmes” – I used to
be infatuated with him! I read every
Sherlock Holmes story published, and
even organised a detective agency
when I was thirteen, arrogating to
myself the proud pseudonym of S.H.
This PDA [Providence Detective
Agency] – whose members ranged
between nine and fourteen in years,
was a most wonderful thing – how
many murders and robberies we
unravelled! Our headquarters were in
a deserted house just out of the thickly
settled area, and we there enacted,
and “solved”, many a gruesome
tragedy. I still remember my labours in
producing artificial “bloodstains on the
floor!!!” (HPL to Alfred Galpin, 27 May
1918, ms John Hay Library – quoted in
Joshi, HPL A LIFE p. 55).
In a 1931 letter he elaborates:
“Our force had very rigid regulations
and carried in its pockets a standard
working equipment of police whistle,
magnifying glass, electric flashlight,
handcuffs…tin badge (I have mine
still!!!), tape measure (for footprints),
revolver (mine was the real thing, but
Inspector Munro (aet 12) had a water
squirt-pistol while Inspector Upham
(aet 10) worried along with a cap-
pistol) and copies of all newspaper
accounts of desperate criminals at
large – plus a paper called “The
Detective”, which printed pictures and
descriptions of outstanding ‘wanted’
malefactors! Did our pockets bulge
and sag with this equipment? I’ll say
they did!! We also had elaborately
prepared “credentials“- certificates
attesting to our good standing in the
agency. Mere scandals we scorned.
Nothing short of bank robbers and
murderers were good enough for us.
We shadowed many desperate-looking
customers, and diligently compared
their physiognomies with the “mugs”
in “The Detective”, yet never made a
full-fledged arrest. Ah, me – the good
old days” (HPL to August Derleth, SL III
289-90).
Joshi comments: “How engaging it is to
see Lovecraft, perhaps for the first
(and last) time in his life, behaving like
a “normal” boy. (Joshi, HPL A LIFE p,
55).
In a 1916 letter to Reinhardt Kleiner,
Lovecraft confesses: “I used to write
detective stories very often, the works
of A. Conan Doyle being my model so
far as plot was concerned. “ (SL I, p.
20). These were very early tales of
Lovecraft, dating from the years 1904
to 1908 (Lovecraft’s age being 14 to
18), during which years he also carried
out prolific production of scientific
work. About this period, one may
speculate as to whether Lovecraft’s
uncle, Dr Franklin Chase Clark, a “man
of vast learning” who encouraged
Lovecraft’s youthful studies in science
and literature may have represented a
sort of substitute Holmes-figure to the
young Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a keen
astronomer and chemist by the age of
ten years.
In 1925, as we know from his diary,
Lovecraft at the age of 35 “reports a
viewing of THE LOST WORLD (an
adaptation of the Conan Doyle novel)
on October 6, but there is no
corresponding letter testifying to his
reaction to this remarkable film, a
landmark in the use of special effects
in its depiction of dinosaurs in South
America”. (Joshi, HPL A LIFE p. 365).
In a letter to Elizabeth Toldridge (25
Oct 1929) Lovecraft mentions, in the
course of a discussion of the Atlantis
myth: “But a sunken land is a great
theme for fiction, & I always like to
read Atlantean tales. There is a new
one by A. Conan Doyle just out – THE
MARACOT DEEP – which I want to read
as soon as possible”. (SL III p. 39)
In a 1930 letter to Frank Belknap Long,
Lovecraft makes a passing reference
to Doyle as a populariser of “occult”
phenomena. (SL III p. 233).
J. Vernon Shea considers that “Conan
Doyle…had a decided influence upon
Lovecraft’s writings. His “Lot 249” with
its revived mummy theme, is
regrettably little known today; Derleth
wanted to use it one of his anthologies,
but considered the permission fee too
high. Lovecraft notes “The Captain of
the Pole Star”, “a tale of arctic
ghostliness”, but ignores “The Maracot
Deep”…The Professor Challenger
novels, even THE LOST WORLD,
surprisingly get no notice here,
although the professor himself is much
like Lovecraft’s own academicians. The
Conan Doyle influence sifted down into
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, so it is a
moot point as to whose influence was
the more predominant in Lovecraft”
(Shea, “On the Literary Influences
Which Shaped Lovecraft’s Works”,
reprinted in Joshi FDC).
Peter Cannon has pointed out that
Lovecraft’s and Doyle’s supreme
fictional achievements are roughly
comparable in size: Doyle’s Sherlock
Holmes canon consists of 56 stories
and four novels; Lovecraft’s core
corpus, including his Cthulhu Mythos
cycle, amounts to two dozen or so
stories and three novels.
No-one in Lovecraft’s work has a sex
life. Nor does Sherlock Holmes.
Lovecraft affected English spelling and
proudly pointed to his colonial New
England roots, and once vowed that if
he could ever afford to travel there, he
would never leave old England.
Like Holmes a materialist, Lovecraft
had no more use for spiritualism than
he did for organised religion.
As Martin J. Swanson has shown in his
Baker Street Journal article “Sherlock
Holmes and HP Lovecraft” (1964),
there are traces of Doyle in Lovecraft’s
work. The description of backwoods
New England in “The Picture in the
House”, for example, parallels Holmes
ruminations on the remote English
countryside in “The Adventure of the
Copper Beeches”. The Lovecraft story
that comes closest to following the
Holmes formula, ‘The thing on the
Doorstep”. Features a Watson-like
narrator, Daniel Upton, whose stolidity
contrasts sharply with the eccentricity
of his precocious and daring friend,
Edward Derby. Another Lovecraft
story, “The Unnamable”, contains a
passing reference to Doyle, as
philosopher if not creator of Sherlock
Holmes.
On a far more modest scale, Lovecraft
ahs inspired the same sort of playful,
affectionate response – the journals,
the organisations, the rituals, the
tongue-in-cheek quibbling over fine
textual points – that characterises the
world of the greatest fictional
detective.
Doyle and Lovecraft: The Houdini
Connection
Another tangential link between Doyle
and Lovecraft was their mutual
acquaintance with the magician
Houdini. In 1921, Doyle has published
his THE WANDERINGS OF A
SPIRITUALIST. Doyle devoted the last
twenty years of his life, much of his
fortune, and all his considerable
prestige to the advocacy of
spiritualism. Lovecraft met the
celebrated magician and escape artist
more than once on revision business.
While Lovecraft dismissed Houdini as a
“clever showman”, and pointed up his
vanity in the ghostwritten tale
“Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” (for a
full discussion see Blackmore’s article
in Bibliography), they were united in
their opposition to spiritualism. As
Houdini relate sin his book A MAGICIAN
AMONG THE SPIRITS (1922), he had a
falling out in 1922 with his friend Sir
Arthur after a spirit-writing séance
conducted by Lady Doyle. Houdini took
offence when lady Doyle purported to
transmit a message from his late,
sainted mother in English, a language
she spoke at best brokenly and never
learned to write. Doyle in 1926
published the two-volume HISTORY OF
SPIRITUALISM. In 1926 Houdini had
hired Lovecraft to help him write his
book on superstition. Before the
magician’s untimely death in 1926 put
an end to the project, Lovecraft wrote
an outline of antispiritualist book,
provisionally titled THE CANCER OF
SUPERSTITION.
Genesis and Development of
Lovecraft’s “The
Hound”
The specialist may find the story in
DAGON, one of the volumes of
Lovecraft’s Collected Works published
by Arkham House. Most will more
readily access it in the Penguin
Classics paperback edition of
Lovecraft, THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND
OTHER WEIRD TALES (1999), edited by
ST Joshi.
