By Robert O’Connor.
H. P. Lovecraft considered himself a regional writer, and drew upon his native New England as the setting for his twisted tales. He encouraged fellow Cthulhu writers – with whom he frequently corresponded – to do the same. It was at his urging that Robert E. Howard began writing more and more stories set in his native Texas in the last year of his life. Another Cthulhu writer, August Derleth, took Lovecraft’s advice and drew upon his native Wisconsin as the setting for his work.
Cthulhu writers were good, but most of them weren’t recognized in their time as good writers. Derleth was one of the exceptions, winning a Guggenheim fellowship in 1938 – sponsored by Sinclair Lewis – to work on his Sac Prairie series. Although he spent the fellowship money binding his comic book collection.
Derleth was born in Sauk City, Wisconsin – just outside of Madison – in 1909. He sold his first story to Weird Tales in 1925, and would continue selling to the legendary pulp for many years. He also began a correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft around this time. In fact, Derleth is credited with coining the term “Cthulhu Mythos” – though some Lovecraft scholars have criticized the term, using alternative titles like “Lovecraft Mythos” or the author’s own term “Yog-Sothothery.” They have also criticized Derleth’s Christian interpretation of the mythos since Lovecraft was an atheist and believed the universe was amoral.
In 1937 he finished the first book set in Sac Prairie, “Still is the Summer Night.” Sac Prairie was a fictional town through which he told the history of Wisconsin from the 19th century to the present day, much like Faulkner‘s Yoknapatawpha County. Derleth’s “Sac Prairie Saga” went for nine novels written between 1937 and 1953.
After Lovecraft’s death in 1937, Derleth and Weird Tales writer Donald Wandrei assembled a group of Lovecraft stories and tried to sell them to be published (later titled “The Outsider and Others”). When publishers didn’t show interest, they founded Arkham House in 1939 to publish Lovecraft’s stories. The publishing house continues to this day and is still based in Derleth’s home town of Sauk City.
Derleth also wrote detective fiction, starting with pastiche tales of Sherlock Holmes, and later wrote stories about a Holmes-esque detective named Solar Pons. Other mystery writers like Ellery Queen and Vincent Starrett admired the series, but in 1946, Arthur Conan Doyle’s sons tried to stop the publication of Pons stories. They weren’t successful and eventually withdrew their complaints.
In 1941, Derleth became the literary editor of the Capital Times in Madison, where he stayed until 1960. That same year he began publishing and editing a magazine called Hawk and Whippoorwill, which published poems about man and nature. He died of a heart attack in 1971.
Arkham House continues to publish works by Lovecraft, along with contemporaries, of Lovecraft, writers inspired by Lovecraft and classic horror like Algernon Blackwood. It’s also begun publishing weird fiction by contemporary authors.
MORE: August Derleth Society / Arkham House / Short autobiography / Entry on Cthulhuwiki / Entry on the internet speculative fiction database
