"From Beyond"

[Extollager]

I've had little time for reading not connected with my job, but took a few late-night minutes for this short piece about wicked Crawford Tillinghast and the dimension-revealing machine in his attic. It seems a sketch for a story rather than the story itself. I was reminded of Frances Stevens's "Unseen, Unfeared" -- as I remember the story from Moskowitz's Horrors Unknown anthology, from many, many years ago.

My sense is that Lovecraft doesn't quite know what to do with his material. Tillinghast's stagey madness detracts from the "cosmic" concept. I suppose one could argue that this is Lovecraft's clever point -- the absurd but never-surrendered pettiness of human emotions, such as resentment, in the face of cosmic abnormality etc. Maybe, but it simply reads like familiar pulp-mag melodrama.

To be sure, Lovecraft has to do something with the "middleman" who introduces the story's narrator to the weird dimension. He just needed to find a way to make Tillinghast something other than a very familiar stock madman who has his victims.

I liked the way Borges brilliantly made his middleman, in "The Aleph," a vain, smug, and incorrigibly bad poet.

Maybe if Lovecraft had had more investment in this story he could have figured out what to do with Tillinghast. The problem is a perennial one; an author has an idea, image, concept -- but has to tell a story, and that means characters.

 

[j d worthington]

"From Beyond" is more interesting for what it proposes than what it does. Yes, Tillinghast is about as stereotypical a "mad scientist" as one can imagine, and the tale itself is mediocre in most ways. The concepts themselves were more inspired by a popular science book, Modern Science and Materialism, by Hugh Elliott -- a rather interesting book, really, and one which can be read here:

http://archive.org/details/modernsciencemat00ellirich

There are some nice moments in the tale, and some quirks which HPL has brought to it to make it distinctly individual... but it remains one of his weakest works overall.

Perhaps I'll have some time over the next few days to put up some of the thoughts I wrote down about this one a while back... should anyone be interested.....

 

[Extollager]

Perhaps you could remind us of what HPL said about Frances Stevens, too...

 

[zaltys13]

Loved the film...

 

[j d worthington]

Perhaps you could remind us of what HPL said about Frances Stevens, too...

Ummm... Francis Stevens, a.k.a. Gertrude Bennett, author of Citadel of Fear, etc.? Well.... actually, HPL didn't say a darned thing about her, though it was long thought that a comment made in the Argosy for November 15, 1919, was by him. This was on Citadel of Fear, praising the story highly, and the letter was signed "Augustus T. Swift", leading several later writers to assume this was HPL with one of his coined pseudonyms (as de Camp, if memory serves, expressed it, referring to the Augustan age and "one of its luminaries", Jonathan Swift). However, there really was an Augustus T. Swift living in Providence at the time the letter (actually, two letters, as another was published in the issue for May 22, 1920) was written. The confusion came about when Larry Farsace, editor of the 'zine The Golden Atom, reprinted the letters with an assertion that these were by Lovecraft, using much the same line of reasoning given above. All of this is discussed in the introduction to the Necronomicon Press volume, H. P. Lovecraft and the Argosy, which reprints all the letters from both the Argosy and All-Story concerning the controversies Lovecraft became involved in there... a set of letters which really do make amusing reading, showing things haven't changed much in the intervening century.... (It is also covered in Joshi's biography of Lovecraft, both versions.)

However, Joshi has remarked that Lovecraft would quite likely have been impressed with the tale. Not having read it yet (I have it, but haven't gotten around to it at this point), I can't give my own opinion, but certainly Grandpa was quick to praise a lot of writers from these magazines which might surprise many of his readers (Albert Payson Terhune being one, for instance, or Perley Poore Sheehan, or even Frank Condon); he had high praise, too, for the original story "The Moon Pool", by A. Merritt, and rightly so, I think. (I agree that the continuation of the tale was largely a mistake, despite some quite powerful moments here and there.)

Loved the film...

