The Loved Dead

Last updated

The Loved Dead is a story written by C. M. Eddy Jr. in 1919. A controversial tale of necrophilia, it was published in Weird Tales bumper issue for May/July 1924. [1]

Contents

Plot

The plot revolves around an unnamed narrator living in the rural village of Fenham who is a necrophile. He describes his repressive childhood and what drove him to commit these crimes. He works for one mortuary/undertaker after another, in order to be near corpses. At the end of the story, with police hot on his trail, he commits suicide.

Reaction

Due to the tale's grisly subject matter, style and descriptiveness, it caused a storm of controversy. [1] According to Eddy, copies of Weird Tales had to be withdrawn from sale in many places. [2] Robert Weinberg has disputed this, saying he was unable to find evidence of such withdrawals. [1] On the other hand, S. T. Joshi contends that when published in Weird Tales, the story elicited a protest from authorities in Indiana, who sought to have the issue banned; subsequently, editor Farnsworth Wright became hesitant to accept any stories from H. P. Lovecraft that features explicitly gruesome passages of the kind found in "The Loved Dead", and as a result several of Lovecraft's tales were rejected. [3]

Ramsey Campbell wrote in 1969 that this story consisted of "ludicrous melodrama" and that it was a "distastefully sensationalist revision". [4] He later modified this view in a revision of his 1969 article. [5] Robert Weinberg described "The Loved Dead" as an "over-written and minor" story. [1] John Pelan wrote, "This shuddery tale, for all its Grand Guignol excess, still strikes a chilling chord after many years and deserves its place as the best of 1924. One challenge in assembling this collection was to disregard the notoriety of certain tales and evaluate whether or not a story really deserved to be considered the 'best' of a given year. In the case of C. M. Eddy's story, it managed to be both." [6]

Further reading

David E. Schultz. "On 'The Loved Dead'", Crypt of Cthulhu No 17 (Hallowmas 1983): 25-28.

Publishing history

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cthulhu Mythos</span> Shared fictional universe based on the work of H. P. Lovecraft

The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of Anglo-American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "Cthulhu" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clark Ashton Smith</span> American author (1893–1961)

Clark Ashton Smith was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Joaquin Miller, Sterling, and Nora May French and remembered as "The Last of the Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that "in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled", and Ray Bradbury said that Smith "filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shub-Niggurath</span> Fictional deity in the Cthulhu Mythos

Shub-Niggurath is a deity created by H. P. Lovecraft. She is often associated with the phrase "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young". The only other name by which Lovecraft referred to her was "Lord of the Wood" in his story The Whisperer in Darkness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arkham</span> Fictional city in H.P. Lovecrafts works

Arkham is a fictional city situated in Massachusetts, United States. An integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramsey Campbell</span> English author (born1946)

Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.

Arkham House was an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to publish hardcover collections of H. P. Lovecraft's best works, which had previously been published only in pulp magazines. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham, Massachusetts. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The colophon for Arkham House was designed by Frank Utpatel.

Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction, such as ghosts, vampires, and werewolves. Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such as China Miéville, sometimes use "the tentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Belknap Long</span> American novelist, short story writer, and poet

Frank Belknap Long Jr. was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos alongside his friend, H. P. Lovecraft. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).

<i>The Shadow over Innsmouth</i> Horror novella by H. P. Lovecraft

The Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in November–December 1931. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization, and references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures, and invocations. The Shadow over Innsmouth is the only Lovecraft story that was published in book form during his lifetime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Haunter of the Dark</span> Horror short story by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written between 5–9 November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of Weird Tales. It was the last written of the author's known stories and is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. The epigraph to the story is the second stanza of Lovecraft's 1917 poem "Nemesis".

Farnsworth Wright was the editor of the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the magazine's heyday, editing 179 issues from November 1924 to March 1940. Jack Williamson called Wright "the first great fantasy editor".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Thing on the Doorstep</span> 1933 short story by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. It was written in August 1933 and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Shunned House</span> 1924 horror novella by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Shunned House" is a horror fiction novelette by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written on October 16–19, 1924. It was first published in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales.

A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.

"The Horror at Martin's Beach" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Sonia H. Greene. It was written in June 1922 and first published in November 1923 in Weird Tales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Curse of Yig</span> 1929 short story by Lovecraft & Bishop

"The Curse of Yig" is a 1929 short story co-written by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop in which Yig, "The Father of Serpents", is first introduced.

<i>The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions</i> 1970 collection of stories revised or ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft

The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions is a collection of stories revised or ghostwritten by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was originally published in 1970 by Arkham House in an edition of 4,058 copies. The dustjacket of the first edition features art by Gahan Wilson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry S. Whitehead</span> American novelist

Henry St. Clair Whitehead was an American Episcopal minister and author of horror, some non fiction and fantasy fiction.

Fedogan & Bremer is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1985 by Philip Rahman and Dennis Weiler. The name comes from the nicknames of the two founders when they were in college.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. M. Eddy Jr.</span> American writer

Clifford Martin Eddy Jr. was an American writer known for his horror, mystery and supernatural short stories. He is best remembered for his work in Weird Tales magazine and his friendship with H. P. Lovecraft.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Weinberg, Robert. The Weird Tales Story. West Lynn, OR: FAX Collector's Editions. p. 22. ISBN   1-58715-101-4.
  2. ↑ de Camp, L. Sprague (1975). Lovecraft: A Biography . Doubleday.
  3. ↑ S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001, p.156
  4. ↑ Ramsey Campbell, "Lovecraft in Retrospect" (Shadow, 1969)
  5. ↑ Ramsey Campbell, "Lovecraft in Retrospect in Retrospect", Voices from Shadow, 1993.
  6. ↑ John Pelan, The Century's Best Horror Fiction, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.