Today, in observance of the birthday of Robert Bloch (1917-1994), we’re going to look at a “collaboration” between Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Bloch, “The Lighthouse”..

I put the word “collaboration” in quotes because what this really is, is a completion of a fragment Poe left unfinished. Not entirely unlike the “posthumous collaborations” of Derleth and Lovecraft, except that Bloch acknowledges he finished this story at the urging of the leading Poe scholar at the time.

“The Lighthouse” was first published in the January-February 1953 issue of Fantastic. I read it in the paperback collection Pleasant Dreams – Nightmares. (Note: the contents of this volume differ from the Arkham House collection of the same title. Of the four stories blurbed on the back cover, only one is actually in this book.)

The story is written in the form of a diary being kept by a man who has just arrived to be a lighthouse keeper for a year. His only companion is a dog. He hopes to get some writing done since he will be all alone.

You know it doesn’t work out that way. And since this is a completion of an unfinished story by Poe, you know madness is going to be an element.

It doesn’t take long for the isolation to get to our unnamed narrator. He begins to focus on creating things with his mind. First he conjures up a rose, and one washed up on the rocks.

Maybe.

That’s something of an open question.

Next he tries to create a female companion, his ideal woman.

I’ll let you read the story to see exactly how that turns out. Since this is a continuation of something Poe wrote, it’s been reprinted a number of times in Poe collections. It shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

I would argue that Bloch, if not equal to Poe, is certainly worthy of consideration as a literary peer of Poe. Bloch does a good job of continuing the story in Poe’s style, although I’m not sure Poe would have gone in the direction Bloch did. I’m not well-read enough in Poe to make that decision. Regardless, it’s a good story in Poe’s style.

I would like to read more of both of them later this year. Given there are major life changes gong to be taking place over the next six months, and I’m trying  to make my fiction writing (and the reading assignments that go with some writing courses I’m taking) one of my top priorities, we’ll see how much reading I can get done.

Bloch was amazingly prolific, and there is plenty of short fiction I still need to read. I just wish more of it were available in electronic format.