A Dreamer & A Visionary; H.P. Lovecraft in His Time

In Richmond Lovecraft did most of the work on another ghost job for Zealia Bishop, although he seems not to have finished it until August. She surely contributed as much (or as little) to this one as to the previous two; but in this case one is more regretful of the fact, for it means that the many flaws and absurdities in the tale must be placed solely or largely at Lovecraft’s door. ‘Medusa’s Coil’ is as confused, bombastic, and just plain silly a work as anything in Lovecraft’s entire corpus. Like some of his early tales, it is ruined by a woeful excess of supernaturalism that produces complete chaos at the end, as well as a lack of subtlety in characterization that (as in ‘The Last Test’) cripples a tale based fundamentally on a conflict of characters. The tale concerns one Denis de Russy, a young man who falls in love with a mysterious French woman named Marceline Bedard and brings her back to his family estate in Missouri, where she has a tense relationship with Denis’s father (the narrator of the bulk of the story) and with Denis’s friend, the painter Frank Marsh. In the end it transpires that, aside from possessing various supernatural powers, Marceline was, ‘though in deceitfully slight proportion … a negress’.

The overriding problem with this tale—beyond the luridly pulpish plot and the crudely racist conclusion—is that the characters are so wooden and stereotyped that they never come to life. Lovecraft well knew that he had both a very limited understanding of and very limited interest in human beings. He contrived his own fiction such that the human figures were not the focus of action; but in a revision—where, presumably, he had to follow at least the skeleton of the plot provided by his client—he was not always able to evade the need for vivid characterization, and it is precisely those revisions where such characterization is absent that rank the poorest.

It is, certainly, not the tale’s lack of quality that prevented its publication in a pulp market, for much worse stories were published with great regularity; but for whatever reason (and excessive length may again have had something to do with it), ‘Medusa’s Coil’ was rejected by Weird Tales

. It finally appeared in the issue for January 1939. Both ‘The Mound’ and ‘Medusa’s Coil’ were heavily altered and rewritten by Derleth for their magazine appearances, and he continued to reprint the adulterated texts in book form up to his death. The corrected texts did not see print until 1989.

Back in New York on 20 May, Lovecraft was excited to read one interesting piece of forwarded mail—a letter from Clifton P. Fadiman of Simon & Schuster encouraging Lovecraft to submit a novel. He immediately responded by saying that, although he might write a novel later (clearly The Case of Charles Dexter Ward was not even considered as a submission), he would like to submit a collection of short stories. A few days later Lovecraft’s enthusiasm waned considerably: he discovered that the letter was merely a mimeographed form-letter sent to everyone who had appeared on the ‘Honor Roll’ of the O’Brien short story annuals; moreover, Fadiman had responded by saying: ‘I am afraid that you are right in that our interest in a collection of short stories would not be very vivid. I hope, however, that you will buckle down & do that novel you speak of. If it is good, its subject matter will be a help rather than a hindrance.’

²⁴ It is interesting to note that mainstream publishers’ now inveterate reluctance to publish weird short story collections was already evident in 1930.

Otherwise the two weeks spent in New York included additional museum-going (Metropolitan, Brooklyn, and also the newly opened Nicholas Roerich Museum) as well as the usual round of catching up on old friendships. One unexpected acquaintance whom Lovecraft met was Hart Crane, who came to Loveman’s apartment on the evening of 24 May when Lovecraft was there. The Bridge

had been published that spring, making him ‘one of the most celebrated & talked-of figures of contemporary American letters’. Lovecraft’s portrait of him is simultaneously admiring and pitying:

Poor devil—he has ‘arrived’ at last as a standard American poet seriously regarded by all reviewers & critics; yet at the very crest of his fame he is on the verge of psychological, physical, & financial disintegration, & with no certainty of ever having the inspiration to write a major work of literature again. After about three hours of acute & intelligent argument poor Crane left—to hunt up a new supply of whiskey & banish reality for the rest of the night!²⁵ Lovecraft was sadly correct in his prediction, for Crane would commit suicide two years later.