The nonextant works

[pablo]

Does anyone know anything about the lost stories, namely: The Noble Eavesdropper, The Haunted House, The Secret of the Grave, John the Detective, The Picture, The Mystery of Murdon Grange, and Life and Death. I haven't read extensively any biographical works about HPL, so I suppose this information would be covered, but I'm wondering if someone could provide any known information about those texts. Is anything known about then, other than the titles? How do we know about them if they don't exists, from the letters? Thanks for any light on this.

 

[j d worthington]

Mostly from the letters, yes, though "The Mystery of Murdon Grange" (a round-robin story, actually, not solely by HPL) is discussed slightly in some of his Department of Public Criticism essays for the United Amateur. From his letter to Rheinhart Kleiner mentioning it, it would seem this was done very much in the fashion of an old dime novel: episodic, full of verve and improbable circumstance, strained coincidence, a dash of weird atmosphere (most likely reduced to a "realistic" explanation by the end, in the manner of the Gothics and many mystery novels), and with a healthy(?) dose of "catchpenny romance"... at least, that's the impression I gather from his few mentions of it.

"The Noble Eavesdropper" and "The Picture" he describes to J. Vernon Shea (iirc), as well as one or two other correspondents. "The Secret of the Grave" may or may not be a slip of the pen for "The Mystery of the Grave-Yard" or, possibly, "The Secret Cave", as I recall. "John the Detective" is mentioned in the list of "Fiction by H. Lovecraft" at the end of Poemata Minora, Vol. II. "Life and Death" is described in his Commonplace Book, as well as mentioned in correspondence, I believe.

The complete list of pieces at the end of Poemata Minora, by the way, includes:

(under "works for children"):
Iliad
Odyssey
Aeneid

("other verses"):
The Hermit
The Argonauts
Minor Verse (vols. I & II)

("works of H. Lovecraft in prose"):
Mythology for the Young
Egyptian Myths
Ovids Metamorphoses (note the lack of an apostrophe)

the Scientific Gazette

(under "chemical works"):
Chemistry (6 vols.)
A Good Anaesthetic
Iron Working
Acids
Explosives
Static Electricity

(fiction):
The Mysterious Ship
The Noble Eavesdropper
The Haunted House
The Secret of the Grave
John, the Detective

("historical works"):
Early Rhode Island
An Historical Account of Last Year's War with SPAIN

You'll note the lack of "The Secret Cave" in the list of fiction, tending to support the idea that "The Secret of the Grave" is a lapsus calami conflation of that and the following story, "The Mystery of the Grave-Yard".

I'll see if I can't look up the various references before I go back for my second shift at work; if not, I'll put them in this evening (unless one of my fellow Lovecraft-buffs beats me to it....)

 

[pablo]

That's great, jdw, thank you. I don't suppose the plots of any of these is known? I also read somewhere that HPL had destroyed a healthy amount of his early fiction, is this true?

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, he did; very few were saved from his "literary housecleaning" at about age 18, and those were mostly saved by the intervention of his mother. Most of the things he kept himself were his scientific writings rather than his fiction, or in a few cases some of his verse.

Yes, the plots of some of these are known, and I'm working on putting together something quoting the passages mentioned above; that should give you a bit more to go on....

 

[Ningauble]

There was also a story called "Gone--But Whither?" HPL, upon finding the title among his papers, wryly commented something like "The title says everything there is to know about the fate of this story..."

IIRC, HPL mentions here and there (I'm sure j. d. can find the relevant quotes) that he wrote many detective stories and imitations of Jules Verne in his youth.

Interestingly enough, "Life and Death" may have been written and published in some amateur journal. So far, it hasn't been located, but you never know...

 

[j d worthington]

Okay... taking things in order:

"The Noble Eavesdropper":

from his letter to F. Lee Baldwin of 13 Feb., 1934: "I first tried writing at 6, & the earliest story I can remember was written at 7 -- something about a cave of robbers called The Noble Eavesdropper" (SLIV.380). (He goes on next to say "At 8 I wrote many crude tales (frightfully crude!), two of which -- The Mysterious Ship & The Secret of the Grave I still have." As "The Secret of the Grave is non-extant and both "The Secret Cave" and "The Mystery of the Grave-Yard" are extant, again, this tends to support the idea that the title above is a mistake for one or both of the others.)

And from his letter to J. Vernon Shea of 19-31 July 1931 (cited in S. T. Joshi's H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, p. 31): it dealt with "a boy who overheard some horrible conclave of subterranean beings in a cave". There is also this, from his "Some Notes on a Nonentity" (1933):

About this period the weird illustrations of Gustave Doré -- met in editions of Dante, Milton, and the Ancient Mariner -- affected me powerfully.. For the first time I began to attempt writing -- the earliest piece I can recall being a tale of a hideous cave perpetrated at the age of seven and entitled "The Noble Eavesdropper".

-- CE5.208​

"The Haunted House":

for the only information we have on that one (at least, that I'm aware of), see my post above.

"The Secret of the Grave":

Ditto, plus the quote given earlier in this post.

"John the Detective":

Ditto, though Joshi speculates that this probably is another of Lovecraft's juvenile "dime-novel" tales featuring King John (for which, see "The Mystery of the Grave-Yard").

