A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos: Origins of the Cthulhu Mythos

by John D. Haefele

For decades critics have portrayed August Derleth as an intractable, foolish and at times even villainous man, tainting his legacy in the history of the modern weird tale. This book contains new, comprehensive scholarship, and with sharp arguments and solid evidence John D. Haefele dismisses the criticism and demonstrates why it is time to re-establish Derleth's reputation. Ground-zero of the controversy are Derleth's "posthumous collaborations" with H. P. Lovecraft, involving his pastiches and the debate concerning the Cthulhu Mythos vs. the Derleth Mythos. All this, and much more, John D. Haefele looks at and engagingly analyzes. With surprising, yet convincing, results. It is time to set the record straight. This book belongs on the shelf between Carter's A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos and Joshi's The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos. A must for anyone interested in Lovecraft, Derleth, Arkham House and the history of the modern weird tale.

This is a completely revised, trade paperback edition.

Genres: Cthulhu Mythos

508 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2013

Reviews

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly, I am not the audience for this book. I like Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos stories that other authors have kept writing, but this is for hardcore Lovecraft scholars. Apparently August Derleth, the man who nearly single-handedly kept Lovecraft's reputation alive for years after his untimely death by starting the publishing company Arkham House, has been widely denigrated by many scholars, for a variety of reasons. Haefele stands up for Derleth and defends him against, primarly, S.T. Joshi, who seems to have made a cottage industry of tearing Derleth down. At times this feels like a parody of more "serious" literary criticism with the bizarre splitting of hairs about what Lovecraft may or may not have intended while he was alive, but I suppose that similar arguments over Hemingway or Chaucer or Shakespeare would seem similarly silly to outsiders. I didn't exactly enjoy the book but I appreciate the effort that the author put into it.

[Norm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a much-needed and long-overdue addition (or maybe correction is the better word) to the current state of Lovecraftian affairs. Unfortunately, over the years, the one man who deserves the most credit for rescuing HPL from obscurity, August Derleth, has been given short shrift, to put it mildly, by many HPL scholars. I had read that he could be contentious, if not worse, but I didn’t know how far he had fallen.
This book aims to set the record straight. I’ve always admired AD as an editor, publisher and author and I’m glad to see he finally has his day in court, so to speak. He passed away in 1971, so he has been unable to defend himself for more than 4 decades. I am grateful to John Haefele for taking a deeper and favorable look at the man and his work.

[Eric David Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was about to give this book four stars, but decided it deserved the top rating just for the effort at restoring Derleth's place in Lovecraft studies. Whatever Derleth's faults in interpreting Lovecraft's ideas, whatever the literary merits of his Mythos stories, if Derleth had not succeeded in keeping Lovecraft's work in print, we would probably would not even be having this discussion, and HPL might have been relegated to the same obscurity as so many writers from the pulp period. Haefele manages to respond to critics like S. T. Joshi in a respectful and level-headed way, quite differently from Joshi's vitriolic attacks. Derleth devoted years of his life to preserving Lovecraft's legacy, and does not deserve to be written out of his history.

[Sylri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit to not being a huge fan of August Derleth’s writings when I initially read them in high school. I found them a little dry and that something was just…. Missing. They never had the same atmosphere I was looking for when I had finished Lovecraft and started branching out to other Mythos writers. Joshi’s scathing opinions had also influenced me and reinforced my initial impressions.
However, this book has made me want to go back and reread the stories I had initially dismissed, and to even go out and collect his stories that I have never read! I now find myself quite interested in reevaluating Derleth’s stories and am eager for more work to be done that is less negatively biased against him.
Now onto the book itself. It seemed very well researched and was quite thorough. To some it may be too thorough and a little dry, and I think is really for those who are keenly interested in the life and literary criticism of Lovecraft and his circle and not just his fiction.
So perfect for someone like me!
All of the addendums at the end of the book show how many sources Haefele used to support his arguments and positions. A lot of his points are made in rebuttal specifically to S.T. Joshi’s negative remarks about August Derleth throughout his many books, though others’ criticisms are also featured. Haefele does not seem to be mindlessly shooting down any criticism of Derleth, merely trying to present a less biased view since it seems that most of the current commentary about his efforts are quite slanted to the negative. He admits to Derleth’s faults and lesser stories when appropriate.
It has made me realize how little is out there about August Derleth, and I hope that more balanced work such as this is done about his life. I never appreciated just how much he worked to keep Lovecraft in print and relevant to the reading public. And for that alone, I have to thank him for keeping alive the fiction of one of my favorite authors!

