In the first news post of 2024, S.T. Joshi reports that August Derleth’s main regionalist fiction is back in print in Joshi-scrutinised editions. These being Place of Hawks (1935), Evening Spring (1941), Shield of the Valiant (1945), part of the set known as the Sac Prairie saga. Joshi also reports that…
I have now completed work on a volume of previously uncollected Sac Prairie stories, Gently in the Autumn Night
A half dozen or so Sac Prarie volumes can also be found on Archive.org in scans of varying quality, “to borrow”. In a 1963 book, Derleth lists the titles of his Sac Prarie saga…
Talking of Derleth, I took another look for a Solar Pons collection, Derleth’s Sherlock Holmes -alike detective. Back in 2020 I determined in a Derleth survey that The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus would be the best collection, being the one from 2000 with uncorrupted text, but it was then ridiculously expensive. Now also unavailable, I find.
To my 2020 survey I can now add that he wrote the less heavy “Gus Elker Stories”, these being rather more amusing stories of Wisconsin country life than those of Sac Prarie. But these had to wait a long time to be collected, as Country Matters (1996). For which the blurb read…
Here are 35 rolicking misadventures of Sac Prairie’s most engaging characters, Gus Elker, Great-aunt Lou and Great-uncle Joe Stoll. Nineteen of these stories have never appeared in any book or anthology. Since this collection was released, 17 additional unpublished stories have been found and will be published in the near future.
I can’t immediately find news of the second Gus Elker volume, so there may be an opportunity there for a publisher to pick it up? Or perhaps produce an audiobook with all the stories?
I believe the August Derleth Society is contemplating a Gus Elker omnibus. I found 8 unpublished stories, but adding those to the known published stories totals about 45 stories. Derleth said he wrote “more than 50,” but what and where are those fugitive items?