The Lovecraft Arts and Science Council frequently stages Arcade Asylum readings in the Westminster Arcade of Providence RI. One October the spell of these words exhorted attendees:
Sister, listen!… The King-Wolf howls!
The pack is running!… Drink down the brew,
Don the unearthly, shaggy cowls,—
We must be running too!
(“They Run Again”—Leah Bodine Drake)
Leah Bodine Drake (1904 – 1964) was foremost a poet. Her inaugural verse for Weird Tales, “In the Shadows”, debuted in the October 1935 issue, the start of nearly two dozen running in “The Unique Magazine.” Her first book of poetry, A Hornbook for Witches, was published in 1950 by Arkham House . It is one of the rarest titles from this imprint, its small run having been said to be partly funded by Drake herself.
“Time and the Sphinx” first appeared in Lilith Lorraine’s little magazine, Different. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction reprinted it in its February 1965 issue but it has not seen print since then.
This not only changes now but with further attention to Drake on the horizon–The Song of The Sun: Collected Writings by Leah Bodine Drake, edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, slated for publication hopefully later this year from Hippocampus Press. Among other selections, the book will contain more than 100 poems never previously published, three other pieces of fiction besides the following you are about to read, bibliography, illustrations by Jason Eckhardt, etc, ETC. totaling a staggering 760 pages. As well as a refutation that she subsidized publication of Hornbook. This long overdue recognition of a great woman writer will be a major event, Never Mind The Weird!
Let the following serve as a taster then. Consider it this Memento Book’s own Arkham Sampler, a dreamlike gem somewhat lost in time, now found. Dedicated to Lord Dunsany…
“On The Thing in the Woods by Harper Williams”
“BELKNAP, accept from Theobald’s spectral Claw
These haunting Chapters of daemoniack Awe;
Such nightmare Yarns we both have often writ,
With goblin Whispers, and an Hint of IT,
Till sure, we’re like to think all Terror’s grown
A sort of private Product of our own!
Lest, then, our Pride our sober Sense mislead,
And make us copyright each hellish Deed,
’Tis ours to see what ghastly Flames can blaze
From Spooks and Ghouls that other Wizard raise!”
–H. P. Lovecraft (1924)
“I am the nursery magic Fairy,” she said. “I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don’t need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real,”—Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit (1922)
“The most incongruous things have fewer degrees of separation than we think.”
—”Curiosities: The Thing in the Woods by Harper Williams”, Stefan Dziemianowicz. Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 2000
Margery Williams Bianco (1881-1944) had her first professional publication in 1902. More than a decade later (1914), her fourth book, The Thing in the Woods, was set in Pennsylvania where she was currently living. It however was not a success even a decade after that, despite Lovecraft’s recommendation to his young correspondent Frank Belknap Long.
Two years before the Providence poesy above, in 1922, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real was Bianco’s first major success under her own name, and she never looked back, becoming a celebrated children’s author. Other works included 1925’s Poor Cecco: The Wonderful Story of a Wonderful Wooden Dog, splendidly illustrated by Arthur Rackham. In 1971, upon the establishment of the Newberry Honor for children’s literature, her body of that work was posthumously honored.
This excerpt of Thing is taken from a revised US version, with Williams using the nom de plume “Harper Williams”. Neither Grandpa Theobald or Belknapius (Lovecraft and Long) are recorded of being aware of the writer’s gender. S. T. Joshi and others cite it as a possible influence to “The Dunwich Horror” (see quote above as well as Joshi notes to Lovecraft’s poem in The Ancient Track [Hippocampus, 2013]), including among other similar motifs it’s use of twin brothers, one more monstrous than the other. We present this then to show that possible influence and give a taste of a pulp flavor not usually found in the gentle tales of stuffed animals…
The joey Zone
ANN and JEFF VANDERMEER, The Big Book of Classic Fantasy. New York: Vintage Books, 2019. 822 pp. $25.00 tpb. ISBN: 978-0-525-43556-3
“The most painful part of the experience was reading Salvador Dali’s fiction.”