The imaginative stimulus for the story
derives from a trip Lovecraft made
with Reinhardt Kleiner and Frank
Belknap Long to the old Dutch
Reformed Church, during his “New
York exile” in 1922. (Related in a letter
to his aunt MRS FC Clark back in
Providence) Lovecraft chipped off a
small piece of a gravestone dated
1747 and carried it home. He wrote, “it
ought to suggest some sort of horror-
story. I must some night place it
beneath my pillow as I sleep…who can
say what thing might not come out of
the centuried earth to exact
vengeance for his desecrated tomb?
And should it come, who can say what
it might not resemble? “(SL I, p. 198)
“The Hound” was
published in Weird
Tales for February
1924, but had been
written in September
1922, prior to the
advent of Weird
Tales, which began
publication in 1923.
In 1923, Lovecraft’s
friend and literary
protégé CM Eddy
typed the manuscript of “the Hound”
in exchange for Lovecraft revising a
horror-story, “The Ghost-Eater” for
him. [Lovecraft detested typing and
very often had friends type his
manuscripts if they needed to be
presented thus to editors for possible
publication]. He mentions that Eddy
and his wife liked “The Hound” best of
his tales to that date. (SL I, p. 253) (SL
I, p. 253) Eddy also
advised Lovecraft to
delete a reference in the
story to Clark Ashton
Smith, since Lovecraft
was also trying to land
Smith’s stories with the
magazine at the time,
and the editor may have objected to
such exploitation of the artist-poet in
Lovecraft’s own story (SL I, p. 292).
Lovecraft also made some changes to
both ends of the story based on advice
from another colleague, James Morton.
(SL I, p. 310)
Editor of Weird Tales, Edwin Baird,
accepted “The Hound” for publication
in Weird Tales. (SL I, p. 257). “The
Houn-Dawg” as Lovecraft jocularly
refers to it, was printed with three
misprints in the magazine, which
caused Lovecraft to request proofs of
another tale. “The White Ape”, which
Weird Tales also intended to publish.
(SL I, p. 310)
Lovecraft by 1930, when he sent a
copy of it to Clark Ashton Smith, called
his story “The Hound” “One of the
poorest jumbles I have ever produced”
(SL III, p. 192, letter to Clark Ashton
Smith). There is, he says, “too much
sonorous rhetoric and stock imagery,
and not enough substance, in this
piece of junk”. In a 1931 letter to
Frank Belknap Long, Lovecraft includes
“The Hound” in a mention of a group
of tales he says are “insufferable
maundering”, “spewed forth” although
he was “a fat middle-aged clod who
ought to have known better a decade
before”. (He was 32 when he wrote
“The Hound”). In 1934, Lovecraft
commented to his young protégé
Robert H. Barlow “I’m afraid “The
Hound” is a dead dog….” (see ‘The
Barlow Journal’ in Derleth, SOME
NOTES ON HP LOVECRAFT). In a 1936
letter to Wilfrid Blanch Talman, he
groups “The Hound” with a number of
his earlier stories which “might – if
typed on good stock – make excellent
shelf-paper but little else” (SL V, p.
348).
De Camp’s description of the plot:
“The narrator tells how, for the sake of
new sensations, he and his friend St
John went in for decadence in a big
way. In a crypt under the old English
mansion where they dwelt alone, they
installed a museum of horrors,
decorated with the proceeds of grave-
robbing: corpses mummified, stuffed,
or otherwise preserved; skulls,
skeletons, tombstones, and similar
cheerful bric-a-brac. In robbing the
grave of a ghoul in the Netherlands,
they get an amulet bearing the symbol
of a winged hound: “the thing hinted
at in the forbidden ‘Necronomicon’ of
the made Arab Abdul Alhazred; the
ghastly soul-symbol of the forbidden
corpse-eating cult of inaccessible
Leng, in central Asia”. Thereafter they
are haunted by the hound, or the
ghoul, or both, until St John is torn to
pieces” (pp 166/67)
Jeffery’s article “Who Killed St John”
comments on the ambiguity as to
whether the winged hound that
mangles St John in England is the
same being as the skeleton in the
grave.
The only mass-media adaptation of
Lovecraft’s “The Hound” that I am
aware of is the 1962
Prestige Records
album recording
made
by
actor
Roddy
McDowall (in post-
Lassie but pre- Planet
of the Apes days)
on which he reads
Lovecraft’s “The Outsider” and “The
Hound”. There is a comic book
adaptation by Jaxon in Skull Comic No.
4 (1972), one of the ‘underground’
comics. A 22-minute short black-and-
white film shot on VHS video was
made of “the Hound” by film student
Anthony Reed, but has not been seen
outside of America (see Migliore pp.
163/64). .
“The Hound”
The Hound is one of a few early tales
that Lovecraft set in England, before
using his native New England as his
preferred fictional locale.
Lovecraft always infinitely preferred
cats to dogs; regarding the cat as a
noble beast, he gave it a positive role
in several of his stories including “The
Cats of Ulthar” and “The Dream-Quest
of Unknown Kadath”. For Lovecraft,
“whilst ‘cat’ has never been applied to
any sort of offender more serious than
the mildly spiteful and innocuously sly
female gossip and commentator, the
words ‘dog’ and ‘cur’ have always
been linked with vileness, dishonour
and degradation of the gravest type”.
(Lovecraft, “Cats and Dogs”). Perhaps
it was natural in view of his preference
for the feline that the figure of a hound
in Lovecraft should appear only as an
evil and ominous supernatural
presence.
Stefan Dziemianowicz considers that in
“The Hound”, the “horror hunter” type
of character, an “extraordinary
personality type’ who “display an
unnatural obsession with the ghoulish
and gruesome” “reaches its unsavoury
nadir” (“Outsiders and Aliens: The
Uses of Isolation in Lovecraft’s Fiction”
in Schulz and Joshi, EPICURE IN THE
TERRIBLE). Schulz refers to these
characters, so typical of Lovecraft’s
early fiction as “jaded, self-absorbed,
decadent thrill seekers (“From
Microcosm to Macrocosm: The Growth
of Lovecraft’s Cosmic Vision” in
EPICURE IN THE TERRIBLE). Schulz
posits ‘the Hound” as one of a group of
early stories which Lovecraft later
reworked in his masterful novel THE
CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
(192?).
Levy p. 41: “In Lovecraft, cemeteries
always become what they by no
means ought to be: animated places
where disquieting exchanges between
the world of the surface and the gulf
take place”. Levy compares the
“neurotic virtuosi” of “The Hound” with
other Lovecraft characters, e.g. the
evil magician scientist Joseph Curwen
of THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER
WARD, and Herbert West, the
reanimator.
As Shreffler points out, the aesthetic
question is the focal point of the story.
(p.5). Shreffler, an English professor, is
a Holmes fan who has written for
journals including the Baker Street
Journal.
Shreffler p. 173: “HPL’s creations are
things, in a way, that have become
quite distinct from their creator, much
as Sherlock Holmes stepped out of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle’s mind and
continues to live in Baker Street forty
years after the death of his creator. Of
course, Lovecraft’s monsters share
with Holmes a kind of universality. We
want to believe in Holmes because he
is the paradigm of justice and good.
Similarly, we must also
want to believe in
Lovecraft’s monsters
because
subconsciously, we are
aware that for good to
exist there must be
evil”.