Hmmm... this is another which took a bit to grow on me. I saw it when it was first released, and didn't care for it much; but have since come to have a much higher opinion of it. This has happened with most of Gordon's/Paoli's adaptations of HPL. As I reconsider them, I come to respect both the films and their makers a good deal more.....

 

[Extollager]

Ummm... Francis Stevens, a.k.a. Gertrude Bennett, author of Citadel of Fear, etc.? Well.... actually, HPL didn't say a darned thing about her, though it was long thought that a comment made in the Argosy for November 15, 1919, was by him. This was on Citadel of Fear, praising the story highly, and the letter was signed "Augustus T. Swift", leading several later writers to assume this was HPL with one of his coined pseudonyms (as de Camp, if memory serves, expressed it, referring to the Augustan age and "one of its luminaries", Jonathan Swift). However, there really was an Augustus T. Swift living in Providence at the time the letter (actually, two letters, as another was published in the issue for May 22, 1920) was written.

How interesting! I have a paperback edition of Citadel with the "Lovecraft" endorsement on the back:

 

[j d worthington]

I take it back... I no longer have that copy of Citadel of Fear; need to pick up a new one (not at all difficult or expensive, as I see it around a fair amount). What I still have, however, is a collection of Bennett's storiesm, The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy and, while it does not give that quotation, it still has the following as part of the description on the back:

The stories in this collection have played an integral role in the development of modern dark fantasy, greatly influencing such writers as H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt.

Now, I know nothing, really, of Merritt's influences, so this may be the case with him; but there is no evidence Lovecraft ever read any of Bennett's work prior to the one story included here from Weird Tales (from the July/August-September/October 1923 issues), and even with this it is inference, given that HPL apparently, from his statements in a letter to Baird, was reading the entire contents of the early issues of the magazine... just as he read the entire contents of all the Munsey and similar magazines he picked up when younger, whether those stories were fantasy, horror, mystery, weesterns, historicals, humor (including college humor), romance, what have you. If he was still doing so at this point, then he would have read "Sunfire", though so far as I know, he makes no comments on it.

The earliest of Stevens' works included here is the title story, from the April 14, 1917 issue of the Argosy... which was after the point HPL claims he stopped reading the magazine and its companion, The All-Story. (Whether he actually did stop entirely has been questioned; HPL did sometimes -- though very rarely -- alter facts in his letters when the truth would have undermined his position or would have made him feel quite embarrassed; he did this, for instance, when it came to his lack of graduation from high school.) At any rate, we know that he at least read certain stories which had been included in later issues, though his attention may have been drawn to these individual stories by others, rather than his own perusal of the magazines.

At any rate, though the quote may or may not still be included in more recent editions of Bennett's writings, it is still being claimed that she was either a favorite of or an influence on HPL... and, as I say, there is really no evidence to back such a claim. "Might have been" would be permissible, but claiming that she was is flat out wrong.

 

[Extollager]

At any rate, though the quote may or may not still be included in more recent editions of Bennett's writings, it is still being claimed that she was either a favorite of or an influence on HPL... and, as I say, there is really no evidence to back such a claim. "Might have been" would be permissible, but claiming that she was is flat out wrong.

Apocryphal or even spurious quotations and dubious anecdotes about authors we like are interesting. The one I think of first is Lin Carter's remark about Tolkien having read Howard's Conan stories and liked them. I think the current Tolkien-related ones tend to deal with locales supposed to have affected his imagination in some way or other, e.g. "two towers" in Birmingham or its suburbs. With HPL, the most famous bit of fakelore must have been that "black magic" one -- I'm not sure what its origin is held to be now.

May I say that personal experience has taught me that inadvertently foisting this sort of thing on others may be easier than one might suppose? Years ago I wrote a paper on C. S. Lewis's interest in weird fiction in which I confidently asserted that Lewis had appreciated Walter de la Mare's Memoirs of a Midget. The paper was published. The time came when I realized I had no idea where I'd got that idea; I searched and searched, couldn't find one mention of the book in Lewis's letters or elsewhere, though certainly he was on record in various places as enjoying poems and stories by de la Mare. Yes, I sent in a correction to the editor, but I suppose some unsuspecting reader will come across the original article someday and figure the statement is correct. ....Of course, maybe someday I will find some source for the Memoirs and Lewis after all! ...One really does need to be careful.