–@jeffvandermeer, 25 Sep 2018
“A night at the end of June, a child takes a walk with his mother. It’s raining falling stars. The child picks up one and carries it in the palms of his hands. At home he deposits it on the table and locks it in a reversed glass. The next morning, getting up, he lets escape a scream of terror: A worm, during the night has nibbled his star!”
–According to Dali, written by him at age 8
The above is provided as a public service in the interest of giving an even more complete survey than included in this Big Book.
Painful? We’ve read worse assuredly. While nothing is as brief as this in this volume, it would not be out of its scope. There are ninety selections, not all of which are complete narratives (Nine novels are excerpted ranging from Through The Looking Glass to The Night Land). Twelve of the authors appeared previously in The Vandermeer’s collection The Weird (2011). The Big Book in some respects presents a deeper cut of that aesthetic. One story, Hagiwara Sakutaro’s “The Town of Cats”, is in both anthologies.
Regular subscribers to this journal might first associate the term “fantasy” with a heroic narrative in a “secondary world”, either in an epic (Tolkien) or pulpier, shorter form (Howard). Both the Oxford Professor and Two-Gun Bob are in these pages. The Vandermeers define Classic Fantasy as that written “from the early 1800s to World War II, from the start of a nascent idea of “fantasy” as opposed to “folktale”.” There are folk and fairytale tropes abounding in these pages due to “the rate of fey” the editors use in establishing parameters for this collection, but many extend Beyond The Fields We Knew.
There is a preponderance of playful Comic Fantasy, the welcome example being Oscar Wilde’s delightful “The Remarkable Rocket” (a rather overdone choice on the other hand being Gustav Meyrink’s “Blamol”). Franz Blei’s “The Big Bestiary of Modern Literature” is doted on and not surprisingly, as it seems a formative influence on the anthologists’ Thackery Lambshead books and Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals.
Science Fantasy—another subdivision—is represented by Edgar Allan Poe’s “M. Valdemar” and Fitz James O’Brien’s “The Diamond Lens”. “The Masque of The Red Death” or “The Wondersmith” come to mind as more suitable examples from either however. And while this reviewer loves the writing of Bruno Schulz, “A Night of The High Season” written fantastically in style and descriptions, is not quite a fantasy per se (All of the above also goes for Herman Melville and his tale “The Tartarus of Maids”). “Too much time and energy has been expended by well-meaning editors of past anthologies invoking such arguments as the “Nathaniel Hawthorne Defense” to establish fantasy’s bona fides.” The Vandermeers then proceed to do just that themselves, recently admitting in an interview that “we speak to repatriate” the “literary” into the “fantastical”—is there a need to boost the relevance of the latter?
We must look at what this book is rather than what it is not. Jeff Vandermeer’s predilection for speculative fictions concerned with humanity’s interaction with The Natural World and its’ flora and fauna infuse an underlying flavor to this self-described “sumptuous repast”. The Will-O’-The-Wisps of the Hans Andersen story cry “…they are drowning our meadows and drying them up! What will become of our descendants?” Jasoomian Imperialist John Carter takes up long-sword in the edit from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars series to fight the “hideous”, “repulsive” plant men.
And yet. There are samples from The Worm Ouroboros or A Voyage to Arcturus to entice an uninitiated palate desiring refinement. A new encounter was with the writing of Marcel Schwob, his standout story (complete with climate change!) being “The Death of Odjigh”, reminiscent of J. H. Rosny. And any time an anthology contains a selection by Leonora Carrington it is worth a read. In summation: While not the definitive collection of fantasy—classic or otherwise—this book’s value was in relation to the amount of material that was new to me. For now, this far encompassing, albeit curated, tour will last long enough for a night at the end of June.
A conversational review by Sam Gafford & The joey Zone
Gafford and Zone were participants in William Hope Hodgson: An Appreciation, a panel held at 2017’s NecronomiCon in Providence. Sam, in particular, has been one of the main authorities on the writer and his work editing the critical watershed WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON: VOICES FROM THE BORDERLAND.
