“The Shadow Over Innsmouth”

“The Shadow Over Innsmouth” was published in book form in 1936, the year before Lovecraft’s death. Woodcut illustrations were included. I’m pretty sure that it’s the only book Lovecraft published in his lifetime. It was from a small Pennsylvania house called Visionary Publishing.

Only a few hundred copies were printed, and given Lovecraft’s fanatical cult following, most of the surviving ones are sure to be jealously hoarded by fans and sold only at top dollar.

Last night I remembered the existence of this book, and was delighted to find a half-dozen or so exemplars listed in the holdings of Brown’s John Hay Library. (John Hay is not Brown’s main library, but their rare books and special collections outfit. It’s the same place I looked at the facsimile story manuscripts earlier.)

There are only four woodcuts, and they’re a bit disappointing- sort of amateur expressionism with a faint touch of cubism. They also don’t even get all the details right– the wharfside conversation with Zadok Allen, which actually took place in very late afternoon, is depicted as occurring under a full moon, and Zadok doesn’t look anywhere near 96 years old in the illustration.

There was also a serious binding mistake, at least in the copy I read, which put one page completely out of place (though correctly numbered) in highly confusing fashion.

Still, I wonder if the mere existence of that book gave Lovecraft some sort of secret hope for his future reputation. We read fairly regularly of his certainty that his works would be utterly forgotten (which will happen to everyone eventually, but not necessarily too quickly). As shaky as the production on the book was, it must have been heartwarming for Lovecraft finally to see some of his work in book form.

I sat there reread the whole story in its published 1936 form (it was written in 1931), just to see what it felt like.

My primary reaction was that, even in this mildly shoddy format, Lovecraft is so obviously good even on the sheer stylistic level that I remain a bit surprised that a critic as sharp as Wilson belittled him so badly. Then again, Wilson did have the weak spot of not always being able to appreciate basically non-naturalistic fiction. He also thought Chandler and Hammett were junk, which they definitely are not.

Wilson would be appalled now to rise from the dead and see the Library of America, for whose creation he lobbied so vigorously, peppered with a number of the pulp figures he despised. I can’t imagine that Wilson would have cared much for Dick or Vonnnegut either, for that matter.

But I still like Wilson.