It must be relatively easy to make mistakes like this about Lovecraft and Lewis, given that there is no question about their being very well read in the fantastic genre.

 

[j d worthington]

Apocryphal or even spurious quotations and dubious anecdotes about authors we like are interesting. The one I think of first is Lin Carter's remark about Tolkien having read Howard's Conan stories and liked them. I think the current Tolkien-related ones tend to deal with locales supposed to have affected his imagination in some way or other, e.g. "two towers" in Birmingham or its suburbs. With HPL, the most famous bit of fakelore must have been that "black magic" one -- I'm not sure what its origin is held to be now.

It is pretty solidly established that this was a misremembrance on the part of Derleth of something from correspondence to HPL from Harold S. Farnese -- the same Harold S. Farnese who attempted to talk HPL into writing a libretto for an opera centering around his myth cycle..... Farnese's part was a question to HPL; one which showed he seriously misunderstood the entire thrust of Lovecraft's work; and, unfortunately, Farnese's vision was much closer to Derleth's own orientation as a Catholic. Hence, we ended up with the "good-vs.-evil", "Elder Gods vs. Great Old Ones" (though in Derleth's early pastiches, he used these terms with a remarkable degree of interchangeability). At any rate, while it was probably perfectly innocent to begin with, Derleth's becoming hostile and defensive when asked about the source certainly left a very poor impression of his honesty before he was done.

 

[Ningauble]

The one I think of first is Lin Carter's remark about Tolkien having read Howard's Conan stories and liked them.

Well, we know for a fact that Tolkien read at least one Conan story, in one of L. Sprague de Camp's anthologies which de Camp gave to him. When de Camp visited him, Tolkien is supposed to have said that he "rather liked" the Conan story in question. But that, of course, does not mean that he read all of the Conan stories.

Heh... that, by the way, reminds me of the rather laughable claim someone made over at the Conan forum that The Lord of the Rings is a rip-off of The Hour of the Dragon.

 

[Extollager]

Ningauble, I contributed this to J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. by Michael Drout:

......In Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings (1969), Lin Carter stated that Prof. Tolkien "rather enjoys" the Conan stories (footnote, p. 32). Carter apparently based his claim on information communicated to him by his colleague L. Sprague de Camp, who visited Tolkien once, in February 1967. De Camp recalled their conversation at Tolkien's residence, in Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976). De Camp had already sent Tolkien a copy of his 1963 anthology Swords and Sorcery, which contains Howard's "Shadows in the Moonlight"...... "[Tolkien] said he found [the anthology] interesting but did not much like the stories in it," de Camp said (243). However, de Camp added, "[Tolkien] indicated that he 'rather liked' Howard's Conan stories" (244). Since de Camp offers no indication of where Tolkien might have read any Conan stories other than the one included in the 1963 anthology, it appears possible that Tolkien actually read only "Shadows in the Moonlight....... A 1983 letter from de Camp to John Rateliff implies that de Camp would not have been prepared to stand by his earlier suggestion of Tolkien having read multiple Conan stories. Rateliff quotes de Camp: "During our conversation, I said something casual to Tolkien about my involvement with Howard's Conan stories, and he said he 'rather liked them.' That was all; we went on to other subjects. I know he had read Swords and Sorcery because I had sent him a copy. I don't know if he had read any other Conan besides ‘Shadows in the Moonlight,’ but I rather doubt it."

Carter, Lin. Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings. New York: Ballantine, 1969.

De Camp, L. Sprague. Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham, 1976.

Rateliff, John. Letter. Beyond Bree March 2005: 4.