Lin Carter comments: “This minor little
tale was even slighter in substance
and more slavishly Poe-esque in style
than The Nameless City. The studied
effects of baroque, decadent interior
décor, in fact, are strongly suggestive
of the gloomy and luxurious interiors in
The Fall of the House of Usher. “ (Cater
p 40) The Nameless City had been the
first tale to mention Abdul Alhazred;
“The Hound” is the first tale to
mention The Necronomicon and to
identify Alhazred as its author; and the
slightly later ‘The Festival” is the first
tale to give a lengthy quotation from
The Necronomicon and to tell us
something about its history.
Regarding the life of Holmes himself, it
is perhaps especially tempting to
wonder if, during the period late 1891
to September 1893, when we know
that Holmes, fleeing Col. Sebastian
Moran, travelled through Tibet and
Nepal posing as a Norwegian guide,
and visited the High Lama at Lhassa,
whether he came across the evil
Plateau of Leng with its corpse-eating
cult. We also know
that from Sept to Nov
1893 Holmes travelled the Middle East,
through Persia and Arabia, visiting in
disguise the sacred city of Mecca.
Lovecraftians may like to speculate
that in this part of his wanderings he
visited Irem, the City of Pillars
(featured in Lovecraft’s story “The
Nameless City”).
Some Lovecraftian-/Sherlockian
Sidelights
August Derleth and Basil Copper:
The Pontine Canon
“Solar Pons was born one
autumn day in 1928. A
young August Derleth had
written to Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle to
find out
whether he intended
writing any more
Sherlock Holmes
adventures. Upon
receiving Doyle’s terse
negative reply, scrawled
upon his own letter, Derleth proceeded
to fill the void himself. He created his
own fictional detective, complete with
a brilliant deductive mind, a faithful
medical man for a friend and
chronicler, a London flat, a brother in
high government circles, and enough
other familiar minutiae to make the
most dedicated Holmesian feel at
home.
Solar Pons’s name means literally
“bridge of light” – which Derleth later
observed “seemed to the adolescent
mind singularly brilliant.” He took
“Praed Street” from a contemporary
mystery novel, THE MURDERS IN
PRAED STREET, by John Rhode (Cecile
John Charles Street). Dragnet
Magazine was delighted with the first
effort, “The Adventure of the Black
Narcissus” (entry 9), and the editor
encouraged Derleth to write more.
Though the 1929 Crash that wiped out
Dragnet effectively shrunk the Solar
Pons market for a while, years later
Ellery Queen and Vincent Starrett
encouraged Derleth to revive his
erudite progeny, and Pons has been
with us ever since.” (Wilson, p.85)
From the early 1950’s through the
1960’s August Derleth, Lovecraft’s
friend and (posthumously) publisher
wrote and published a series of stories
and one novel (a series conceived by
Derleth as early as 1929) about the
great detective Solar Pons of Praed
Street, and his assistant Dr Lyndon
Parker. Derleth created a special
imprint of Arkham House, ‘Mycroft and
Moran’, to publish these tales. These
affectionate and enduring tributes to
Doyle and Holmes are amongst the
most enjoyable of Derleth’s pastiches,
certainly far superior to the weak
imitation Lovecraft stories that Derleth
penned. Joshi goes so far as to say
they “may be considered among the
best imitations of the Holmes canon in
existence” (HPL A LIFE p. 426) and
“among the most entertaining of the
innumerable imitations of Sherlock
Holmes, as well as highly effective
narratives in their own right” (SIXTY
YEARS P. 186).
A 1964 story, “The Adventure of the
Crouching Dog” (first published in THE
SAINT MYSTERY MAGAZINE and later
collected in THE CASEBOOK OF SOLAR
PONS, 1965, includes references to
“the hound baying in the night” and is
a Baskervilles pastiche in which the
villain fakes a hound on the moors.
Vincent Starrett, well-known to
Sherlockians as the author of THE
PRIVATE LIFE OF
SHERLOCK HOLMES and
221B: STUDIES IN
SHERLOCK HOLMES, and
as a Editor of the Baker
Street Journal, & founder
of the Baker Street Irregulars, had a
collection of his horror stories
published by Derleth’s Arkham House
(THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, 1965).
In the eighties and nineties, novelist
Basil Copper has continued the
adventures of Solar Pons in a series of
six further volumes of Pons
adventures,
published in the
late seventies/early
eighties by Pinnacle
Books and more
recently by Fedogan and Bremer.
Copper, a prolific author of the ‘Mike
Faraday’ mystery novels, has also
published a couple of gaslight Gothics
including the delightful NECROPOLIS
(Arkham House, 1980), HOUSE OF THE
WOLF (Arkham House 1983) and THE
BLACK DEATH (Fedogan and Bremer
1993). A tale in the 1995 collection
THE RECOLLECTIONS OF SOLR PONS is
“The Adventure of the Hound of Hell”
in which a statuette known as “The
Hound of Hell” is suspected to be the
motive for a murder.
Vincent Starrett and other notable
Sherlockians were known to have
enjoyed the Pons tales. Derleth
mingled Lovecraftian elements in the
so-called Pontine canon – for further
discussion see Joshi’s article “Solar
Pons Meets Cthulhu”. There was for
many years a whole Sherlockian
subgenre of Pons fans, who formed a
club called the “Praed Street
Irregulars”.
Another minor Derleth contribution to
Sherlockiana is the introduction he
contributed to a slim volume by Jacob
C. Solovay, SHERLOCK HOLMES: TWO
SONNET SEQUENCES, published in
Culver City, California by Luther Norris
in 1969.
Joshi points out that the figures of Dr
Seneca Lapham and Winfield Phillips in
the Derleth-Lovecraft posthumous
‘collaboration’ THE LURKER AT THE
THREHOLD are an exact counterpart
for the Holmes-Watson and Pons-
Parker duo.
Derleth also penned a series of
mystery novels about Judge Peck: one
was entitled “The Sign of Fear”, a
combined plagiarism of Doyle’s titles
“Sign of Four” and “The Valley of
Fear”. By all accounts these novels
were pretty dreadful potboilers.
In 1984, Lovecraftian scholar and
Sherlockian devotee Peter Cannon
published his novel PULPTIME, to date
the only novel to feature both HP
Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes.
Passengers may well also enjoy
Cannon’s parody A SCREAM FOR
JEEVES, which combines Cannon’s
fondness for Lovecraft’s horrors and
the comedic novels of PG Wodehouse.
In 1986 Chaosium, the roleplaying
game company responsible for CALL
OF CTHULHU, a game set in the worlds
of HP Lovecraft, released an offshoot
game, CTHULHU BY GASLIGHT by
William A Barton, in which Lovecraftian
investigators can travel back in time to
the 1880’s and join Sherlock Holmes in
battling the forces of the Old Ones.
Sherlock Holmes confronts Cthulhu
and other Lovecraftian creatures in
several small-press pastiches by Ralph
Vaughan. These include SHERLOCK
HOLMES IN THE ADVENTURE OF THE
ANCIENT GODS and SHERLOCK
HOLMES IN THE DREAMING
DETECTIVE, both published by
Gryphon Books, New York as small
chapbooks.
Bestselling phenomenon Stephen King,
who has acknowledged his debt to
Lovecraft has penned a Holmes
pastiche, “The Doctor’s Case”.
In 1987, a nonentity named Leigh
Blackmore wrote a story called “The
Return of the Hound”, an adventure of
the occult investigator Carrington
Payne and his bookdealer assistant
Harley, in which further revelations
regarding the characters from
Lovecraft’s “the Hound” are made, and
their connection with the Hounds of
Tindalos made clear. This case remains
unpublished.
