Today (April 27) marks the birthday of one of the Lovecraft Circle, Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994).

Long is probably best remembered today for his Lovecraftian fiction, but he also wrote sceincde fiction as well as fantasy and weird horror. He also wrote gothic romances in the seventies under the name Lydia Belkanp Long. For those who may not be familair with this subgenre of romance, the covers usually featured a beautiful young woman with great hair, often in a night dress, running from a castle or other large structure with a sinle light high in a tower. When I was a kid, you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting one. Tastes and times have changed, and  you never see them anymore.

But I digress.

Like many (most?) writers of hsi generation, he has faded into obscurity. Centipedde Press published a large collection entitled simply Frank Belknanp Long in 2022. It is not to be confused with the Masters of the Weird Tale: Frank Belknap Long that was published in 2010, also be Centipede Press. (Good luck finding a copy of the latter, and good luck in affording it if you do. I didn’t find any copies for sale online when I checked a few minutes ago.) There is a great deal of overlap int he contents, though.

I’ve not read a great deal of Long’s work, but I have read a smattering. My favorite story is “The Hounds of Tindalos”.  It was written in the March 1929 issue of Weird Tales. It was one of the earliest Lovecraft pastiches, and in my opinion, one of the most successful.

The one I haven’t read yet but am hoping to  get to soon is “The Horror From the Hills”. It’s in both of the above volumes.

Long continued to write well into his later years, although I don’t when exactly  he stopped. He was writing in other genres. I don’t know which ones. Byt the time he died, gothics had preceeded him in death, so to speak. I suspect he had moved  on.

Long also wrote science fiction. Much of it was collected in The Rim of the Unknown, published by Arkham House in 1972.

Probably the easiest and least expensive way to get your hands on  some of Long’s work is through the Megapack’s published by Wildside Press. There are at least four of them, and they are available in electronic editions. Be advised, they appear to focus on Long’s science fiction rather than his weird fiction.

Outside of fans of weird fiction, Long isn’t well remembered as far as I can tell. That’s a shame. While some of his work, especially early on, is a bit on the crudely written  side (not crude in content but in writing style), he was more thanproficient when he was at his best.