[Barry Hammond · Rating 3 out of 5]

August Derleth was the reason readers remember H.P. Lovecraft today. If not for Derleth's efforts to keep Lovecraft's stories in print in hardcover through his Arkham House press it's highly doubtful there would be the serious critical interest which exists about Lovecraft today. Much of this critical interest now downgrades and demonizes Derleth because of his so-called "posthumous collaborations" with Lovecraft, which were mainly written by Derleth. I think it's high time the pendulum of anti-Derleth feeling was swung back from this extreme position to something of a more balanced and equitable view and this volume by John D. Haefele accomplishes just that, bringing insight and fairness where, before, there was only scorn and prejudice. Some anti-Derleth critics, like S.T. Joshi, have dumped corresponding scorn on this volume, calling it extreme things like "a mass of sub-literary rubbish." I can only say that, like Shakespeare said, I think they doth protest too much. Haefele may not be an academic but he can certainly write and his well-considered opinions are every bit as valid as the so-called experts, who can be just as mistaken in their views as any one else. This was a thoughtful and well-considered response to Derleth's critics and has much to recommend it to any student of weird fiction and especially Lovecraft. I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in Lovecraft, Derleth, or the Cthulhu Mythos in general. - BH.

[Jon Mackley · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, my brief was to write a chapter on August Derleth. An awful lot of the criticism out there lays into Derleth for his appropriate of the Cthulhu Mythos, from essentially aligning it with the Judeo-Christian mythology to his error-ridden publications of Lovecraft's work. Of course, there are many who realise that without Derleth's efforts, Lovecraft's writings might have remained in the obscurity of the pulp magazines.

And then there's John D. Haefele. He's one of the few voices waving the flag for Derleth. And, as such, it's very useful to provide an opposing idea to the avalanche of scholarship (Joshi, Schultz, Tierney, Mosig etc). On the other hand, it lacks the nuanced critical analysis that one would have expected for a book such as this. Haefele knows that he has academic challengers, but because of this, his writing starts to descend into name calling and nose thumbing. To be fair, there is some material out there that criticises Haefele's work, which equally uses the straw-man argument - challenging the author, not their arguments.

So, Haefele was easy enough to use to provide an alternative voice when writing about Derleth, and it's useful in that regard, but his arguments need to be supported with references, and the discussion needs to be so much tighter. Just because you take a long time to say things, doesn't make the argument stronger. And just because call someone names, it doesn't mean that their argument is without merit.

[Mark Engels · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging work of literary criticism and a fascinating glimpse into the origins of an entire market. Our author is a consummate researcher and historian. With painstaking thoroughness, he investigates how Derleth's world view and Catholic background‎ influenced his interpretation of and supplementation to‎ Lovecraft's work--from juvenilia and "fan-fiction" to the height of Arkham House's success.

"Everything old is new again" ought come to mind as Haefele exposits the vagaries of the publishing industry in Derleth's day, many which ring decidedly true still despite myriad technological advances. After examining Derleth's literary life, the author further compares and contrasts between the Derleth, Lovecraft and Cthulhu mythoi. Then we're treated to humorous and relatable glimpses into homages between Derleth's Solar Pons books and the Mythos stories as well as "Easter Eggs" planted as in-story "in-jokes" between Lovecraft, Derleth, and their contemporaries.

Haefele lays out how Lovecraft inspired his friends and associates to create the stuff that Derleth would mold into the Cthulhu Mythos. And just how real and relevant it remains to the present day. A fascinating glimpse into the origins of an entire market, one which bridges literary and genre fiction.