In 1997, an American
librarian and amateur
filmmaker, Anthony
Reed, made a 22-
minute black and
white film version of
Lovecraft’s “The
Hound”. Which premiered at the 1998
HP Lovecraft Film festival and well
received. (see Migliore pp. 163-64)
Notes
Bibliography
Becker, Udo. THE ELEMENT
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SYMBOLS. UK:
Element Books, 1994.
Blackmore, Leigh “The Return of the
Hound” (unpublished sequel to
Lovecraft’s “The Hound”)
---“Under the Pyramids: On Lovecraft
and Houdini”. EOD No. 4 (Sept
1991)[Part One]; No. 5 (Dec
1991) [Part Two].
Burleson, Donald R. HP LOVECRAFT: A
CRITICAL STUDY. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1984.
Cannon, Peter. “The Adventure of the
Three Anglo-American Authors: Some
Reflections on Conan Doyle, P.G.
Wodehouse and H.P. Lovecraft”
in his SCREAM FOR JEEVES: A
PARODY. NY: Wodecraft Press, 1994.
(Dist by Necronomicon Press, West
Warwick RI).
--- H.P. LOVECRAFT. Boston: GK Hall
(Twayne’s United States Authors
Series), 1989.
--- PULPTIME: BEING A SINGULAR
ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES,
H.P. LOVECRAFT & THE KALEM CLUB
AS IF NARRATED BY FRANK BELKNAP
LONG JR. Buffalo, NY: WP Ganley,
1984.
Carter, Lin. LOVECRAFT: A LOOK
BEHIND THE CTHULHU MYTHOS. Herts,
UK: Panther, 1975.
De Camp, L. Sprague. LOVECRAFT: A
BIOGRAPHY. NY: Doubleday, 1975
Derleth, August. THE SOLAR PONS
OMNIBUS. Edited by Basil Copper.
Sauk City, WI: Mycroft and Moran
(Arkham House), 1982. 2 vols [This set
contains the complete Chronology of
Pons tales published between 1951
and 1967, consisting of 69 tales and
one novel. The original separate
volumes, not detailed here, now sell
for many hundreds of American dollars
as collector’s items].
--- SOME NOTES ON H.P. LOVECRAFT.
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1959.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. THE
SUPERNATURAL TALES OF SIR ARTHUR
CONAN DOYLE. Edited by Peter
Haining. London: Foulsham, 1987. [18
of Doyle’s best horror tales].
--- THE BEST SUPERNATURAL TALES OF
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. Edited by E.F.
Bleiler. NY: Dover, 1979. [15 tales].
Ernst, Bernard M.L. and Hereward
Carrington. HOUDINI & CONAN DOYLE:
THE STORY OF A STRANGE
FRIENDSHIP. NY: Benjamin Blom, 1972.
Fitzsimons, Raymund. DEATH AND THE
MAGICIAN: THE MYSTERY OF HOUDINI.
London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980.
Frayling, Christopher. NIGHTMARE:
THE BIRTH OF HORROR.
--See also Newman (below)
Hardy, Phil. HORROR: THE AURUM FILM
ENCYCLOPEDIA. London: Aurum Press
(revised updated ed), 1993.
Jaffery, Sheldon. THE ARKHAM HOUSE
COMPANION. Mercer Island, WA:
Starmont House, 1989.
Jeffery, Peter F. “Who Killed St John?”.
Crypt of Cthulhu No. 48 (WN 6, No. 6)
(St John’s Eve, 1987).
Joshi, S.T. (ed) HP LOVECRAFT: FOUR
DECADES OF CRITICISM. Athens, OH:
Ohio University Press, 1980
--- HP LOVECRAFT: A LIFE. West
Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press,
1996.
--- AN INDEX TO THE SELECTED
LETTERS OF HP LOVECRAFT. West
Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, Sept
1991 (2nd ed).
--- “Solar Pons Meets Cthulhu” – in
Price, THE HORROR OF IT ALL (see
below).
--- A SUBTLER MAGICK: THE WRITINGS
& PHILOSOPHY OF H.P. LOVECRAFT.
San Bernadino, CA: Borgo Press, 1996.
Levy, Maurice (trans. By ST Joshi).
LOVECRAFT: A STUDY IN THE
FANTASTIC. Detroit, MI: Wayne State
University Press, 1988.
Lovecraft, HP. (edited with an
introduction and notes by ST Joshi).
THE CALL OF CTHULHU & OTHER
WEIRD STORIES. London: Penguin,
1999. Notes on “The Hound” pp. 378-
380.
---“Cats and Dogs” (as “Something
About Cats”) in SOMETHING ABOUT
CATS & OTHER PIECES. Sauk City, WI:
Arkham House, 1949.
---LORD OF A VISIBLE WORLD: AN
AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN LETTERS. Edited
by S.T. Joshi & David E. Schultz.
Athens, Oh: Ohio University Press,
2000.
--- SELECTED LETTERS I (1911-24).
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1965.
--- SELECTED LETTERS III (1929-31).
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1971
--- SELECTED LETTERS V (1934-37).
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976.
--- SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN
LITERATURE. NY: Dover Publications,
1973.
Mariconda, Steve. “The Hound”: A
Dead Dog?” Ultimate Chaos 1, No 4
(Sept 1983). Reprinted in Crypt of
Cthulhu No. 38 (Eastertide 1986), in
Price (see below) and in Mariconda’s
ON THE EMERGENCE OF CTHULHU
AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS (West
Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press,
1995).
---“Baring-Gould and the Ghouls: The
Influence of Curious Myths of the
Middle Ages on ‘The Rats in the
Walls’”. Crypt of Cthulhu No. 14 (St
John’s Eve 1983).
Maxford, Howard. HAMMER, HOUSE OF
HORROR. London: Batsford, 1996.
Migliore, Andrew and John Stryzik. THE
LURKER IN THE LOBBY: A GUIDE TO
THE CINEMA OF H.P. LOVECRAFT.
Seattle, WA: Armitage House, 2000.
Newman, Kim (ed). THE BFI
COMPANION TO HORROR. London:
Cassell, 1996. pp. 293-94 “Sherlock
Holmes and the Hound of the
Baskervilles” (entry by Christopher
Frayling).
Pirie, David. HERITAGE OF HORROR:
THE ENGLISH GOTHIC CINEMA 1946-
72. NY: Avon, 1973.
Price, Robert M (ed). THE HORROR OF
IT ALL: ENCRUSTED GEMS FROM ‘THE
CRYPT OF CTHULHU. Mercer Island,
WA: Starmont House, 1990.
---“What was the ‘Corpse-Eating Cult of
Leng’?” in his H.P. LOVECRAFT AND
THE CTHULHU MYTHOS. Mercer Island,
WA: Starmont House, 1990. An erudite
commentary on religious necrophagy
inspired by events in “The Hound”.
Schultz, David E. and S.T. Joshi (eds).
EN EPICURE IN THE TERRIBLE: A
CENTENNIAL ANTHOLOGY OF ESSAYS
IN HONOR OF H.P. LOVECRAFT.
London& Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson
Univ Press/Associated Univ Presses,
1991.
Schweitzer, Darrell. THE DREAM QUEST
OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. San Bernadino,
CA: Borgo Press, 1978.
Shreffler, Philip A. THE HP LOVECRAFT
COMPANION. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1977.
Silverman, Kenneth. HOUDINI: THE
CAREER OF ERICH WEISS. NY: Harper
Collins, 1996.
