It’s mid-week madness with the all-singing, all-dancing William Hope Hodgson tribute, officially the best single author blog-fest since “The Toenail in 19th Century Bavarian Literature: Wilhelm Klemper – a Retrospective.” Scroll and run, dear listeners, as we enjoy more WHH curios, hear Sam Gafford unravel Hodgson’s publishing history, and feel rather confused after another speculative essay by James Bojiacuk. Is what he says possible, or has he taken one cold remedy too many?

Our critical comment for the day is taken from Clark Ashton Smith in 1944:

“In all literature, there are few works so sheerly remarkable, so purely creative, as The Night Land. Only a great poet could have conceived and written this story.”

The covers gallery has been updated yet again, and as we do so love weird art here at greydogtales, we have to include Philippe Druillet‘s work for Editions Opta in 1971. I loved Moebius and Druillet when I was a teenager, so these WHH illos are perfect:

Our first essay for today is from writer, editor and Hodgson critic Sam Gafford, whose only failing seems to be that he prefers cats to longdogs. It’s a crazy world…

The Strange Case of the Books in the Night

Really, it’s a miracle that anyone can read William Hope Hodgson at all these days. Not because of his style or language (as in his masterpiece, THE NIGHT LAND) but because he came perilously close to being completely forgotten.

As many know, Hodgson died during the final months of WWI back in 1918. By that time, he had written and published his four novels as well as a collection of his Carnacki stories and two other collections of his short stories (MEN OF THE DEEP WATERS and THE LUCK OF THE STRONG) as well as the collection of stories around his other popular character, Captain Gault. Despite many strong reviews, Hodgson’s books did not sell very well and soon began to fade into obscurity.

Indeed, with the exception of THE EXPLOITS OF CAPTAIN GAULT, none of Hodgson’s books were even published in America during his lifetime. After his death, his widow arranged for publication of two volumes of Hodgson’s poetry. Then, in 1920, London publisher Holden & Hardingham reprinted ALL of Hodgson’s books in what was then called ‘cheap editions’.  After that, Hodgson faded away.
For over twenty-five years, there were no new editions of Hodgson published.

Anywhere.

Zip. Nada. Zilch.

It would have stayed that way except for the efforts of one man: H. C. Koenig.

I’ve written before of Koenig’s importance in keeping Hodgson’s name alive and it is a story that bears repeating. Koenig was a collector and fan of weird fiction who discovered Hodgson’s short story “The Voice in the Night” in the landmark collection, THEY WALK AGAIN, edited by Colin de la Mare in 1931. After that, Koenig made it his mission to learn more about Hodgson and collect everything he could that Hodgson had written.

Even still, the story might have ended there as well if it weren’t for the fact that Koenig was also a close friend of H. P. Lovecraft. In a gesture of largesse that is almost inconceivable these days, Koenig eagerly lent many of his books to his friends and he sent Hodgson’s four novels to Lovecraft for his perusal. Lovecraft was not kindly deposed to Hodgson at this time, having read the collection of Carnacki stories and not being particularly impressed. As such, Lovecraft put off reading the novels until 1934 when he became stunned by Hodgson’s imagination if not by his writing style. Eagerly, Lovecraft passed those four books along through his circle of literary friends which included Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth.

Lovecraft had become so impressed with Hodgson that he actually revised his groundbreaking essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, to include his new discovery. Unfortunately, the essay had been appearing in chapters in a fanzine which folded before it could print the part that included Hodgson but the essay remained and would later have a greater impact when reprinted by Arkham House. That single essay probably did more to create Hodgson readers than anything else, as now every Lovecraft fan would read it and want to read those books as well.

After Lovecraft’s death in 1938, his friends Donald Wandrei and August Derleth (remember him?) partnered together and founded Arkham House in an effort to keep Lovecraft’s name and works alive. Beyond Lovecraft, they accomplished much of the same for writers like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and even Hodgson. Finally breaking the dry spell, Arkham House published an omnibus volume of Hodgson in 1946 which included all four novels! The publication of this volume owed much, once again, to H.C. Koenig who had been working behind the scenes to place Hodgson’s stories in various pulps and to convince Derleth to be the first American publisher to release these novels.