Swan River Press is an independent small press publisher based in Dublin, Ireland dedicated to supernatural and fantastic literature. It is responsible for high quality editions of authors such as Bram Stoker, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and the journal THE GREEN BOOK. This is a noteworthy appearance of Hodgson’s novel, not only in its deluxe presentation, but coming out now with the renewed and deserved popularity of the writer in this year, 140 years since his birth and 100 since his death.
Let this conversation not only serve as a fitting coda then to this Year of Hodgson but also to further discussion…
Sam Gafford: One hundred years after his death in WWI 1918, William Hope Hodgson still struggles for critical and popular acknowledgement. Despite his status as a pioneer of horror and science fiction literature, he still remains unknown to many. But, thanks to the efforts of people like Brian Showers from Swan River Press, his name stretches farther and farther each year.
Hodgson (1877-1918) lived a remarkable life by anyone’s standards. He ran away to sea at the age of 13 and joined the Merchant Marine. For ten years, he sailed the seas in what has become known as the last great age of sailing ships. He circumnavigated the globe several times, saved a crewman from shark infested waters off the coast of Australia, was a pioneer of the very early science of maritime photography (credited with taking the first pictures of ‘stalk lightning’ which is a phenomena where lightning rises from the ocean during a storm up into the sky), and even achieved his Second Mate’s certificate. However, bitter and disillusioned, Hodgson left the sea in 1900, never to return other than in his writings.
Back home in Blackburn, Hodgson opened a ‘School for Physical Culture’ (which closed shortly after a controversial attempt by Hodgson to shackle the great magician Houdini that Houdini would describe as the most brutal treatment he had ever received during his many handcuff challenges) and then became a writer. His writing ‘life’ was brief. He wrote for basically only fourteen or so years from 1902 to 1916 when he joined the British Army to fight in WWI. And, even then, there is evidence to indicate that his best and greatest work was done early during this time and probably completed around 1905-1906. This would include his four novels, Carnacki stories and several of his best known works like “The Voice in the Night”.
Despite his raw imagination and talent, Hodgson never attained ‘best-seller’ status as indicated by the drop in publishers as time went on. Although his work often received favorable critical notices, he never caught the fancy of the reading majority which was something that perplexed and depressed him. While contemporary writers like Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen and others were being embraced as the giants in a new literary field, Hodgson was left by the wayside.
The joey Zone: Even giants such as these need perennial literary renewal. Lovecraft, as another example, went from Arkham House , to Ballantine , with smaller imprints in between, before finally gaining a more permanent ‘list status’ as a Penguin Classic.
Sam Gafford: Of his four novels, THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND is perhaps Hodgson’s most famous and influential work. Telling the story of a recluse in a house in remote Ireland via the discovery of a lost manuscript found among ruins, it is a piece of literature that stubbornly refuses categorization, summation or even examination. In parts adventure novel and other parts conscious expanding science fiction, it has captured readers ever since its first publication in 1908. It is a work that can mean many different things to many different readers and each interpretation can be just as valid and worthy as the next. It has influenced many writers and received accolades from others including H. P. Lovecraft in his ground-breaking essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”. According to the official Hodgson bibliography, published in WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON: VOICES FROM THE BORDERLAND (Hippocampus Press, 2014), it has appeared in no less than 45 editions which doesn’t even include the many Print On Demand versions of dubious and questionable merit.
The joey Zone: Artist John Coulthart was interviewed in ESOTERRA #9 magazine in 2000. He brought up the idea of doing ”an illustrated edition of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND (originally for Savoy Press)…we’re intending that this should be as definitive as we can make it.” On his seminal blog Feuilleton in 2010 he followed up that with “ I’ve been talking for years about doing a series of illustrations for HoTB and may yet make good on that threat: never say never.”
In other words…we’ve been waiting 18 years for this!