Sullivan, Jack (ed). THE PENGUIN
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HORROR AND THE
SUPERNATURAL. London: Penguin,
1986.
Walker, Barbara. WOMENS
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHS AND
SECRETS. NJ: Castle Books, 1996.
Wilson, Alison M. AUGUST DERLETH: A
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press, 1983. Section F
discusses the Pontine Canon.
THE TODAL GLEEPS
A Short Tribute to a Forgotten
Horror Monster
By Leigh Blackmore
© 2003
915 words at 23.2.03
One of the most influential fantasies I
have ever read is James
Thurber’s THE THIRTEEN
CLOCKS. I read it first
when I was twelve years
old, and absolutely loved
it. Thurber, THE 13
CLOCKS. Ilustrated by
Mark Simont. London:
Hamish Hamilton, 1951. I
prefer the edition illustrated by Ronald
Searle which I had in paperback,
bound with “The Wonderful O”.
The tale is filled
with memorable
characters, and is a
witty parody of
traditional quest
fantasies. Told with
a sly irony that simultaneously utilizes
the classic fairy tale conventions and
subverts them, the story is filled with
wonderful characters like the Golux,
and Prince Zorn of Zorna, who is set a
quest to win the hand of the fair
princess Saralinda but must perform
an impossible task set by her uncle,
the cold Duke of Coffin Castle whose
clocks have all stopped.
The creepiest ‘character’ in the story,
a character who remains mainly
offstage but whose presence pervades
the whole story, is a THING called THE
TODAL:
“The Duke is not afraid of
anything. Not even,” said the guard,
“the Todal.”
“The Todal?”
“The Todal.”
“What’s the Todal?”
 A lock of the guard’s hair
turned white and his teeth began to
chatter. “The Todal looks like a blob of
glup,” he said. “It makes a sound like
rabbits screaming, and smells of old,
unopened rooms. It’s waiting for the
Duke to fail in some endeavour, such
as setting you a task that you can do.”
“And if he sets me one, and I
succeed?” the Prince inquired.
“The Blob will glup him,” said
the guard. “It’s an agent of the devil,
sent to punish evil-doers for having
done less evil than they should…” [p.
50]
What I loved about the Todal when I
was young was the suggestiveness of
Thurber’s descriptions. What sound do
rabbits make when (and if) they
scream? Imagining a thing that could
make a sound like that used to give
me a pleasurable shiver of fear.
We don’t learn any more about the
Todal until, about halfway through the
story, when some more intriguing
suggestions of its nature are provided:
“And if I fail?” asked Zorn.
The Duke removed his sword
from his sword-cane and ran his glove
along the blade. “I’ll slit you from your
guggle to your zatch, and feed you to
the Todal.”
“I’ve heard of it,” said Zorn.
The Duke smiled. “You’ve only
heard of half of it,” he said. “The other
half is worse. It’s made of lip. It feels
as if it had been dead at least a dozen
days, but it moves about like monkeys
and like shadows.” The prince took out
his swords and put it back. “The Todal
can’t be killed,” the Duke said, softly.
“It gleeps,” said Hark.
“What’s gleeping?” asked the
Prince.
The Duke and Hark and Listen
laughed. [pp58-59]
Whatever gleeping is, you just
know it’s not good. The quest goes on,
and as it looks as though he might be
defeated, the Duke mentions the Todal
again:
The Duke’s gloved hands shook
and shimmered. “I’ll throw them up for
grabs betwixt the Todal and the geese!
I’ll lock them in the dungeon with the
thing without a head!” At the mention
of the Todal, Hark’s velvet mask
turned gray. The Duke’s eye twisted
upward in its socket. “I’ll slay them
all!” he said. [p. 97-98]
The Todal is fearsome – a
creature the mention of whose very
name can cause locks of hair to turn
white and masks to change colour. But
we never get a clear picture of it –
except the horrible suggestiveness.
Towards the end of the story,
when Zorn has won Saralinda’s hand,
and the Duke is defeated once and for
all, the Todal makes its appearance.
But even then, we see it mainly
indirectly – through its effect on the
room as it enters, and through the
Duke’s descriptions of it:
“What slish is this?” exclaimed
the Duke, disgusted by the pool of
melted gems leering on the table. His
monocle fell, and he slashed his sword
at silence and at nothing. Something
moved across the room, like monkeys
and like shadows. The torches on the
wall went out, the two clocks stopped,
and the room grew colder. There was a
smell of old, unopened rooms and the
sound of rabbits screaming. “Come on,
you blob of glup,” the cold Duke
roared. “You may frighten octopi to
death, you gibbous spawn of hate and
thunder, but not the Duke of Coffin
Castle!” He sneered. “Now that my
precious gems have turned to thlup,
living on, alone and cold, is not my
fondest wish! On guard, you musty
sofa!” The Todal gleeped. There was a
stifled shriek and silence. [p. 123]
Thurber performs a marvel of
foreshadowing in bringing the Todal
into the story
early, suggesting
its monstrous
nature, and without letting us see it,
making us realise how fearsome it is.
When it kills the Duke, we are satisfied
at the moral resolution of the evil Duke
being killed, but it is with a shudder at
the nature of the thing which causes
his demise.
This creature, the Todal, was a
haunting creation that affected my
imagination profoundly, and I’m sure
was instrumental in leading me
towards other material of a spectral
and haunting nature.
Even now, I cannot abide the
smell of old, unopened rooms.
Note: in 1953 Basil Rathbone
appeared in a musical adaptation of
the Thirteen Clocks for the Motorola
television Hour.
ENTRIES FOR
SUPERNATURAL
LITERATURE OF THE
WORLD
There follows a section on three
Australian fantasy/horror writers.
These are the entries I wrote for Joshi
and Dziemianowicz Supernatural
Literature of the World (Greenwood
Press, 2005).
TERRY DOWLING
Dowling, Terry (Terence William)
(1947- ), Australian writer,
freelance journalist, award-winning
critic, editor and reviewer, one of
Australia’s most awarded and highly-
regarded writers of speculative fiction.
(His fiction has won eleven Ditmar
Awards, two Readercon Awards, three
Aurealis Awards, a Prix Wolkenstein,
and earned two World Fantasy Award
nominations). He is author of
Rynosseros, Blue Tyson, Twilight
Beach and Rynemonn (forthcoming)
(the Tom Rynosseros saga),
Wormwood, The Man Who Lost Red,
Antique Futures: The Best of Terry
Dowling; and co-editor of Mortal Fire:
Best Australian SF and The Essential
Ellison. Dowling has been a musician,
songwriter and teacher. He presently
teaches a Communications course at
the June Dally-Watkins Business
Finishing College and is completing a
doctorate in Creative Writing which
may result in further horror-oriented
work. In recent years it has become
apparent that despite his acclaimed
work as science fiction and fantasy
writer having brought him most
attention, the supernatural is an
integral part of his oeuvre, and is
significantly employed by Dowling as
one of the modes by which he seeks to
resensitise readers to the world about
us.
