Series Overview

August Derleth (1909-1971)

This is a special weekly series in which I look at the ‘Lovecraft Country’ works of August Derleth (most of which Derleth inaccurately described – and published claiming them – as collaborations with H.P. Lovecraft himself), focusing on what we might learn of Lovecraft Country from these stories and what, if any, impact these works had to the Lovecraft Country setting.

Each entry covers the publication history of the story, gives a summary of the story, offers my reaction to the story, summarizes the Lovecraft County elements of the story, and notes the passage I found most absurd or amusing.  In the case of the “collaborations” I also discuss what, if any, portion of the story actually originated from Lovecraft.  The first entry (#1 – Wenworth’s Day) also included a little discussion of August Derleth himself and went into a bit more detail about these so-called “posthumous Lovecraft collaborations”.

(A break-down of the references included in each of Derleth’s stories, see the Cthulhu Mythos Annotated Bibliography entry for August Derleth.)

Entries:

1. Wentworth’s Day
2. The Gable Window
3. The Shadow Out of Space
4. The Shuttered Room
5. The Fisherman of Falcon Point
6. Witches’ Hollow
7. The Shadow in the Attic
8. The Horror from the Middle Span
9. Innsmouth Clay
10. The Watchers Out of Time
11. The Whippoorwills in the Hills
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