Sam Gafford: All of them, and anyone in the future considering reprinting THE HOUSE ON BORDERLAND, can now pack it in and give up the ghost because Swan River Press has produced the best version ever. There is no need for any other for none will match this triumph.
Beginning with an effective and atmospheric cover by John Coulthart (and, believe me, most previous editions DON’T have appropriate covers like the paperback with an ear of corn in the foreground and a farm scene in the back), you know that this is a production of superior quality. Here is a publisher who is giving the work the respect and dedication it deserves.
The joey Zone: There are a LOT of deluxe versions of Lovecraft, Poe, etc. THIS HoTB is really….incomparable. The bar has been raised on Hodgsonian illustration. Collectors of the many editions of THE HOUSE such as Gafford (and Brian Showers) call this…an affliction. We would posit the term affection.
Sam Gafford: The famed writer, Alan Moore (who is himself a Hodgson fan and has included Carnacki in his LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN series), provides a thought-provoking introduction to the novel which effectively summarizes Hodgson’s life and places the novel in perspective of both its own time and today. Moore makes the brilliant observation that THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND is a literary equivalent of the recent ‘found footage’ film type and discusses it as a piece of psychogeography. Moore also wrote an introduction to the graphic novel adaptation of the novel by Richard Corben which is worth checking out but his essay here is new and written specifically for this edition.
Next comes a beautifully designed text with stunning artwork by John Coulthart. It would be easy for me to say that, so far, none have come as close as Coulthart in capturing the spirit and terror of Hodgson’s writing. The very first plate is especially stunning and evocative.
The joey Zone: The illustration for the “Searching of The Gardens” chapter is reminiscent of the work of Thomas Cole in its quiet yet sinister sublimity. This edition’s images go beyond the usual delineations of swine things into the visionary tableaus encountered by the narrator.
Sam Gafford: All of Coulthart’s illustrations should be collected and printed as a separate portfolio of prints. Some editions of the book also include a CD of accompanying music by Jon Mueller which provide an appropriately moody addition to the experience.
The joey Zone: An elephant folio would do justice to the detail! The illustrator engendered quite a “Annus Mirabilis” in 2017: As of December, John ‘only’ did at ‘least’ 87 or so illustrations including Editorial Alma’s Spanish edition of Edgar Allan Poe with definitive versions of the tales that surpass some images by Wilfred Satty and even Harry Clarke.
In a way, this presentation of THE HOUSE could be compared to Savoy Books’ edition of David Lindsay’s A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, the plus being that he fully illustrated the text as well. Coulthart said of the binding: “Nothing elaborate, a solarized collage of Gothic window and a starry sky”—yet! that more than succeeds in emphasizing the cosmic dimension as much as the horror. The latter usually overwhelms the former when it comes to illustration of this work even though its only about half of the novel. It is almost a crime then that a dust wrapper covers the boards on this!
Sam Gafford: Finishing the book is a reprint of an essay by Iain Sinclair which appeared in an earlier edition of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND. Sinclair’s thoughts are interesting and provocative and, although I’m not sure I agree with them, are worth reading.
The joey Zone: All of William Hope Hodgson’s work engenders depth: In discussion towards differing interpretations. The perennial renewal of his visionary art is justified in following years as well as this one. In other words, this is just the start of the conversation on “Hope”!
Sam Gafford: I wish that all of Hodgson’s novels could receive such an appreciative and affectionate reprint. How wonderful would that be to see them lined up on my bookshelf as the pinnacle of Hodgson editions? For now, we need to be grateful to Brian Showers and Swan River Press for this handsome volume of one of the most truly unique novels in the history of horror or science fiction.
1985: It is seven years before Art?Alternatives debuts full colour lowbrow kustom hijinks on better stocked newsstands (nevermind an additional two years before the inauguration of Juxtapoz). You can’t order your favorite indy ZINE off the nascent Internet as Amazon wouldn’t get up and running until 1994 either. Thankfully Mike Gunderloy’s Factsheet Five served that purpose in print, and as some of us would argue, with a more sychronitic and pleasing aesthetic.