Dowling, a writer of formidable
intelligence and admirable narrative
control, had published many stories
with elements of fear and haunting
prior to 1995, but An Intimate
Knowledge of the Night (Aphelion,
1995) was the first of his works to
concentrate almost exclusively on
horror. An ambitiously literary work, it
presents a series of chilling reality-
testings which deal with rapture, fear,
the secret, darkest mysteries of the
world and the human spirit. The
individual tales include “The Bullet
That Grows in the Gun, “The Maze
Man”,” The Daemon-Street Ghost
Trap”, “The Terrarium”,” They Found
the Angry Moon”, “The Gully”, “The
Last Elephant”, “The Echoes, “The
Third Gift”, “The Quiet Redemption of
Andy the House”, “The Mars You Have
in Me”, “The Rediscovery of
Tutankhamen’s Tomb “and “Scaring
the Train’, The frame story concerns
an author who sits down to write the
linking pieces for the stories in his new
book, planning to do it by the hours of
the night observed by medieval
scholars; he is soon interrupted by
phonecalls from Ray, a former mental
patient obsessed with finding order in
a chaotic psychic landscape. Dowling’s
express agenda in his writing is that of
creating for his readers a extensive use of the weird mode in
resacralisation of the world that works
for them, that jerks them out of their
quotidian slumber, that awakens them
to the infinite possibility immanent in
the world and its variety. This
essentially moral purpose, while
possibly unfashionable in postmodern
times, is effective in the hands of a
writer as skilled as Dowling. The
volume won the Aurealis Award for
Best Horror Novel in 1996.
Dowling’s second significant book in
the horror genre is Blackwater Days
(Eidolon, 2000). The collection won the
Ditmar for Best Collection 2001, and
from it, “Jenny Come to Play” won the
Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short
Story (1997) and “The Saltimbanques”
won the Ditmar Award for Best Short
Story (2001). It features seven closely-
linked stories set around the
Blackwater Psychiatric Hospital at
Everton in the Hunter Valley, featuring
Dr Dan Truswell and his two
‘psychosleuths’, Peter Rait and Philip
Crow. “Downloading” is a chilling
exercise in murder and possession.
“Beckoning Nightframe” plays with
narrative framing devices in the
atmospheric story of a woman
convinced there is a presence behind
the fluttering curtain of a shed visible
from her home. “Basic Black” is a
complex serial killer tale in which
(mistaken) identity plays a pivotal role.
“The Saltimbanques” features the
otherworldly impact of a troupe of
travelling carnival players on some
youths of a small Australian outback
town. “Jenny Come to Play” is a bizarre
reconciliation of opposites in the story
of sisters conjoined by more than
simply flesh; “Light from the Deep
Pavilion” is another disturbing tale
about ritualistic murder and psychic
detection; and “Blackwater Days”
draws the threads of the book
together, an unforgettable tale of
dioramas, catatonic withdrawal,
mystery and madness.
Dowling’s work in the supernatural
forms the most sophisticated and
contemporary Australian literature. His
stories (the most recent being the
horror tale “Stitch” in the Sixteenth
Annual) have appeared seven times in
the Ellen Datlow/Terri Windling-edited
Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy.
Dowling also regularly conducts
writers’ workshops around Australia.
Forthcoming projects include
CHAMELEON (a sequel game to his
award-winning computer game
SCHIZM: MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY) and a
second novel set in the Wormwood
universe. Forthcoming horror stories
include “One Thing About the Night” in
Ellen Datlow’s THE DARK. .
BIBLIOGRAPHY:, The first full-length
monograph on Dowling is Leigh
Blackmore & Dr Van Ikin, The Eternal
Yes: The Affirmations of Terry Dowling
(forthcoming). Entries on Dowling
appear in the following: Clute, John
Science Fiction: The Illustrated
Encyclopedia. (details); Clute, John
and Peter Nicholls. Encyclopedia of
Science Fiction (Orbit, 1993), p. 351;
Collins, Paul (ed) MUP Encyclopedia of
Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction
(Melbourne Uni Press, 1998). pp.54-55;
Ikin, Van and Sean McMullen. Strange
Constellations: A History of Australian
Science Fiction (Greenwood Press,
1999) pp. 164-68. Pringle, David. The
Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science
Fiction.[“Movers and Shakers” section]
p.?. (details); Pringle, David (ed). St
James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic
Writers (St James Press, 1998), pp.
189-91 (entry by Steven Paulsen and
Sean McMullen); Watson, Noelle and
Paul E. Schellinger (eds). Twentieth
Century Science Fiction Writers. (St
James Press, 19??.)p.? (entry by Van
Ikin). Magazine interviews with
Dowling have appeared in publications
such as Locus, Interzone, Eidolon,
Aurealis, Sirius and Men’s Journal
Quarterly. Useful bibliographies of
Dowling’s work may be found in The
Man Who Lost Red (Mirrordanse, 2nd
ed, 2003) and Leigh Blackmore,
Ellison/Dowling/Dann: A Bibliographic
Checklist (R’lyeh Texts, 1996) and at
www.eidolon.net. His personal website
is at http://eidolon.net/terrydowling
ROB HOOD
Hood, Robert (Maxwell)
(1951- ), Australian writer and
editor recognised as one of Australia’s
leading horror writers. Hood has
worked as (inter alia) a high school
teacher, journalist and radio comedy
writer and is currently Design &
Publication Coordinator for the
Economics Faculty at Wollongong
University. He won the 1975 Canberra
Times National Short Story
Competition with “Orientation” and
has since been nominated for two
Aurealis Awards and three Ditmars.
Between 1983 and 1990 Hood’s output
included eight plays (two co-written
with children’s writer Bill Condon).
which were variously performed and
published; several include
supernatural elements (e.g. On
Getting to the Heart of the Monster, Or
the Reviewers Revenge, first
performed 1983). He has also written
textbooks, an opera libretto, articles
and poetry, and in 1988 won the
Golden Dagger Award for Mystery
Stories.
Rather like the title of his story
“Blurred Lines (in which an ex-
serviceman’s sense of sight disappears
while his sense of hearing becomes
preternaturally acute), Hood’s stories
(well upwards of eighty in magazines
and anthologies both in Australia and
overseas, many not yet collected)
characteristically mix crime, horror and
sometimes sf elements; blurring genre
boundaries comes naturally to him. His
work is marked by a deceptively
straightforward style and by an intense
sense of humanity (and, at times,
humour) underlying his often-bizarre
horror scenarios. Hood’s awareness of
metaphysics (instanced in his MA
(Hons) thesis on monster imagery in
the works of William Blake) also
contributes to his stories a
sophisticated sense of the closeness of
life and death
His first story collection Daydreaming
on Company Time (Five Islands Press,
1988) includes fantasy tales like the
title story and crime tales as well as
horror tales of dislocated psyches, all
told with a quirky black sense of
humour. It includes the powerful
“Juggernaut” (about an inexplicable
and destructive Object), as well as
strong horror tales like “Last Remains’,
and “Necropolis” The book was runner-
up for Best Single Author Collection in
the 1990 Readercon Imaginative
Fiction Awards (USA).
One of Hood’s most notorious horror
tales is the tightly-written “Autopsy”
(Bloodsongs, Jan 1994) about a killer’s
insane quest for the essence of life; it
is reputed to have caused the
magazine in which it appeared to be
banned in Qld.
From 1996-97, Hood (in collaboration
with Bill Condon) published the nine-
volume Creepers series, an
extravagantly excessive line of
fantastic childrens’ horror novels
(Hodder Headline): Ghoul Man, Freak
Out!, Loco-Zombies, Slime Zone, Bone
Screamers, Rat Heads, Brain Sucker
(this one written entirely by Condon),
Humungoid, and Feeding Frenzy.
Hood’s novel Backstreets (Hodder
Headline, 1999) is effectively an urban
ghost story, its plot centering on a
young man Kel who wakes from a
coma to find that his friend Bryce is
dead, and is thereafter plagued by
strange dreams, which draw him to the
city’s backstreets. It is a profoundly
felt work based largely on the
accidental death of Hood’s stepson
Luke.