Arkham House published a volume of Carnacki stories under their imprint Mycroft & Moran in 1947 which included three previously unpublished stories. And where did those stories come from? H. C. Koenig. Koenig was, at that time, in contact with Hodgson’s surviving sister who sent him many of Hodgson’s papers and manuscripts to further his efforts to place the work in American publications.

A third Arkham House volume of Hodgson stories, Deep Waters, would not appear until 1967. Much of the contents for this book had been arranged by Koenig as well but twenty years earlier. Arkham House had suffered through tight finances in the past two decades and it is possible that Derleth might have needed extra coaxing before finally releasing the third book.

Although Ace Books had released a paperback version of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND in 1962, it wouldn’t be until the 1970s that Hodgson’s publishing history really picks up steam. Slowly, Hodgson began to appear more and more in paperback editions as well as some select hardcovers.

In 1975, Sam Moskowitz published OUT OF THE STORM: UNCOLLECTED FANTASIES (Donald M. Grant Publishers) which includes, for the first time, many forgotten Hodgson stories as well as Moskowitz’s massive essay on Hodgson and his work. It was a landmark in Hodgson criticism and study.

By the early 1980s, Hodgson is in full bloom with all of his novels, and the Carnacki collection, available from various publishers including Sphere in the UK, which spearheads the revival. Small publishers, like Ian Bell, begin to release important volumes which spread Hodgson’s influence and popularity.

Since then, Hodgson’s major works have never been out of print. The novels and major short stories are also available online. Small and genre publishers have taken up the standard and reprinted original editions as well as finding ‘forgotten’ and unpublished material. Hodgson is virtually ignored by major critics so these books have provided much scholarly criticism and study of Hodgson and his work.

If you want to read Hodgson today, you can do so very easily. You can go online or find POD volumes available through Amazon or second hand copies through places like eBay. This was not the case back in 1940 or 1960, or even as recently as 1980. That twenty four year period between the Holden & Hardingham editions and Arkham House’s THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND AND OTHER NOVELS were critical. Hodgson could have been completely forgotten and fallen into the type of obscurity that is the fate of many writers whether they deserve it or not. But he didn’t. So next time you read that Hodgson book or short story, give a minute of thanks to H. C. Koenig because, if not for him, you probably wouldn’t be able to.

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Time for an intermission. Coil were an English industrial music group formed in the 1980s by Balance and Christopherson. The group was described as cross-genre and experimental, and produced this unusual reading of Hodgson’s poem Grief.

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Feel better now? Right. The late Lin Carter was well known to many weird fiction enthusiasts for his editorial work on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. He also wrote a large number of fantasy novels, ranging from the derivative to the dubious. When you’re fourteen they can be fun, is the most I dare say here. For the purpose of greydogtales, however, we revisit his occult detective Anton Zarnack, courtesy of James Bojiacuk, who is clearly on a mission to connect everyone with everyone…

The House of Zarnak

To Rick Lai and Matthew Baugh

Parents are the baggage of biography. You cannot find a biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Winston Churchill which are not as much the story of their parents’ lives as their own. Even the medievals – who were, on the whole, much more focused on the germane – couldn’t resist telling us all kinds of stories about St. Augustine’s mother and King Arthur’s father. Yet when one turns up any word of Thomas Carnacki in the press, or finds his suspiciously slim entry in older editions of Oxford’s Dictionary of National Biography, there is no mention of his parents. But then, what are we to expect when so many books cannot find common ground about his birth year?

Turning to Dodgson and all his writings, we seem to stand on much the same ground. Carnacki’s mother plays a pivotal role in “The Searcher of the End House.” But it’s not seen fit to give us her name, her appearance, or the slightest scrap of her person. She is held back when we end up learning any amount about the two constables, the landlord, and the “ghost.” Strange indeed.