Incidentally, Ningauble, the other stories in the de Camp anthology that Tolkien presumably read were "The Valor of Cappen Varra" (Poul Anderson); "Shadows in the Moonlight" (Howard); "The Citadel of Darkness" (Henry Kuttner); "When the Sea-King's Away" (Fritz Leiber); "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" (H. P. Lovecraft); "Hellsgarde" C. L. Moore); and "The Testament of Athammaus" (Clark Ashton Smith). So it appears likely that the Professor had read Lovecraft at least once.

 

[Extollager]

It is pretty solidly established that this was a misremembrance on the part of Derleth of something from correspondence to HPL from Harold S. Farnese -- the same Harold S. Farnese who attempted to talk HPL into writing a libretto for an opera centering around his myth cycle..... Farnese's part was a question to HPL; one which showed he seriously misunderstood the entire thrust of Lovecraft's work; and, unfortunately, Farnese's vision was much closer to Derleth's own orientation as a Catholic. Hence, we ended up with the "good-vs.-evil", "Elder Gods vs. Great Old Ones" (though in Derleth's early pastiches, he used these terms with a remarkable degree of interchangeability). At any rate, while it was probably perfectly innocent to begin with, Derleth's becoming hostile and defensive when asked about the source certainly left a very poor impression of his honesty before he was done.

Lovecraft urged to be a librettist! That's a new one on me. Who would have written the music? I take it the Lovecraftian theme would have been Cthulhuvian rather than Dunsanian.

 

[Ningauble]

Ningauble, I contributed this to J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. by Michael Drout:

......In Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings (1969), Lin Carter stated that Prof. Tolkien "rather enjoys" the Conan stories (footnote, p. 32). Carter apparently based his claim on information communicated to him by his colleague L. Sprague de Camp, who visited Tolkien once, in February 1967. De Camp recalled their conversation at Tolkien's residence, in Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976). De Camp had already sent Tolkien a copy of his 1963 anthology Swords and Sorcery, which contains Howard's "Shadows in the Moonlight"...... "[Tolkien] said he found [the anthology] interesting but did not much like the stories in it," de Camp said (243). However, de Camp added, "[Tolkien] indicated that he 'rather liked' Howard's Conan stories" (244). Since de Camp offers no indication of where Tolkien might have read any Conan stories other than the one included in the 1963 anthology, it appears possible that Tolkien actually read only "Shadows in the Moonlight....... A 1983 letter from de Camp to John Rateliff implies that de Camp would not have been prepared to stand by his earlier suggestion of Tolkien having read multiple Conan stories. Rateliff quotes de Camp: "During our conversation, I said something casual to Tolkien about my involvement with Howard's Conan stories, and he said he 'rather liked them.' That was all; we went on to other subjects. I know he had read Swords and Sorcery because I had sent him a copy. I don't know if he had read any other Conan besides ‘Shadows in the Moonlight,’ but I rather doubt it."

Carter, Lin. Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings. New York: Ballantine, 1969.

De Camp, L. Sprague. Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham, 1976.

Rateliff, John. Letter. Beyond Bree March 2005: 4.

Thanks for this wealth of information! In other words, it was typical decampifying.

Incidentally, Ningauble, the other stories in the de Camp anthology that Tolkien presumably read were "The Valor of Cappen Varra" (Poul Anderson); "Shadows in the Moonlight" (Howard); "The Citadel of Darkness" (Henry Kuttner); "When the Sea-King's Away" (Fritz Leiber); "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" (H. P. Lovecraft); "Hellsgarde" C. L. Moore); and "The Testament of Athammaus" (Clark Ashton Smith). So it appears likely that the Professor had read Lovecraft at least once.

how cool! Too bad it's not one of the better stories.

 

[Ningauble]

Lovecraft urged to be a librettist! That's a new one on me. Who would have written the music? I take it the Lovecraftian theme would have been Cthulhuvian rather than Dunsanian.

Farnese himself would have written the music. I think I have seen a page of the score reproduced somewhere.