In 2001 he published the well-received
four-volume Shades series of young
adult horror novels (Hodder Headline):
Shadow Dance, Night Beast, Ancient
Light and Black Sun Rising. Drawing on
the mythology of ancient Egypt, the
Knights Templar and more, Hood here
delivered a superbly dark and gritty
series about Shadow creatures waging
an anti-human war.
Hood’s most recent collection
Immaterial (Mirrordanse, 2002)
collects fifteen tales featuring ghosts
and grue in plenty, aptly
demonstrating his range of concerns
and effects. “An Apocalyptic Horse” is
a bleak post-endtimes tale. In
“Number 7”a holidaying couple
encounter the legend that a double
and not Rudolf Hess himself died in
Spandau prison; there is the
suggestion that Hess stole some of the
Fuhrer’s demonic science. “Peripheral
Movement in the Leaves Under an
Orange Tree” is a finely judged tale of
haunted leaf litter and skewed
perception; “Resonance of the Flesh”
concerns a ritual based on the
protagonist’s theory of morphic
resonance and magic, the idea that
there is a hidden continuum of reality
(which he dubs the ‘neomorphuum’).
“Housewarming” (with Paul Collins),
one of the weaker tales in the
collection, concerns the revenge of a
house upon a group of seven
teenagers who burned it down, killing
old Edith Withers and her two children.
In “Rough Trade”, the gargoyle made
by sculptor Max Rusch twenty years
ago now seeks to take on humanity;
the outcome of their Frankenstein-like
relationship is affecting. “Grandma and
the Girls” is a tensely macabre story of
a domineering grandmother who
haunts her family and is haunted by
them. “Dead in the Glamour of
Moonlight”, one of Hood’s best tales,
features a revenant of the murdered
Nicole haunting her killer, Virgil; it is
simultaneously a crime/zombie story.
“Maculate Conception”, in which a
man suffering separation from his wife
seeks to obliterate a stain on his wall
which ultimately proves the result of
his own suicide, is rich with Hood’s
deep feeling for the protagonist’s
situation. “A Place for the Dead” is
equally grim, dark, and unrelenting in
its concept of the New Dead (corpses
who will not stay dead) and its dealing
with child sexual abuse. Other tales
include “Dem Bones” (supernatural
revenge) “Occasional Demons” (a
dead princess haunts the young
Republic of future Australia) and
“Nasty Little Habits” (a mother is
tormented by her son’s ghost). “The
Calling” evokes a cosmic being in the
best spirit of Blackwood.
As editor, Hood has compiled (with
Stuart Coupe and Julie Ogden),
Crosstown Traffic (Five Islands Press,
1993), genre-crossing crime stories;
and (with Bill Congreve) Bonescribes:
Year’s Best Australian Horror 1995
(Mirrordanse, 1996). Hood has written
authoritative articles on the zombie
theme in cinema, and on the
Australian horror film, and is a
publishing partner in Wollongong’s
Agog! Press. Forthcoming projects
include a zombie novel, DEAD MATTER;
and DAIKAIJU! (edited with Robin Pen),
an anthology of giant monster stories
for 2005 release. Hood has numerous
new stories slated for publication in
magazines, anthologies and online.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Entries on Hood
appear in the following: Collins, Paul.
MUP Encyclopedia of Australian
Fantasy & Science Fiction (Melbourne
Uni Press, 1998). pp. 91-92; Pringle,
David (ed). St James Guide to Horror,
Ghost & Gothic Writers (St James
Press, 1998), pp. 281-83 (entry by
Steven Paulsen and Sean McMullen);
Stevens, B.J. Fear Codex: Australian
Encyclopedia of Dark Fantasy & Horror
(Jacobyte Books CDROM, Sept 2000).
Interviews include Kyla Ward’s “An
Interview” which appears in Hood’s
Immaterial. (Mirrordanse, 2002) and
Deborah Biancotti’s “Robert Hood” at
www.ideomancer.com/ft/Hood. His
personal website is at
www.roberthood.net
RICK KENNETT , (1956 - ).
Australian writer, is one of the few
Australians who have written a
substantial body of work in the ghost
story field. Kennett began work as an
apprentice fitter and turner but around
1975 fell in love with motorbikes and is
now approaching his thirtieth year as a
motorbike courier. He published a
science-fantasy novel A WARRIORS
STAR in 1982 and has penned a
successful series of sf stories featuring
female space captain Cy de Gerch but
the bulk of his output has been weird,
with many stories ostensibly science-
fictional in nature also crossing into
supernatural territory.
“On Sherman’s Planet”, a ghost story
set on another world; was accepted for
Boggle in 1979 but was not in fact
published until Crux in 1984).
Kennett’s first published story was
“Troublesome Green”(about gremlins
heading for the stars as stowaways) in
Enigma (Jan 1979). Several more
stories mixing and ghostly themes
were published there before he
expanded his market with other
magazines.
In 1981, no less than twelve of
Kennett’s tales were read on air on
“The Voice in Black” show on
Melbourne’s radio 3CR. These included
“The Necropolis Watch”, “In Lonely
Waters”, “Ace”, “The General”,
“Telephone Lines”, “Made in
Hell”,”McGrogan’s Wish”, “Waiting”,
“Attack on the Line”, “When the Old
Man Died”, “Coburg train”, and
‘Kindred Spirits”. From 1987 to 1991
Kennett helmed an sf show on
Melbourne’s 3PBS public radio station
called Pilots Into the Unknown. Radio
provided the background for several of
his later stories including “The
Windows”, and the Ernie Pine
novelette “Dead Air”.
THE RELUCTANT GHOST HUNTER
(Ghost Story Society, UK, 1991)
chapbook collects three Ernie Pine
stories: Alley Ghost”, about the ghost
of an airman; “The Impromptu Séance”
(a collaboration with Bev Lane)”, about
a haunted laundromat; and “Time in a
Rice Bowl” in which old Chinese magic
involving the reanimation of corpses
leads to the possession of a young girl.
Kennett has described Ernie Pine as “a
fair-haired smart-aleck, an ordinary
sort of bloke who could barely afford a
motorbike and hamburgers, but had a
working knowledge of occult matters”.
472 CHEYNE WALK (Ghost Story
Society, UK, 1992), a chapbook
collaboration with
A.F. ‘Chico’ Kidd; contains two stories
by Kennett: “The Silent Garden” and
“The Steeple Monster” (written with
Kidd) and two originals by Kidd. These
were the first of the ‘Carnacki Untold
Tales’ sequence, which has since been
issued in expanded form by Ash Tree
Press. These tales constitute the
second strand of Kennett’s tales of
psychic investigators and successfully
imitate the flavour & atmosphere of
WH Hodgson’s originals. 472 CHEYNE
WALK: CARNACKI, THE UNTOLD
STORIES (with A.F. Kidd) (AshTree
Press, Canada, 2002) consists of seven
stories by Kidd alone, together several
solo works by Kennett. Particularly
strong are “The Gnarly Ship”, utilising
Kennett’s knowledge of maritime
history, “The Roaring Paddocks” and
the novella “Keeper of the Minter
Light”.
THIRTEEN: A COLLECTION OF GHOST
STORIES (Jacobyte Books, 2001)
collects a number of Kennett’s best
supernatural tales. “Due West”, a story
which reveals that three unsolved
murders committed in a quiet country
town in 1898 were part of an
incomplete Satanic ritual that had lain
dormant but which Lewisham, the
history teacher protagonist, has
inadvertently awakened.
