ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
EDITED BY S. T. JOSHI
Black Wings of Cthulhu
Black Wings of Cthulhu 2
The Madness of Cthulhu (October 2014)
EDITED BY STEPHEN JONES
Shadows Over Innsmouth
Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth
Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth (January 2015)
Acolytes of Cthulhu
Print edition ISBN: 9781781165263
E-book edition ISBN: 9781781165270
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First Titan Books edition: June 2014
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved by the authors. The rights of each contributor to be identified as Author of their Work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Introduction Copyright © 2014 by Robert M. Price
Cover Art Copyright © 2014 by Bob Eggleton. All rights reserved
Earl Peirce, Jr. “Doom of the House of Duryea” © 1936 Popular Fiction Publishing Company for Weird Tales
Joseph Payne Brennan, “The Seventh Incantation” © 1963 by Joseph Payne Brennan for Scream at Midnight
Hugh B. Cave and Robert M. Price, “From the Pits of Elder Blasphemy” © 2014 by The Estate of Hugh B. Cave
Duane Rimel, “The Jewels of Charlotte” © 1935 by Duane Rimel for Unusual Stories
Manly Wade Wellman, “The Letters of Cold Fire” © 1944 by Popular Fiction Company for Weird Tales
Henry Hasse, “Horror at Vecra” © 1943, appears here by permission of Forrest J. Ackerman
Charles R. Tanner, “Out of the Jar” © 1940 by Albing Publications for Stirring Science Stories
Edmond Hamilton, “The Earth Brain” © 1932 by Popular Fiction Company for Weird Tales
James Causey, “Legacy in Crystal” © 1943 by Popular Fiction Publishing Company for Weird Tales
C. Hall Thompson, “The Will of Claude Ashur” © Popular Fiction Publishing Company for Weird Tales
David H. Keller, “The Final War” first appeared from Perri Press in 1949
Arthur Pendragon, “The Dunstable Horror” © 1964 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company for Fantastic Stories of the Imagination
Arthur Pendragon, “The Crib of Hell” © 1965 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company for Fantastic Stories of the Imagination
Steffan B. Aletti, “The Last Work of Pietro de Opono” © 1969 by Health Knowledge, Inc. for Magazine of Horror
Steffan B. Aletti, “The Eye of Horus” © 1968 by Health Knowledge, Inc., for Magazine of Horror
Steffan B. Aletti, “The Cellar Room” © 1969 by Health Knowledge, Inc. for Weird Terror Tales
John S. Glasby, “Mythos” as by Max Chartair, © John Spencer & Co. for Supernatural Stories
Jorge Luis Borges, “There Are More Things” © 1975 by The Atlantic Monthly for The Atlantic Monthly
Randall Garrett, “The Horror Out of Time” © 1978 by Mercury Press, Inc. for Fantasy & Science Fiction
S.T. Joshi, “The Recurring Doom” © 1980 first appeared in Kenneth Neilly, ed., Lovecraftian Ramblings XV
Dirk W. Mosig, “Necrotic Knowledge” © 1976 first appeared in Mosig, ed., The Necrotic Scroll
Donald R. Burleson, “Night Bus” © 1985 by Yith Press for Eldritch Tales
Peter H. Cannon, “The Pewter Ring” © 1989 by Cryptic Publications for Tales of Lovecraftian Horror
David Kaufman, “John Lehman Alone” © 1987 for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
Gustav Meyrink, “The Purple Death” translated by Kathleen Houlihan and Robert M. Price © 1997 by Robert M. Price
Richard F. Searight and Franklyn Searight, “Mists of Death” © 1999 for the present collection.
Neil Gaiman, “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” © 1998 by Neil Caiman. First published in The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Dedicated to Duane Rimel, Great Old One and Arch-Acolyte of Cthulhu
Contents
Cover
Also by S. T. Joshi and Stephen Jones
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction by Robert M. Price
Doom of The House of Duryea by Earl Peirce, Jr.
The Seventh Incantation by Joseph Payne Brennan
From the Pits of Elder Blasphemy by Hugh B. Cave and Robert M. Price
The Jewels of Charlotte by Duane Rimel
The Letters of Cold Fire by Manly Wade Wellmann
Horror At Vecra by Henry Hasse
Out of The Jar by Charles R. Tanner
The Earth-Brain by Edmond Hamilton
Through the Alien Angle by Elwin G. Powers
Legacy in Crystal by James Causey
The Will of Claude Ashur by C. Hall Thompson
The Final War by David H. Keller, M.D.
The Dunstable Horror by Arthur Pendragon
The Crib of Hell by Arthur Pendragon
The Last Work of Pietro De Opono by Steffan B. Aletti
The Eye of Horus by Steffan B. Aletti
The Cellar Room by Steffan B. Aletti
Mythos by John Glasby
There Are More Things by Jorge Luis Borges
The Horror Out of Time by Randall Garrett
The Recurring Doom by S. T. Joshi
Necrotic Knowledge by Dirk W. Mosig
Night Bus by Donald R. Burleson
The Pewter Ring by Peter Cannon
John Lehmann Alone by David Kaufman
The Purple Death by Gustav Meyrink
Mists of Death by Richard F. Searight and Franklyn Searight
Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar by Neil Gaiman
About the Editor
Also Available from Titan Books
INTRODUCTION
Lovecraft, since his death in 1937, has rapidly been becoming a cult. He already had his circle of disciples who collaborated with him and imitated him.
Edmund Wilson, “Tales of the Marvellous and the Ridiculous”
November 24, 1945
THE BIG CLUE IS THAT H. P. LOVE CRAFT USED TO SIGN HIMSELF sometimes as “Grandpa Cthulhu” or simply as “Cthulhu.” Thus the acolytes of Cthulhu are the acolytes of Lovecraft himself. The Cthulhu cult is the literary cult of Lovecraft. In this fact I believe we have a large part of the explanation for the power with which Lovecraft’s writings grasp many of his readers and captures their imaginations, never to let go. All fiction, as Michael Riffaterre notes (Fictional Truth) gains depth and resonance, manages in short to “ring true” to its readers only insofar as the author has built in the sounding board of a subtext, some apparently prior reality against which story images and developments will seem to ring solid. A fiction built on sand will sound tinny, hollow, when tapped by the reader. A classic example might be the Old Testament proof texts adduced by the Gospel of Matthew in order to demonstrate that various events in the life of Jesus fulfilled prophecy. The supposed events require some sort of a credibility boost, since they depict a man being conceived by the divine spirit in a virgin’s womb, miraculously healing the sick, etc., not exactly items that easily pass the test of most readers’ criteria of plausibility. But once Matthew narrates them, then provides an apparently matching proof text from ancient scripture, you think the miracles may be true after all. They all of a sudden appear to match ancient prophecy. They appear to be the other shoe falling, matching the one that Isaiah or Jeremiah or Zechariah let drop hundreds of years before.