[Joe Dickerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting Viewpoint

An interesting alternate viewpoint of the efforts Derleth made to the mythos. I may not agree fully, but the writer conveyed his points well.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 3 out of 5]

A LOOK BEHIND THE DERLETH MYTHOS: ORIGINS OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS by John D. Haefele is a nonfiction book discussing the role of August Derleth in the creation of HPL's modern mythology. More precisely, it is more of a rebuttal to S.T. Joshi's THE RISE, FALL, AND RISE OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS. If you haven't read that, the book is going to be pretty nonsensical.

August Derleth is controversial in certain parts of HP Lovecraft fandom. By which I mean the literary types who actually know who he is. For the majority of people out there who know who HP Lovecraft is, a lot larger group than used to exist, they primarily know him through Cthulhu plushies, board games, tablletop roleplaying games, as well as video game adaptations.

Go a little further and you'll know him through his inspiratios to authors like Stephen King as well as maybe spin off novels set in his world. Only by the time you pass them do you know about the guy who founded Arkham House and is a guy who either saved HP Lovecraft's legacy or stole it for his own use. Really, he did a little of both.

If you're a person who isn't part of the snobbish literary criticism crowd or obnoxiously entitled fandom academic (of which I am a proud snobbish Literature Masters waving member of both--seriously, even I hate myself), you probably need a rundown of who August Derleth is. The short as well as mostly inaccurate version is he was a Weird Tales writer that Lovecraft mentored as well as inspired.

When Howard Phillips went the way of all flesh, they worked with the man named HPL's literary executive (RH Barlow) with the permission of Howard's Aunt to republish the man's work. Eventually, she, too, passed and August froze Barlow out. August also wrote "collaborations" which was, as far as anyone can tell, were just him slapping Howard's name onto his own stuff. He also created a shared mythology from Lovecraft's Yog-Sothery that (arguably) didn't really exist in the original stories. Lovecraft was consistent in his mythology in his stories but often contradictory across them, something I consider a benefit rather than a flaw.

Working in other people's worlds is by no means unusual behavior for August Derleth as HPL fandom often overlooks the fact that he also wrote the Solar Pons Sherlock Holmes-esque stories that the Doyle family asked him not to. About seventy of these stories no less. To give a sense of August Derleth, take note that he wrote Arthur Conan Doyle and asked him for permission to take over writing Sherlock Holmes when the author decided not to write anymore. Derleth cast a far wider net than HPL's works even if he's most famous for working within other people's worlds (and did plenty of original material himself). This isn't to be criticized any more than Roy Thomas' work with Conan or other comic book writer famous for preexisting properties.

A Look Behind The Derleth Mythos requires the five paragraph introduction above because it is not a laymen's novel about Derleth, the Cthulhu Mythos, S.T. Joshi's dislike of Derleth, and a bunch of other arguments that newcomers to the Mythos will have no idea what they're referring to. It's a bit like coming in to a Reddit argument several posts in. If you've just seen The Last Jedi today and come in with opinions on it, don't be surprised if you find that a lot of people have already expressed where they stand on the battle lines.

I've got no real skin in this game or I'm moderate to neutral on the subject. Derleth's detractors tend to be Lovecraft purists while I came to the HPL through Brian Lumley's Titus Crow (influenced by Derleth) and the Call of Cthulhu tabletop game (ditto). I even made a homage to both in the Re'Kithnid, a fictional tome by "Brianna Lethder." However, I feel ninety percent of this book is just going, "Well, actually, Derleth got Lovecraft just fine!" Which is not the best use of a scholarly rebuttal, IMHO.

The book is, essentially, one long apologia for August Derleth and that's fine. I feel a better use of this book's pages would have been explaining how Derleth built a coherent mythology from a bunch of disparate sources, shared the works of a writer he loved, and inspired a bunch of other writers just like HP Lovecraft wanted to (and did). No one really should care about whether Derleth was Catholic or not (assuming all writers can only write what they believe in personally) or preferred writing cosmic horror versus pulpy tales of good versus evil. They should care about his treatment of intellectual property and misuse of a man's name. Essentially, this book feels like it misses the forest for the trees when discussing the legacy of Derleth and his relationship to Howard Phillips.