Basil Davenport

Extollager

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There doesn't seem to be much available online about this reviewer and anthologist (1905-1966). Yet he was of considerable importance to our fields.
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I wish there was a good article about him in, say, a back issue of The American Scholar, or that some topnotch fanzine had interviewed him. Materials are there in his papers at Yale, which are available to scholars.

His anthology Tales to Be Told in the Dark seems to have been an important one in my early reading life (around age 14). I say "seems" because it's so long ago. There it was that I probably read my first Arthur Machen stories (the ones in the book are "The Black Seal" and "The White People"). Machen remains a favorite author for me. The book also includes Lafcadio Hearn's "Mujina," which I think got rather under my skin. Also, in his Famous Monster Tales is "The Outsider," which probably was the first of Lovecraft's horror stories that I read. I read a lot of HPL in my teens. The Conan Doyle story, "The Horror of the Heights," may have creeped me out more.

Davenport should have been an interesting man to have a conversation with. And his book of Great Escapes might be worth getting hold of...

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