But in looking at what’s there, we miss what isn’t. Like Sherlock Holmes’ dog which did not bark in the night-time, the unsaid is more pertinent than the said.

There is no mention of his father.

The first conclusion is that Carnacki is illegitimate. However…
We should expect, in class-conscious times, that any suspicion of an illegitimate birth would be swept away. Even if it were not true, Carnacki should be expected to do away with his father in a pat sentence. He died of war, he died of consumption, he died of old age; if a cautionary tale is necessary, London is rich with vices just fatal enough to kill a figment. But Carnacki did not only fail to add such a sentence, he let this story run to print in The Idler and from thence into book form.

Therefore, Carnacki felt he had nothing in the world to hide. Therefore, Carnacki’s father was not only alive, but present enough that the man could be produced in case “The Searcher of the End House” gave rise to scandal. This leaves us with two possible conclusions:

A) Carnacki’s mother was separated, though not divorced, from his father.
B) Carnacki’s father’s work demanded his presence away from the UK for long periods of time.

In either case, we could assume the father would have the same surname. Considering the way work traditions were passed down from father to son, we could expect Carnacki Sr. and Jr. to work in the same field.

In most situations, this is where the line of reasoning would end. The father and mother would remain a mystery. There are neither facts to review nor theories to air—were it not for one piece of circumstantial evidence.

This piece of circumstantial evidence? There was a “Thomas Carnacki” active in the 1890s, an era that would’ve found Dodgson’s Carnacki too young for either reputation or work. At best, he’d be in his twenties, and quite possibly younger. This other Thomas Carnacki resides in two manuscripts supposed to have come from Dr. John Watson’s pen. One is generally accepted as genuine, the other is universally rejected.

Most researchers accept “The Antiquarian’s Niece” (edited by Barbara Hambly). Indeed, at the time of writing, most researchers accept her Carnacki as the same man Dodgson wrote about. However, the Carnacki present in this story is not Dodgson’s stout young man—he’s older, library-bound, and without any of his physical presence. He also invents a primitive proton pack—it’s strange to imagine a man possessing an offensive weapon would flee to the fort-like walls of a defensive pentacle.

“The Breath of God” (edited by Guy Adams) is not a reliable document. Many researchers outright reject it (I am specifically thinking of Sean Lee Levin, though he’s only one voice among the chorus). It’s impossible not to. The style is certainly not Watson’s, and the chronology of Holmes’ life is confused; John Silence is not only revealed to be a villain, but a villain who died before his canonical cases ever occurred; Carnacki is in his late thirties when he should still be in his twenties, and, even then, he acts nothing like the Thomas Carnacki we know so well; Alistair Crowley commits mass-murder, yet Sherlock Holmes allows him to live out his natural life. If ever a text could be rejected in a moment’s glance, it would be this. And yet—it’s tempting to believe there is some breath of truth in it. A slight, wheezy breath of the truth. We find a “Carnacki,” who could not possibly be Thomas Carnacki, in the right place at the right time to be the “Thomas Carnacki” found in “The Antiquarian’s Niece”; like the Carnacki found in Hamby’s manuscript, he possesses offensive weapons. Any forgery worth its salt would keep a well-known occultist confined to his proper decade, if nothing else. We can rest assured that the author was not Watson, and John Silence was not evil, and Holmes did not allow Crowley to get away with mass-murder. The author may only have pulled famous personalities from the papers, and strung them up for his or her own marionette show—but it proves a “fake” Thomas Carnacki was indeed operating in 1890s London.

Between the two accounts, we can fairly conclusively prove there was A) a “Carnacki” active in 1890s London and B) that this “Carnacki” is not the Thomas Carnacki Dodgson wrote of. We may tentatively assume this man was the Sr. to Dodgson’s Carnacki Jr. If we were to look for this man, then, we’re looking for a man who is 1) of the same profession as his son, 2) is a scholar, 3) possesses offensive spiritual weapons, 4) shares the name Carnacki (or, at the very least, some variant thereof), and 5) has a son in the same period that Dodgson’s Carnacki himself would be a child.