"The Picture":

His commonplace book has the following entry: "Revise 1907 tale -- painting of ultimate horror" (CE5.220). The tale referred to is described in his letter to Robert Bloch of 1 June 1933:

It ["Lucian Grey", an early tale by Bloch] reminds me amazingly of one of the juvenile tales I destroyed -- "The Picture", written in 1907. That is, the theme reminds me. The tale itself is much better than mine. I had a man in a Paris garret paint a mysterious canvas embodying the quintessential essence of all horror. He is found clawed & mangled one morning before his easel. The picture is destroyed, as in a titanic struggle -- but in one corner of the frame a bit of canvas remains.... & on it the coroner finds to his horror the painted counterpart of the sort of claw which evidently killed the artist. The idea was good, but the style was so poor that I don't regret having destroyed it a year after its composition.

-- from Letters to Robert Bloch, p. 15​

"The Mystery of Murdon Grange":

from his letter to Rheinhart Kleiner of 27 June, 1918:

My Hesperia will be critical & educational in object, though I am "sugar-coating" the first number by "printing" a conclusion of the serial "The Mystery of Murdon Grange." I will shew it to you when you call. It is outwardly done on the patchwork plan as before -- each chapter bears one of my different aliases -- Ward Phillips -- Ames Dorrance rowley -- L. Theobald, &c. It was a rather good diversion to write it. Really, I think I could have been a passable dime novelist if I had been trained in that noble calling!

-- LRK, p. 145​

You will laugh when you see my fictional attempt -- the conclusion of "Murdon Grange". It is a typical dime novel -- with all the time-worn appurtenances of its type!

-- LRK, p. 149​

It was that mention of his "aliases", apparently, which long fostered the idea that he had written the whole of the thing; instead, it would seem that the conclusion to the tale was several chapters long, and he used his various pseudonyms for those. Others had a hand in the tale, too, as can be seen from the following:

from his comments (Jan. 1918 DPC) on the amateur journal Spendrift, for Dec. 1917:

"The Mystery of Murdon Grange" receives its second installment from the not unpracticed hand of Miss Beryl Mappin, and continues in the pleasantly conventional channel mapped out by Mr. Parks in the preceding chapter. The plot thickens!

-- CE1.180​

from his comments (March 1918) on Spendrift for Christmas 1917:

Mr. Benjamin Winskill continues "The Mystery of Murdon Grange" with much cleverness, carrying us back into the past for the source of a strange curse.

-- CE1.188​

from his comments (May 1918) on the Jan. 1918 Spendrift:

"The Mystery of Murdon Grange" this month falls into the hands of Editor [Ernest Lionel] McKeag, who furnishes one of the best chapters we have so far perused; possibly the very best. It is exasperating to be cut off abruptly in the midst of the exciting narrative, with the admonition to wait for page 47!

-- CE1.195​

"Life and Death":

from an entry dated 1919 in his Commonplace Book:

Death -- its desolation and horror -- bleak spaces -- sea-bottom -- dead cities. But Life -- the greater horror! Vast unheard-of reptiles and leviathans -- hideous beasts of prehistoric jungle -- rank slimy vegetation -- evil instincts of primal man -- Life is more horrible than death.

-- CE5.221​

Though George Wetzel claimed to have seen a published version of this story when compiling material on HPL's amateur pubilcations, and to have subsequently lost it, as Joshi notes in Collected Essays 5, there is some doubt as to whether it was ever actually written, as the entry is not crossed out nor is any other indication made of it having been used. This isn't to disparage Wetzel, but may simply be a case of faulty memory on his part.

There is also one you haven't mentioned: "Gone -- But Whither?" From his letter to Maurice Winter Moe of 6 Apr., 1935:

Whilst rearranging files, I tapp'd a box containing stuff undisturb'd since the Middle 598 [Angell St.] Period -- and found therein the most astonishing array of tail ends of writing materials -- composition books with a few blank pages, incomplete pads, and the like. One composition book of 1905 bears the title of a story about which I had completely forgotten -- Gone -- But Whither? I'll bet it was a hell-raiser! The title expresses the fate of the tale itself.

-- SLV.140​

Hope this helps in your quest. Incidentally, if you haven't read Joshi's biography, I highly recommend it. It's one of the most comprehensive pieces on any writer I've seen in quite some time, and supplies an incredible wealth of information on HPL and his work (and world).​

 

[pablo]

jdw, thank you so much for such an exhaustive reply. I am very much interested in Joshi's biography, but sadly the hardcover is long out of print and asking price is titanic. And I have a thing about not buying paperbacks... I am, however, collecting the Collected Essays volumes, which are incredible.

 

[Ningauble]

jdw, thank you so much for such an exhaustive reply. I am very much interested in Joshi's biography, but sadly the hardcover is long out of print and asking price is titanic.

Don't be too hard on yourself over it. Only 250 copies were printed and they were sold out even before printing and binding was done. So it has never really been available.
Besides, the latest printing (2004) of it has 6 extra pages as a kind of updated afterword.
I'd suggest not waiting for the complete edition (yes, the book as published is abridged, believe it or not).

 

[j d worthington]

You're most welcome. When it comes to HPL, I'm afraid that, when I get started, it darned near takes a bullet to get me to shut up....

On Joshi's book: in this case, I would recommend going ahead and getting the paperback (which is, incidentally, the edition I have). It's fairly durable, and a fine bargain at the price... and one heck of a lot of material you'll not find elsewhere; it's also likely to be the best book on Lovecraft for many, many years to come....

 

[Lobolover]

So,does any one of those stil exist ?

 

[j d worthington]

So,does any one of those stil exist ?

The only one that may would be "The Mystery of Murdon Grange", if all the parts of this could be found. I'm not sure any of it is still about; but one of his poems long thought lost because no copies of the amateur journal were known to have survived, surfaced fairly recently when at least one copy of the journal showed up. So we can hope that this might also happen with this particular tale. The others were either destroyed by HPL, never finished (some not ever begun), or lost in some other fashion....