{"id":39277,"date":"2020-06-16T05:08:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T02:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=39277"},"modified":"2020-06-16T05:08:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T02:08:55","slug":"kittee-tuesday-blochs-bubastis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2020\/06\/16\/kittee-tuesday-blochs-bubastis\/","title":{"rendered":"Kittee Tuesday: Bloch’s “Bubastis”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A series of blog posts celebrating H.P. Lovecraft’s keen interest in our fascinating felines.<\/p>\n

In his final letter to Robert Bloch, Lovecraft notes the lad’s new story in the March 1937 Weird Tales<\/em>, “The Brood of Bubastis”<\/a>. The cat theme and the Cornwall setting were both an obvious nod to Lovecraft. Cornwall being the more American-recognisable stand-in for neighbouring Devonshire, to which Lovecraft traced many ancestors. Though the general idea of a Cornwall-Egypt link was not at all new by 1937. <\/p>\n

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I was hardly aware of the early Bloch beyond the story that inspired Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark”, but I know a bit more now. The Egyptian theme was obviously one that Bloch pursued in his early Lovecraftian stories in 1936-38. An entry for Bloch in Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia<\/em> usefully lists the short cycle of Bloch’s ‘Lovecraftian Egypt’ stories, and from 1936-38 points to…<\/p>\n

“The Faceless God”
\n“The Secret of Sebek”
\n“The Brood of Bubastis”
\n“Fane of the Black Pharoah”
\n“The Opener of the Way”
\n“The Eyes of the Mummy”
\n“Beetles”<\/p>\n

… with a warning that some lack Lovecraft lore, though all are generally said to be in the style and manner of Lovecraft. So far as I know these have not yet all been collected in a single “Robert Bloch’s Lovecraftian Egypt” volume. Such a collection might make for a good audiobook.<\/p>\n

Looking into these I found a long survey essay on the early Bloch at Dark Worlds Quarterly<\/a><\/em>, that I had missed in January 2020. I thus inadvertently discovered yet another early appearance of Lovecraft as a character…<\/p>\n

“The Dark Demon<\/a>” (Weird Tales<\/em>, November 1936) is another love letter to Lovecraft. Like \u201cShambler\u201d, Bloch creates a character that is obviously HPL in Edgar Henquist Gordon. The man is tall and pale, writes horror stories for small magazines and is a bit of a recluse, though he has hundreds of correspondents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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wt-nov-1936-hpl.pdf<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lovecraft had sent editor Farnsworth Wright a signed note saying that Bloch was permitted to portray and ‘murder’ Lovecraft in published fiction, and this must have permitted the story a slot in Weird Tales<\/em> that it might not otherwise have had. Curiously enough, this issue of the magazine managed to get a cute kitten on the cover of Weird Tales<\/em>…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A series of blog posts celebrating H.P. Lovecraft’s keen interest in our fascinating felines. In his final letter to Robert …<\/p>\n

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