The Lurker at the Threshold

[w h pugmire esq]

I just got my sets of The Arkham Sampler, newly-published in two handsome volumes by the revived Arkham House, and in Volume One we find the following in the "Random Notes" section:

Publication of The Lurker at the Threshold stimulated a certain amount of speculation as to how much of that collaboration was written by H. P. Lovecraft and how much by August Derleth. It had not occurred to us, in our naivette [sic], that this might be so; it had not occurred to us because it did not seem that the work was of sufficient importance or stature even in the limited domain of the weird to merit such speculation. One brash reviewer of this book climbed right out on a limb and wrote: "The first 18.000 words . . . were written by Lovecraft before his death, and the remainder (some 45,000 words) have been added by Derleth following Lovecraft's notes. . . . The Lovecraft section, which ends at the bottom of page 58, is written in the quiet, restrained style of Charles Dexter Ward, and . . . may have been done first, only to be abandoned midway in favor of the other novel. At any rate, this was the most felicitous period of Lovecraft's style . . ." and so on. Of Derleth's "portion", the same reviewer writes: "Whatever his intentions, his style differs markedly from Lovecraft's, which is shown by the exactitude with which, to the satisfaction of this reviewer, the point of transition can be determined--the bottom of page 58."

However well-intentioned such reviewers, and however vain in their cocksureness, the facts of the matter are quite otherwise. The facts are these:--under the title of The Round Tower, Lovecraft left a portion of writing describing a tower which some Providence friends and readers believe was suggested by the famed Newport tower, whose raison d'etre has not yet been revealed, though only recently a move was made to excavate about the tower and discover, if possible, the reason for its being. In another paragraph or two, not connected to the previous fragment, Lovecraft described the "rose window" mentioned in the novel. These Lovecraft portions were included in The Lurker at the Threshold in two places. The Round Tower portion begins with the last paragraph on page 19, and ends with the second-last line on page 21. A random fragment is reproduced in the quotation on page 23. The descriptive notes for the "rose window" were not in such form as to permit using as written; they were incorporated into the narrative between pages 55 and 57.

The total wordage thus written by the late H. P. Lovecraft was thus in the vicinity of 1,000, certainly not over 1200. The possibility exists that the two sets of notes were for different stories; yet they appealed tome as manifestly related and as possible to connect, and out of them I constructed and wrote The Lurker at the Threshold, which had nowhere been laid out, planned, or plotted by Lovecraft, but was evoked from his fragments and notes.
--August Derleth

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, I have seen this elsewhere, as Derleth included it (almost verbatim) in his Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft, where it is included in the section on "The Unfinished Manuscripts". He goes on there to quote (albeit in slightly altered form) the fragments by HPL which he used for the novel (the differences can be seen by a comparison with their publication in vol. 5 of Lovecraft's Collected Essays).

I am curious, though, Wilum: were you wanting to get a discussion of the novel itself going here, or simply to share this little excerpt, as it is something of which many readers of Lovecraft are unaware? I mention the last particularly considering that a goodly number of people still believe that this was much more of a collaboration (if pothumous) between Lovecraft and Derleth, rather than almost entirely Derleth's own work... especially given the fact that it was so touted in all editions save the most recent....

 

[w h pugmire esq]

I would like this thread to discuss all aspects of Lurker -- its merits as a work of Lovecraftian horror, its place in the invention of what became the Cthulhu Mythos, its value as a weird novel, &c. My own feeling is that Derleth wrote this first "collaboration" as such because of the wordage of Lovecraft's that he had used in the tale; and then he got his idea of writing further collaborations that, primarily, saw their first publication in Arkham House titles. I have read this novel many times and I will read it yet again--it pleases me as an early tale of the Cthulhu Mythos. I am interested in the final section of the novel, which so steers away from the first two portions that Bob Price felt the need to rewrite the final third portion as it "should" have been. We needn't get into the touchy matter of the validity of the whole posthumous collaboration (or does Lurker deserve the twin byline) matter but simply concentrate on Lurker as a work of Lovecraftian horror. I think this could be a lively thread.

 

[J-WO]

This was the first Lovecraftian thing I read. I was about 14 and hungry to know what all the fuss was about. I haven't read it since.

I recall the last section of the book was very different in feel--I think it was at the point Qualmis(?) the native American comes in. At the time, I assumed that this was where Derleth stepped in to finish it off.

