VITAL SIGNSrnLITERATURErnAugust Derleth andrnArkham Housernby Peter RuberrnAugust Derleth was one of the principalrnforees that established sciencernfiction as a legitimate literary genre. Hernwas a product of the “pulp” era, whornfounded a unique publishing companyrnin 1939 called Arkham House. He hadrnno long-range agenda for his progenyrnother than to rescue the writings of hisrnlate friend and mentor H.P. Lovecraft, arnwriter as strange as the stories he wrote,rnwho had toiled in the poor-paying pulprnmagazines for several decades withoutrngaining a wide readership.rnDerieth, who was emerging then as arnpromising writer of regional literature,rnmade a strong effort to persuadernMaxwell Perkins, his editor at Chas.rnScribner’s Sons, to consider the storiesrnof H.P, Lovecraft. When he was rejectedrnon what Perkins said were purely economicrnconsiderations, an excuse hernheard from other editors he knew,rnDerieth decided to take on the responsibilityrnof publishing Lovecraft. Using therngreater portion of a $5,000 fee that Redbookrnmagazine had paid for one of hisrnnovels, Derieth and fellow Weird Talesrnwriter Donald Wandrei establishedrnArkham House, the name taken fromrnLoveeraft’s place-name for legendhauntedrnSalem, Massachusetts.rnWhat Derieth knew about the businessrnside of publishing and selling couldrnbe summed up in a few sentences,rnthough he often told his own publishersrnhow to market his books. Derieth’s firstrnLovecraftian collection was The Outsiderrnand Others, a 555-page book that wasrnpublished in 1939. That was followedrnin 1943 by Beyond the Wall of Sleep, andrnin succeeding years such classics asrnMarginalia, The Lurker at the Threshold,rnand Something About Cats and OtherrnPieces. When he had exhausted Lovecraft’srnslender output, he began a seriesrnof posthumous collaborations based onrnhis mentor’s notes and unfinishedrnmanuscripts, even using plots suggestedrnin Loveeraft’s letters, always sharing therncredit even if he did 90 percent of thernwork.rnIn 1941, two years after publishing thernfirst Lovecraft book, Derieth began tornsee the possibility of using the ArkhamrnHouse imprint as a vehicle for some ofrnhis own and Wandrei’s writings, and forrnresurrecting the careers of other WeirdrnTales writers, as well as some British writersrnhe admired. And so began a lifelongrnodyssey to preserve the best of a literaryrngenre that had launched Derieth’s ownrnprolific career in 1927. In time, commercialrnpublishers began knocking onrnDerieth’s door for reprint rights and tornassemble new anthologies.rnDerieth had a great fondness forrnscience fiction. He wrote a few “pure”rnscience fiction stories, but they weren’trnalways successful in execution. His sympathiesrnlay in the past, not the future.rnWhere he did excel was as an editor ofrnscience fiction anthologies. He had anrnuncanny ability to sniff out the best ofrnthe old and new and assemble them intornsome remarkable collections for Pellegrinirnand Cudahv. In a space of five years,rnfrom 1948-1953, Pellegrini and Cudahyrnpublished seven of Derieth’s science fictionrnanthologies, and in 1954, Farrar &rnRhinehart published his last two—rnPortals of Tomorrow and Time to Come.rnAlmost all had overseas publication inrnGreat Britain and have been widelyrnreprinted by paperback publishers.rnFor some reason the market for sciencernfiction anthologies dissipated inrnthe mid-1950’s. Readers were demandingrnnovels, and soon the paperback marketrnwas glutted with originals andrnreprints and a succession of pulp-typernsci-fi magazines like the Magazine of Sciencernand Science Fiction and Analog, andrnseveral years passed before anthologiesrnbegan to cycle through again. By thatrntime, too, other writers and editors hadrnbegun to use their influence in the publishingrnworid, and Derieth lost interest.rnHe liked being a trailblazer. When hernhad popularized a movement or a genre,rnhe moved on to other projects.rnWhen Derieth published an ArkhamrnHouse chapbook in 1962 entitled J 00rnBooks by August Derleth, a small sectionrnlisting a dozen or so books that werern”Awaiting Publication” went almost unnoticedrnexcept by fans and collectorsrnof the author. It listed a science fictionrnanthology called New Horizons, thernmanuscript of which was presumed lostrnafter his death because it never turnedrnup in his papers at the Wisconsin StaternHistorical Society.rnLast year, when I acquired from hisrndaughter April Derleth a mountain ofrnunpublished manuscripts, I was pleasedrnto find New Horizons intact and immediatelyrnarranged to have it published inrn1998 by Arkham House. New Horizons isrnaptly named because it contains sciencernfiction stories culled from the earlyrndecades of this century and more or lessrnshowcases the genre in a variety of fields,rnranging from weird science to space travel.rnIt is an interesting collection that containsrnstories by a few well-known writersrnand some who are known primarily tornmadcap collectors. Since Derieth hadrnnot included any of his own stories, Irnadded an interesting novelette he hadrncollaborated on with Mark Schorerrncalled “In the Kingdom of the Sea,”rnwhich is loosely associated with Lovecraft’srn”Cthulhu Mythos” and time travelersrnfrom another dimension. It wasrnwritten in 1930 or 1931, but had neverrnbeen published.rnIn recent years some upstart collectorsrnof Loveeraft’s writings have found itrngood sport to deride Derieth’s motivesrnbehind creating Loveeraft’s literary reputation.rnThey have claimed on variousrnInternet websites that Derieth made arnsmall fortune off Lovecraft. This is nonsense,rnand those who knew Derieth duringrnthe years he guided Arkham Housernare well aware that the publishing companyrnwould not have survived if hernhadn’t infused it with large sums fromrnhis own writing income.rnVery often books that had beenrnannounced were delayed because ofrnArkham’s financial situation. Deriethrnran the publishing company by himselfrn(with a part-time secretary) for the betterrnpart of 20 years, typing invoices, packingrnorders, keeping the laborious financialrnrecords, and writing late into thernnight to pay the bills. It was not until therneariy I960’s that he could afford a part-rnMAY 1997/37rnrnrn