Via the Studi Lovecraftiani guys in Italy, snagged on Facebook. Pictures of a Lovecraft-revised and commented typescript of “The Summons” by Barlow…
“The Summons” ms.
02 Friday Jan 2015
Posted in Historical context, Odd scratchings
02 Friday Jan 2015
Posted in Historical context, Odd scratchings
Via the Studi Lovecraftiani guys in Italy, snagged on Facebook. Pictures of a Lovecraft-revised and commented typescript of “The Summons” by Barlow…
Extremely interesting!
I should add that this was up for sale in… 2008, was it? and Chris Perridas had two photos of the Ms. on his blog. I wonder whether this story would qualify as a full revision by Lovecraft?
And I sure hope it will be published (the story is available in EYES OF THE GOD, of course, but it would be nice to have an edition describing HPL’s contribution to it).
I believe I spotted it in Italian translation in the new Antares: http://tentaclii.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/antares-no-8/ Yes, the story is in English in ‘Eyes of the God’, the Barlow anthology from a few years ago.
Martin is correct about the sale, as parts of what is evidently the same ms. of “The Summons” were offered for sale by L. W. Currey c. June 2008 with this description:
(Lovecraft, Howard Phillips) Barlow, Robert H[ayward]. “SUMMONS, THE” [short story]. TYPED MANUSCRIPT with extensive autograph corrections by both Barlow and Lovecraft, on seven leaves, three of which are holograph. Incomplete text comprising folios 7-8, 11-15. “The Summons,” written circa 1934, was published in THE CALIFORNIAN (Fall 1935, volume 3, number 2) and reprinted in EYES OF THE GOD: THE WEIRD FICTION AND POETRY OF R. H. BARLOW (2002). It obviously is derivative of Lovecraft and the WEIRD TALES school, but more impressionistic, its vagueness softening whatever impact its imagery might have had. Barlow’s large sprawling hand contrasts vividly with Lovecraft’s compact and rapid script (which, contrary to his own disparaging remarks, is neither minute nor indecipherable). Most of the edits are in Lovecraft’s hand, including the wholesale rewriting of several sentences and paragraphs. Very good. Provenance: Barlow / Derleth Papers. (#114493) $1500.00
It would appear, however, that this is the rest of that incomplete ms. rather than what was sold by Currey — the third image here on the blog is actually from the LWC sale (p. 7; it was accompanied then also by a scan, of equal resolution, of p. 12), while the photos here show the first page; the pencil heading seems to read “THE SUMMONS – a fragment” and HPL’s comment next to it goes something like this (there seems to be a t-cross over the uncertain word “hellish”, but I’m guessing it’s illusory):
Ending–thing
eats old man–but terrestrial
food is new & alien to it, & it is
poisoned. Becomes paralysed,
rots, falls apart, & sinks
into the dank soil of the [?hellish]
wood as a collapsing jelly of viscous
horror. Peril
thereby removed.
Narrator flees, & never
knows how he gets out of
wood. Never hears summons
again–& no more cerebral
troubles are encountered.
That is clearly written by Lovecraft, but I hesitate to say the same about the actual emendations in ink, at least some of them seem more like Barlow’s penmanship. Also it’s odd that HPL would have just marked a word for insertion but then left it unfilled (where “harbouring” has been penciled by Barlow), unless they were working together on the ms. at some occasion. LWC’s image of ms. p. 12 shows replacement paragraphs where the handwriting is HPL’s, though. RHB probably prepared a final typescript based on this revised draft, which was then submitted to Hyman Bradofsky for publication in The Californian (the text of which I think shows some further changes compared to the available ms. pages, at least if the version in Eyes of the God is to be trusted)
The only explicit reference by HPL to the story in his letters to Barlow seems to be “shall be interested to learn more of ‘The Summons'” (1 Dec. 1934, O Fortunate Floridian p. 192) which seems to indicate that at that time he had yet to read it. A slightly later letter (15 January 1935, p. 202) mentions a “preceding dream-tale” (i.e., preceding “‘Till A’ The Seas'”), so perhaps he had looked over “The Summons” in New York around the New Year 1934/35. That would explain the lack of further references in their correspondence.