To be honest I don't recall much of Lurker (It got made obsolete only months later when I bought an authentic HPL). A few images stick--the bat child, the rose window--which, tellingly, are all Grandpa's.

 

[w h pugmire esq]

I'm unable to concentrate on writing due to weirdness at home, so I have started rereading the novel as well as The Watchers out of Time, to which I have a vague impression it is linked. Was the "rose window" used in Watchers as well? It's interesting that Derleth rather shrugs off the novel in his quote, as he does with so much of his Mythos work, almost as if he considers it insignificant hackwork. I always had the idea that Lurker was written as a serious homage to Lovecraft. It was clearly meant to be strict pastiche, a work that mimics Lovecraft's narrative voice; Derleth used to hint that he did this well and that it was a difficult accomplishment, for I've seen quotes where he says something like, "It isn't easy to write like Lovecraft--I should know!" The "collaborations" were meant as pastiche of Lovecraft in the same way that the Solar Pons series were pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, and writing in the "voice" of Lovecraft seems to be one reason that Lovecraft's name was attached to ye byline. I consider it a good Mythos novel, and it always pulls me back to new readings. It was one of my youthful follies to write a similar novel set in Sesqua Valley--I just found an old journal that records how I threw the novel out (this is in the 1970's) after using its first pages to make paper airplanes which I flew out my bedroom window. There is still, deep within me, a spark of that youthful desire to write a Sesqua Valley novel in the "tradition" of The Lurker at the Threshold -- so who knows...?

 

[Ningauble]

I'm unable to concentrate on writing due to weirdness at home, so I have started rereading the novel as well as The Watchers out of Time, to which I have a vague impression it is linked. Was the "rose window" used in Watchers as well?

Yup.

It's interesting that Derleth rather shrugs off the novel in his quote, as he does with so much of his Mythos work, almost as if he considers it insignificant hackwork. I always had the idea that Lurker was written as a serious homage to Lovecraft. It was clearly meant to be strict pastiche, a work that mimics Lovecraft's narrative voice; Derleth used to hint that he did this well and that it was a difficult accomplishment, for I've seen quotes where he says something like, "It isn't easy to write like Lovecraft--I should know!"

And in my opinion he failed. But "The Lamp of Alhazred" is a more than half-decent story.
I should re-read the "posthumous collaborations" soon.

 

[j d worthington]

I would have to agree with Martin on this one. I'm afraid the problem was Derleth, of all people, trying to write like Lovecraft. They were so antipodally opposed in so many ways, that it simply could never really work. As a result, I fear that Lurker, in the final analysis, must be judged a failure when taken in its entirety. However, there are some fine passages (not all of them by HPL), and Derleth did manage to strike a genuinely atmospheric tone more than once; and, as usual with his Lovecraftian pieces ("collaborations" or otherwise) there are some magnificent ideas scattered throughout the novel. As a result I, too, can enjoy this one a fair amount... though that final section jars terribly. It not only makes no bloody sense in light of all the set-up which has gone before, but the tone and manner are completely wrong, taking an attempt at a study in atmosphere and turning it into an occult Solar Pons meets the pseudo-Hounds of Tindalos. What atmosphere Derleth had created up to that point is completely dispelled, and we are given one of the most stereotypical "detective-explains-everything-to-assistant-in-lieu-of-suspects" scenes ever written. Aaaarrrgh!

For all its faults, though, I have always had a strange affection for this bizarre, malformed little devil of a book, and find myself going back and rereading it every few years....

Oh, and J-WO: Quamis was actually introduced a bit earlier on, as I recall. Incidentally, Graham Masterton picked up on Quamis for use in his Manitou, should you be interested....

 

[w h pugmire esq]

Yes, Derleth failed in evoking Lovecraft through narrative voice. It sounds more like mimicry, false and forced. And yet Derleth still is able to evoke a Lovecraftian sense of place, and the story itself, for the first two portions, holds my interest throughout. The book was a success in Great Britain and Europe, I think, and has been kept in print all these years, so for that reason it must be considered other than a failure. It fails in being a work by H. P. Lovecraft, and the final portion is simply mad -- yet is has something that I find enduring, and it lures me back again and again.

 

[J-WO]

The book was a success in Great Britain and Europe, I think, and has been kept in print all these years, so for that reason it must be considered other than a failure.

You see it over here in second hand bookshops and libraries quite a bit. It was the only Lovecraftian book in my local library, in fact.