Pre-DeviantArt, when you had to hit the street corner to get your underground art fix, Weirdo is one of the few suppliers in town, already in it’s fourth year of publication.
I first picked up a copy of the magazine at Ziesing Bros’ Book Emporium which could best if inadequately be described as a lovingly missed Magick Theatre for The Literate. One of my favorite covers was for #3, heavily riffing on a Humbug-inspired border layout including among other kultural icons, William Burroughs and Sue Catwoman. I forget what issue announced The Ugly Art Contest but I was ALL IN.
2018: It is thirty-three years after Weirdo #15 came out, with my offering, reproduced at a ninth of a page, accepted by cranky indy GOD and then current editor Peter Bagge. It played on the same level as an artist whose work I love, XNO (Chet Daumstaedter). The Grand Comics Database details that section of the issue as “Twenty-five illustrations featuring “ugly artmanship,” some of them quite influenced by Basil Wolverton.” And they would be correct! at least in my case (Wolverton, then Roth, then Williams, then XNO, then…). Underneath some optically exuberant slacker in engineer boots (Bagge[?] notes: “Them boots are made for walkin’, Joe!”) has a reverie (probably after falling asleep to NANCY & LEE on the Victrola) and drops a copy of the zine Damp in the process. Earwax from burning it at both ends no doubt.
Weirdo was one of the first publications to validate my work and that of others in varying degrees of proficiency and talent.
In the 1980s, a ‘web presence’ didn’t mechanically communicate that talent or your art, some editor who believed in you did. When the going got Weird, The Weirdos…got published. Baby we are fine artistes. And maybe we deserved to be kissed.
—The joey Zone
10) Have fun. Proudly walk the streets of Providence knowing we are everywhere, secure in our status of Cosmic Insignificance–those other poor fools just don’t know it yet!
9) Attend the Hail & Farewell panel. Nobody really wants to say goodbye at this point, so can we have a big hello to…*2019*? Any convention, for better or worse, is part of a big continuing whole. Be somebody contributing to that better part of Things to Come.
8) …but take something for those back home, either a cultist who couldn’t make it this year or a budding recruit who might’ve wondered where the Hyades you went for the better part of a week & why.
7) Bring an empty totebag. Or make room in that suitcase by getting rid of all that mundanewear and sport nothing but Arkham Bazaar apparel or sech. You can also ship boxes to yourself for easier passage on that return flight while deluding yourself as to all the spare room on the bookcases at home.
6) Sample Providence cuisine. Enjoy the great restaurants, bars, and food trucks (The legendary Haven Bros.–Stuart Gordon approved!) in the area. Get with The New York System and wash that down with a tall cold glass of Autocrat moo.
5) Don’t miss visiting…Lovecraft Square; The bust at The Athenaeum; Our art show. And pay ye respects to the family markers at Swan Point Cemetery.
4) Get OUT of the hotel. Step AWAY from the hotel. It is a myth a HPL was a recluse and in fact he liked to go on walks. LONG walks. Howard said he was Providence. Go and meet every cobblestone and gambrel-roofed architectural nook & cranny of him. And each other. And YOURSELF–*We Are Providence.* And!
3) Bring something to share. It’s not just about just loading up on arcane commodities and/or having others’ words at panels envelop you like a freight train. Okay, it is to a point. But be part of the shoggoth not just one consumed by it. Put back something into The Community of Lovecraftians whether it’s a small zine (yeah, they still make ’em–just ask Michael Bukowski) or helping someone out this weekend in some small but guaranteed appreciated way.
2) Introduce yourself. Don’t be afraid to strike up a meatspace conversation with that person you saw ask a great question at that last panel you were at and continue that conversation. Finally–
1) Take a good look at the schedule. Then realize there is no way to do everything but that maybe you can do a little of most. Remember that some of the most worthwhile experiences at cons come randomly and unexpected. Put down thet damn’d phone and… take a picture with your heart.
Because we already have your brain safely stored in a cannister for our trip back.