 

[Extollager]

Ningauble, here is a write-up of the offering for sale of Tolkien's copy of the de Camp anthology.

http://www.tolkienbookshelf.com/pag...r-tolkien-and-a-separate-handwritten-critique

I'd forgotten to mention the Dunsany story ("Thangobrind") in the collection.

 

[Ningauble]

Ningauble, here is a write-up of the offering for sale of Tolkien's copy of the de Camp anthology.

http://www.tolkienbookshelf.com/pag...r-tolkien-and-a-separate-handwritten-critique

I'd forgotten to mention the Dunsany story ("Thangobrind") in the collection.

Thanks! I think I saw this posted in the Conan forum a few years ago.

 

[Extollager]

Ningauble, I contributed this to J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. by Michael Drout:

......In Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings (1969), Lin Carter stated that Prof. Tolkien "rather enjoys" the Conan stories (footnote, p. 32). Carter apparently based his claim on information communicated to him by his colleague L. Sprague de Camp, who visited Tolkien once, in February 1967. De Camp recalled their conversation at Tolkien's residence, in Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976). De Camp had already sent Tolkien a copy of his 1963 anthology Swords and Sorcery, which contains Howard's "Shadows in the Moonlight"...... "[Tolkien] said he found [the anthology] interesting but did not much like the stories in it," de Camp said (243). However, de Camp added, "[Tolkien] indicated that he 'rather liked' Howard's Conan stories" (244). Since de Camp offers no indication of where Tolkien might have read any Conan stories other than the one included in the 1963 anthology, it appears possible that Tolkien actually read only "Shadows in the Moonlight....... A 1983 letter from de Camp to John Rateliff implies that de Camp would not have been prepared to stand by his earlier suggestion of Tolkien having read multiple Conan stories. Rateliff quotes de Camp: "During our conversation, I said something casual to Tolkien about my involvement with Howard's Conan stories, and he said he 'rather liked them.' That was all; we went on to other subjects. I know he had read Swords and Sorcery because I had sent him a copy. I don't know if he had read any other Conan besides ‘Shadows in the Moonlight,’ but I rather doubt it."

Carter, Lin. Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings. New York: Ballantine, 1969.

De Camp, L. Sprague. Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham, 1976.

Rateliff, John. Letter. Beyond Bree March 2005: 4.


Incidentally, Ningauble, the other stories in the de Camp anthology that Tolkien presumably read were "The Valor of Cappen Varra" (Poul Anderson); "Shadows in the Moonlight" (Howard); "The Citadel of Darkness" (Henry Kuttner); "When the Sea-King's Away" (Fritz Leiber); "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" (H. P. Lovecraft); "Hellsgarde" C. L. Moore); and "The Testament of Athammaus" (Clark Ashton Smith). So it appears likely that the Professor had read Lovecraft at least once.

If Tolkien didn't read "Hellsgarde" in this book, maybe he could have read it in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. magazine, and no I'm not serious about Tolkien reading the UNCLE mag.

 

[BAYLOR]

If Tolkien didn't read "Hellsgarde" in this book, maybe he could have read it in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. magazine, and no I'm not serious about Tolkien reading the UNCLE mag.

View attachment 93723

I wonder if Tolkien would have liked Robert E Howard's novel Conan the Hour of the Dragon ?

 

[Extollager]

No way of saying for sure!

 

[BAYLOR]

No way of saying for sure!

Sorry, I was just thinking out loud

It's very obvious not like any thing Tolkien ever wrote and in literary terms it not in same class of The Hobbit or LOTR . But in it own right , It's terrific Heroic fantasy action novel and, one the best ever written of that particular branch of fantasy . Howard didn't do complex themes or world building like Tolkien , he was not really capable of any of that that. His stories were primary for entertainment and escapism .

I think Howard would have marveled at and would have probably enjoyed at The Hobbit and LOTR . But , I seriously doubt Howard and Tolkien would have gotten along.