Only one man fits the above criteria: Anton Zarnak, supernatural sleuth.

1) That they work the same fields needs no further explanation.

2) Not only is Anton Zarnak’s library rich with rare and one of a kind works (cf. “Curse of the Black Pharaoh”), but, much more conclusively, he holds a certain office in the courts of the elder gods. He is their royal scholar (as seen in “Dope War of the Black Tong”).

3) Zarnak possesses a host of offensive weapons, including a wand that rarely leaves his side. (The wands and their various uses, additionally, have a certain resemblance to the “proton pack” he developed in “The Antiquarian’s Niece.”)

4) If we allow for the butchering that comes with immigration and English pronunciation, Zarnak and Carnacki share their surname. The flow from the Z to the C requires little work; many people coming west let the harder consonants, so common in their tongue, run to the softer sounds of English. Zs often weaken to Cs. The I further softens the name, sanding the hard AK into an A-KEY. It’s a calculated softening, one could say, from something hard and unfamiliar to something soft and as mysterious as lost Egypt (which was, at the time, a colonial holding and a sort of safe foreign mystery).  But if this is true, why preserve the name? In Price’s “Dope War of the Black Tong,” we learn that that Zarnak once reigned over the Tcho-Tcho. Indeed, his name is more properly rendered as Zhar-Nak, “the mouthpiece of Zhar.” Zarnak was a scholar working with the less antagonistic factions of the Elder Gods (Rick Lai’s “Fu Manchu vs. Cthulhu” is invaluable for piecing together this period of his life). In letting young Thomas retain the name, Zarnak is ensuring that A) any treaties of protection carry onto his son and B) that even after he’s gone, someone will be there to continue in his office (we see this acknowledged in Henderson’s “The Door,” though that occurred long after we may suppose Carnacki passed).

5) In “Curse of the Black Pharaoh,” we learn that Zarnak once had a wife and a son—but they were murdered by a werewolf. There is uncertainty about this. In his definitive “Anton Zarnak Chronology,” Matthew Baugh can only offer a scholarly shrug. If this happened, he supposes it happened c. 1896. It is suspicious that Zarnak once had a wife and child, in the late Victorian era, but both of whom disappeared; and yet, in pursuing Carnacki’s past, we find a mother and child, with the very same surname, travelling alone in that same era. It is too convenient to suppose these are unrelated, or that the mother and son found in Carnacki’s account are not the “lost” mother and son from Zarnak’s. Considering Zarnak’s dangerous history, and his host of enemies, it may have suited him to fake their deaths and have them live in secret peace, while he raised Carnacki up in his traditions.

Taking Occam’s razor in hand (while taking all our facts in mind), we can suppose that: A) Thomas Carnacki is the son of Anton Zarnak; B) Carnacki was blessed to carry on Zarnak’s work, which he did; C) for whatever reason, Zarnak faked the deaths of his wife and son and took up the act of widower. This is all safe. This can all be supported and argued.

But a less-cautious researcher has enough bricks to build a castle out of clouds. What’s to say that Zarnak did not leave Burma with a Tcho-Tcho bride? What’s to say that the reason Carnacki did not describe his mother in his reminiscence, nor even name her, was because doing so would reveal her race and put them in danger? What’s to say that the reason Carnacki is never described in any of Dodgson’s writings is, simply, because he could not be revealed as half Tcho-Tcho? There’s nothing to say otherwise. But, then again, there’s nothing to confirm the least jot of this paragraph.

Let the reader decide.

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There you are, reader – you decide. Should James be admitted to High Helmsley Asylum, or should he be allowed to roam free?

Coming at the end of this week, the very last William Hope Hodgson tribute article ever ever ever. Probably. You might as well tune in, dear listener…