Ernie Pine features in ABRACADABRA,
Kennett’s second novel. (forthcoming
from AshTree Press) An excerpt from
the novel appeared as “Big Magic”
(Bloodsongs 2, 1994).
It is notable that the three later
‘Lieutenant Cy De Gerch’ space opera
stories - The Battle of Leila the Dog”,
“The Road to Utopia Plain”, and “The
View from Stickney Crater” - that spin
off from the novel and feature this
female character of the spaceship
Utopia Plain, have been his greatest
money-earners. The same year he had
his first professional acceptance, first
overseas publication and first
anthology publication rolled into one
when “Drake’s Drum”, was taken by
then-editor R. Chetwynd Hayes for The
Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories
No 19.
Kennett published two stories and a
poem in Australian Horror and Fantasy
Magazine (the predecessor to Terror
Australis magazine) HFM and also
collaborated with its editor Barry
Radburn on “They Wait”, published in
LiNQ.
His first Ernie Pine story was “The
Roads of Donnington”, a ghost story in
which the bike rider is the hero, not
the villain and well-deserved victim of
a supernatural fate. (He was inspired
to write it by the weakness of a
Chetwynd-Hayes story, “Sad Ghost”, in
which the bikie was a loutish
character). Ironically, Chetwynd-Hayes
then took it for the Twentieth Fontana
Book of Great Ghost Stories (1984)
Ernie, the bike-riding ghost hunter,
was to become a regular character,
along with his partner Raissa Joy, a
middle-aged suburban witch who
prefers to be known as a mage. His
first US publication came with
“Keeper” in Arkham Sampler, and
further stories appeared in Waves,
Aphelion, Metaluna and Terror
Australis magazine. Kennett also
published a range of nonfiction pieces
on sf movies and an interview with
Peter Nicholls (compiler of the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION)
around this time. Kennett continued
his habit of submitting overseas and in
the late eighties several stories were
reprinted in UK mags Dark Dreams,
and Ghosts and Scholars. Kennett has
also sporadically published
supernatural poetry in the genre
magazines.
From 1987 to 1991 Kennett helmed an
sf show on Melbourne’s 3PBS public
radio station called Pilots Into the
Unknown. Memorable shows included
specials on The Prisoner, HP Lovecraft,
W H Hodgson and one on Australian
Ghosts. Radio provided the
background for several of his later
stories including “The Windows”, and
the Ernie Pine novelette “Dead Air”.
1991 saw “Isle of the Dancing Dead”
appear in The Fifth Book of After
Midnight Stories (UK: Robert Hale) and
the same year the Ghost Story Society
(UK) published THE RELUCTANT
GHOST HUNTER, a chapbook collecting
three Ernie Pine stories (one a
collaboration with Bev Lane). Kennett
published further stories in Aurealis
and Eidolon, EOD, Chills (UK) and
Picatrix.
In 1992 the Ghost Story Society issued
472 CHEYNE WALK, a chapbook
collaboration with Chico Kidd; it
contained two stories by Kennett (one
a collaboration with Kidd) and two
originals by Kidd. This chapbook
featured the first of the ‘Carnacki
Untold Tales’ sequence which has
since been issued in expanded form by been mined well before his advent,
Ash Tree Press. bringing a sparkle back to it and an
urge to find more to read…highly
Kennett’s story ‘The Outsider”, which recommend(ed) to the
had appeared in Ghosts and Scholars horror/supernatural reader”.
in 1992, was selected by Karl Edward
Wagner for Years Best Horror .21 The book opens with “Due West”, a
(1993), providing Kennett with his first story which reveals that three
US anthology publication. It features
unsolved murders committed in a
peculiar manifestations of an
Australian aborigine buried on the quiet country town in 1898 were part
estate of an English Earl. of an incomplete Satanic ritual that
had lain dormant but which Lewisham,
In the mid to late nineties Kennett had the history teacher protagonist, has
further success with stories picked up
inadvertently awakened.
for reprint in Australian anthologies –
Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror
In 2002 AshTree Press of Canada
(1993 ), The Lottery (1994) and
published the collaborative story
Strange Fruit (1995). Also in 1994 he
collection (with AF Kidd) 472 CHEYNE
published “Big Magic” (an excerpt
WALK: CARNACKI, THE UNTOLD
from his Ernie Pine novel
STORIES. The book consists of seven
ABRACADABRA) in Bloodsongs, with
stories by Kidd alone, together with
further magazine appearances in
three stories and a novella by Kennett
Eidolon, EOD, All Hallows (UK),
alone, and one tale by both authors in
Beyond, Keen SF (US), and Aurealis.
collaboration. Reggie Oliver in All
Hallows calls Kidd and Kennett
In the late nineties Kennett wrote
“prodigally inventive”. Peter Worthy of
collaborative stories with other
Black Book webzine has called it “ a
Australian writers (Paul Collins and BJ
dazzling continuation of William Hope
Stevens) and “Due West” was picked
Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghost-Finder”.
up for Years Best Australian SF
&Fantasy Vol. 2 and was reprinted in
In 2003 Kennett has sold “Coming
Datlow/Windling’s Years Best Fantasy
Home” (ghost story flash fiction!) to All
and Horror 12 (1999). Further stories
Hallows, “The Outsider” (reprint) to e-
appeared in Transversions, and Orb,
anthology SINISTER SLEUTHS, “Time in
with anthology appearances in
a Rice Bowl” (reprint) and “Cargo” to
Cemetery Sonata, Techno Terror,
ASIM, “Rookwood” (reprint collab with
Altered Voices, and Shadows and
Bryce Stevens) to e-anthology
Silence.
FORBIDDEN TEXTS and “The View from
Stickney Crater” to a-anthology SF/F. n
In 2001 Jacobyte Books published
Datlow/Windling’s YBHF No 16 (2002)
THIRTEEN: A COLLECTION OF GHOST
Kennett gets four! Honourable
STORIES. It was reviewed by Michael
Mentions for stories.
Wahl in All Hallows “Kennett’s ghosts
are rarely predictable and can at times
push the definition of ‘ghost story’ to
its limits…the high quality of these Secondary Sources on Rick Kennett
thirteen stories makes one regret that Blackmore, Leigh. “Finding Ghosts: An
this book has not been issued in the Interview with Rick Kennett”.
hardback edition which it merits; but www.Tabula_Rasa.com (Sept 2003)
the confirmed ghost story reader will Collins, Paul (ed) The MUP
welcome it in any of its forms. Highly Encyclopedia of Australian Science
recommended”. .Peter Worthy of Black Fiction and Fantasy. Melbourne:
Book webzine said “he has proved he
Melbourne University Press, 1998. See
can be original in a genre which has
entry pp.103-04. [Includes
bibliography to 1998]
Ikin, Van. “From Troublesome Green to
Ernie Pine: An Interview with Rick
Kennett” Science Fiction No. 40
(date?) [Includes a two-page
bibliography].
Paulsen, Steven. “An Interview with
Rick Kennett”. Australian SF Writers
News No 5 (1992).
Paulsen, Steven and Sean McMullen.
“Rick Kennett”. The St James Guide to
Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers. Ed.
David Pringle
(Detroit/NY/Toronto/London) St James
Press, 1998.

THE MANTICHORUS:
COMMENTS ON LAST
MAILING

No comments this issue! Sorry! Out of

time and space (hey, isn’t that the title
o a Clark Ashton Smith book?) I’ll try
and make more comments next time, I
truly will…when life stops interfering
so much.