The Contributions
within Lovecraft's Collaborations
The latter portion of Lovecraft's writing
career was dirproportionately characterized by collaborations with
other authors. However, his contribution to the works varies
greatly.
In some cases, he contributed little more than a suggestion. In
others, just the opposite. Obviously, all of these works are
equal,
but they are invariably lumped together as though they were.
For example, as I mention on
the page about Lovecraft's word
counts (and what they tell us), the
longest of his collaborations was The
Mound, which was apparently
ghostwritten by Lovecraft based on little more than a suggestion by
Zealia Bishop. As such, some of the author's work has been
somewhat mistakenly set aside under impression that his voice was
dilluted by working with a co-author.
This page is an attempt to survey this body of work and to catalog all
in one place (however briefly) Lovecraft's contribution to each story.
All text (except where otherwise noted) is from (or adapted from)
Wikipedia.
Alcestis -
In the 1930s Sonia Greene
wrote a play called "Alcestis", in which the Prologue is written in
Lovecraft's hand. It was unpublished until the mid-1980s when it
was
issued in a facsimile holograph edition of 200 copies by R. Alain
Everts' The Strange Company as by H.P. Lovecraft and Sonia
Greene.
Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, however, considers that the play is
likely entirely Greene's work. The manuscript of "Alcestis" is
amongst
Greene's papers at the John Hay Library.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Greene)
Ashes (with C. M. Eddy, Jr.) -
No data yet.
The Battle that Ended the Century
(with R. H. Barlow) - No data yet.
Bothon (with Henry S. Whitehead) -
No data yet.
The Challenge from Beyond (with C. L.
Moore; A. Merritt; Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long) - No data yet.
Collapsing Cosmoses (with R.H. Barlow)
- No data yet.
The Crawling Chaos (with Winifred V.
Jackson) - "Lovecraft wrote the entire text, but Jackson is
credited since the story was based on a dream she experienced."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crawling_Chaos)
The Curse of Yig (with Zealia Bishop) -
Bishop supplied the story idea and some notes, paying Lovecraft to
flesh it out in 1928. It could be said the tale was "ghost-written";
however, others class it as a "collaboration". Bishop then sold the
story under her own name to Weird
Tales magazine.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Yig)
Deaf, Dumb, and Blind (with C. M.
Eddy, Jr.) - No data yet.
The Diary of Alonzo Typer (with
William Lumley) - No data yet.
The Disinterment (with Duane W. Rimel)
- No data yet.
The Electric Executioner (with Adolphe
de Castro) - No data yet.
Four O'Clock (with Sonia Greene) -
No data yet.
The Ghost-Eater (with C. M. Eddy, Jr.)
- No data yet.
The Green Meadow (with Winifred V.
Jackson) - Lovecraft wrote the entire text but Jackson is
credited since it was based on a dream she had experienced.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Meadow)
The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast (with R.
H. Barlow) - No data yet.
The Horror at Martin’s Beach (with
Sonia H. Greene) - a.k.a."The Invisible Monster," which was
revised and edited by H. P. Lovecraft for publication in Weird Tales
(November, 1923). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Greene)
The Horror in the Burying-Ground (with
Hazel Heald) - No data yet.
The Horror in the Museum (with Hazel
Heald) - Nothing stated on Wikipedia regarding contributions.
In the Walls of Eryx (with Kenneth
Sterling) - Sterling, a precocious Providence high school
student who had befriended Lovecraft the previous year, gave Lovecraft
a draft of the story in January 1936. This draft included the idea of
an invisible maze--a concept Sterling recalled as being derived from
the story "The Monster-God of Mamurth" by Edmond Hamilton, published in
the August 1926 issue of Weird Tales, which featured an invisible
building in the Sahara Desert.
Lovecraft thoroughly rewrote Sterling's draft, lengthening the story to
12,000 words (from an original 6,000-8,000). Though the original draft
does not survive, most of the prose in the published version is
believed to be Lovecraft's.
The Last Test (with Adolphe de Castro)
- H.P.Lovecraft, with whom Danziger De Castro corresponded
between 1927 and 1936, revised two of his early short stories in the
late 1920s; they were published in Weird Tales.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_de_Castro)
The Loved Dead (with C. M. Eddy, Jr.) -
No data yet.
The Man of Stone (with Hazel Heald) -
No data yet.
Medusa's Coil (with Zealia Bishop) -
Her stories appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. However, they were
extensively revised by H. P. Lovecraft to the point of being
ghostwritten. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealia_Bishop)
The Mound (with Zealia Bishop) -
"The Mound" is a novella H. P. Lovecraft wrote as a ghostwriter from
December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by Zealia Bishop to
create a story based on the following plot synopsis: "There is an
Indian mound near here, which is haunted by a headless ghost.
