New on Librivox, a free reading of “The Face in the Abyss” by Abraham Merritt.

The work was listed as in Lovecraft’s library. An article in the first issue of the Lovecraft Annual made a comparison with Lovecraft’s “The Mound”. This was “They Have Conquered Dream”: A. Merritt’s “The Face in the Abyss” and H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Mound”.

A 1934 reader’s letter explains some of the story’s convoluted history…

Project Gutenberg also has… “First published in Argosy All-Story Magazine, September 8, 1923. A sequel (“The Snake Mother”) was serialized in Argosy, October 25 ff, 1930. Science-fiction, the Early Years remarks “considerably abridged and rewritten for the book version”, before summarising from the magazine version. Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction adds that the magazine version was itself “based on earlier, shorter pieces”. So obviously it has a very complex textual and publication history. Which makes it unfortunate that Librivox doesn’t list at least the date of the source-text being used for its audio readings.