August Derleth

Today, February 24, marks the birth of August Derleth (1909-1971). He founded Arkham House publisher to keep the work of H. P. Lovecraft in print. For this we all owe him a great debt of gratitude.  Derleth was something of a controversial figure in the field for the way he handled the literary estate of H. P. Lovecraft, especially his “posthumous collaborations” in which he completed some stories Lovecraft left unfinished at his death.

My purpose with this post is not to focus on Arkham House, but on an aspect of Derleth’s legacy that is sadly neglected today, and that’s his work as a writer of weird fiction.

It’s been over a decade since there was a collection of Derleth’s work published. I did a quick check online, and the starting price for a collection of his ghost stories was $200.  Too rich for my blood.

I was going to review a couple of short pieces I have in anthologies, “Muggeridge’s Aunt” and “The Shuttered House”. Both were fairly standard ghost stories.  While not rising to the level of a James or Wakefield, they were still well told and provided a pleasant way to while away a few spare minutes. The problem is the former isn’t readily available in either electronic or print format, and the latter is only in a facsimile of The Avon Fantasy Reader Number 1. For these birthday posts, I’m not going to review stories that aren’t readily available.

I would hope some ambitious publisher would take a chance and produce an inexpensive collection, or better yet a set, of Derleth’s weird fiction.