Sometimes it is a woman."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mound_%28short_story%29)
The Night Ocean (with R.H. Barlow) -
No data yet.
Out of the Aeons (with Hazel Heald) -
No data yet.
Poetry and the Gods (with Anna Helen
Crofts) - No data yet.
The Slaying of the Monster (with R. H.
Barlow) - No data yet.
The Sorcery of Aphlar (with Duane W.
Rimel) - No data yet.
The Thing in the Moonlight (with J.
Chapman Miske) - J. Chapman Miske wrote this based on a letter
from H. P. Lovecraft to Donald Wandrei. This letter describes a
dream that Lovecraft had. The story was prepared for publication
by Miske, who filled in the story surrounding the description of the
dream. In places, the letter and published story are identical,
word-for-word.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_in_the_Moonlight)
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
(with E. Hoffmann Price) - The story has its origins in Price's
enthusiasm for an earlier Lovecraft tale. "One of my favorite HPL
stories was, and still is, 'The Silver Key'," Price wrote in a 1944
memoir. "In telling him of the pleasure I had had in rereading it, I
suggested a sequel to account for [protagonist] Randolph Carter's
doings after his disappearance." After convincing an apparently
reluctant Lovecraft to agree to collaborate on such a sequel, Price
wrote a 6,000-word draft in August 1932; in April 1933, Lovecraft
produced a 14,000-word version that left unchanged, by Price's
estimate, "fewer than fifty of my original words," though An H. P.
Lovecraft Encyclopedia reports that Lovecraft "kept as many of Price's
conceptions as possible, as well as some of his language." Thus many of
the central ideas of the story like 'Umr at-Tawil, the talk of
mathematical planes and multiple facets of Randolph Carter throughout
Time and Space come from Price, who was well read in neoplatonic
thought, theosophy and the occult. Even the quote from the Necronomicon
is mainly by Price in outline though put in more Lovecraftian language.
The sub-plot about Yaddith was entirely Lovecraft's idea however.
In any case, Price was pleased with the result, writing that Lovecraft
"was right of course in discarding all but the basic outline. I could
only marvel that he had made so much of my inadequate and bungling
start." The story appeared under both authors' bylines in the July 1934
issue of Weird Tales; Price's draft was published as "The Lord of
Illusion" in Crypt of Cthulhu No. 10 in 1982.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Gates_of_the_Silver_Key)
“Till A’ the Seas” (with R.H. Barlow) -
Nothing stated on Wikipedia regarding contributions.
The Trap (with Henry S. Whitehead) -
No data yet.
The Tree on the Hill (with Duane W.
Rimel) - Nothing stated on Wikipedia regarding contributions.
Two Black Bottles (with Wilfred Blanch
Talman) - No data yet.
Under the Pyramids (with Harry
Houdini) - Facing financial problems, J. C. Henneberger, the
founder and owner of Weird Tales, wanted to associate the popular Harry
Houdini with the magazine in order to boost its readership. Following
the introduction of an "Ask Houdini" column, as well as the publication
of two short stories allegedly written by the escape artist,
Henneberger sought out Lovecraft in February 1924 and commissioned him
to write the tale of a supposedly true experience that Houdini had had
in Egypt. Lovecraft was paid $100 (approximately $1340 in present day
terms) to ghostwrite the story, at the time the largest sum he had ever
been given as an advance. This was a major factor in motivating him to
take the job as, after listening to Houdini's story and researching its
background, Lovecraft concluded that the tale was completely fabricated
and requested permission from Henneberger to take artistic license.
After receiving clearance from the editor, he began his writing by
spending considerable time researching the setting in books issued by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as by frequently visiting the
museum's Egyptian exhibits.
Lovecraft completed "Under the Pyramids" in February 1924, but lost his
original draft of the story at Union Station in Providence, Rhode
Island when he was on his way to New York to get married. He was forced
to spend much of his honeymoon in Philadelphia retyping the manuscript.
The work's original title, "Under the Pyramids", is known only from the
lost and found advertisement that he placed in the The Providence
Journal. The tale was printed in the May–June-July 1924 edition of
Weird Tales under the title "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" and without
credit to Lovecraft in the byline, as Henneberger thought that this
would confuse the readers, since the narrative was told entirely from
Houdini's first-person perspective. Lovecraft would later receive
credit in the editor's note of the 1939 reprint.
Winged Death (with Hazel Heald) -
No data yet.
If you can point me to any information about
the proportional authorship of any of these works, please . Thanks!
Copyright 2013
the
Ale[x]orcist.
