LibriVox has a new second version of Robert E. Howard’s
(1906 – 1936) “Red Shadows”, read by Phil Chenevert and under a Public Domain licence. The earlier version was read by Paul Siegel.

Also new is E.F. Benson’s story collection Visible and Invisible (1923).

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.

New on Librivox, Ben Tucker’s 70-minute public-domain audio reading of “The Call from Beyond” by Clifford D. Simak.

Back in 2016 Michael May appreciated “The Call from Beyond” for its Lovecraft derived ideas and links…

The May 1950 issue of Super Science Stories has a Simak story called “The Call From Beyond.” The very title rings of Lovecraft’s “From Beyond” and “The Call of Cthulhu.” […] He obviously had a lot of fun with the Lovecraftian elements, though they made the story unsellable to John W. Campbell at Astounding. Thus [it appeared in] Super Science Stories, a crappy low-pay mag.

Although be warned of May’s huge plot-spoilers. He recounts the entire plot including the finale.

Despite its super illustrations, the story is not one of Simak’s best. But it was written in the late 1940s and at that point he was only a few years into writing some good and enduring SF tales. It’s thus interesting to see him leaning on Lovecraft to keep his writing moving forward.

New on Librivox, a public domain reading of Frank Belknap Long’s “The Man with a Thousand Legs” (Weird Tales, August 1927 — warning: full-view header illustration is a plot-spoiler).

“… a completely unrepentant shocker from 1927 that calls itself ‘The Man with a Thousand Legs’ and lives 100 percent up to its title.” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1973)

“… that marvel of many viewpoints, ‘The Man with a Thousand Legs'” (Pulp Magazine Thrillers, 1998)

“… we must remember it was written in 1927, and is rather good SF for that period” (Luna Monthly, 1972)

A couple of years ago Dark Worlds Quarterly had a long appreciation and summary of the tale. The tale’s fragmentary pieced-together structure and its opening illustration (see that full heading after reading the tale) might seem at first glance to be bouncing off a reading of Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu”. Although to Weird Tales readers it might have appeared that the February 1928 published “Cthulhu” was actually following Long, rather than other way around.

As Dark Worlds usefully points out there was a later slightly revised version of “The Man with a Thousand Legs” in Magazine Of Horror And Strange Stories (August 1963), which removed a few touches that made it sound dated in the early 1960s. Later it was included in the Arkham House collection of Long’s stories, The Rim of the Unknown (1972). Presumably that was the 1963 version.

Another new Short Ghost and Horror Story Collection from Librivox. One from Lovecraft’s friend Henry S. Whitehead, and two from Lovecraft himself (“The Terrible Old Man” and “Pickman’s Model”). All public domain.