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Invaders from the Dark
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Invaders from the Dark
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My Arkham House copy arrived today. I am so excited to start reading this. In regards to what kind of a tale this is and whether or not it's truly a werewolf story, allow me to share the dustjacket notes from the front inside cover:$3.50
Invaders from the Dark
by Greye La Spina
Among Arkham House books, the werewolf theme has been rather more conspicuous by its absence than by its presence, partly because lycanthropy is not a subject many authors treat convincingly. Invaders from the Dark has long been held to be a minor classic in this genre, comparable to Dracula in the lore of the vampire.
Set in Brooklyn of a few decades ago, Invaders from the Dark is the story of the efforts of Portia Differdale to protect the man she loves from deadly peril, even at the cost of her own life. Her battle against dark powers is a story straight out of the Gothic tradition with Victorian overtones: it remains a curious milepost in the progress of the Gothic novel to the more sophisticated horror novel of today, beset with the discoveries of psychiatry since the time this novel aroused the excited admiration of thousands of readers of the old Weird Tales, where it first saw the light of day.
The duel between Princess Tchernova and Portia Differdale will linger in the memory of those addicts of the Gothic who take up this novel of lycanthropy.
Fifteen hundred copies of this book have been printed by The Collegiate Press, George Banta Company, Inc., Menasha, Wisconsin, from linotype Garamond on Winnebago Eggshell. The binding cloth is Holliston Black Novelex.
That still leaves 1,499 out there for anyone else! Or, like I said, you can buy a Kindle copy, or read it at the Internet archive for free (April, May, June 1925 issues of WT). Hope this lets everyone know this is a bona fide werewolf book worth reading!
Having just read the foreward I am amazed by the peril Ms. La Spina placed herself in by volunteering to publish Sophie Delorme's manuscript. As we all know now, werewolves are nothing to mess with.
I read the first chapter last June and then put the book aside for more time-sensitive reads. It got buried in my TBR pile, but I have pulled it out now and started to read in earnest. I am really impressed with the story, especially the tightness of the writing. Every word seems carefully selected and there's nothing extra. I had not noticed this feature of La Spina's writing as much in the short stories I have read by her. I am 20% of the way through now and really not sure at all where La Spina is taking us. The protagonist, Sophie, writes of two huge white Russian wolfhounds named Boris and Andrei, who are "on the leash, in the fields that completely surround the high walls of the building where we live in what amounts to isolation." Sophie married a man she admires, her employer, who is working on some monumental secret project. The marriage was to keep gossips from giving them a hard time for living in the same household, but is not consummated. The husband died, or is killed, and it becomes up to Sophie to carry on the work, whatever it is, in his place.
Concerned for her niece, adopted daughter really, Aunt Portia comes to visit Sophie, and begins immediately to notice odd things, like Sophie not dressing in mourning, Sophie going out with the wolfhounds at night, a member of the household visiting a Russian prince to Sophie's alarm, etc. It's amazing how much is going on behind the scenes we have yet to discover.
I am extending the group reading of this book through October, if anyone would still like to get in on it with me. I truly recommend the book as well written. If no one else posts about it and it turns out I'm the only one reading it, I'll just write my review when I finish it soon. We as a group are going on to a new book for the Fall starting next month, a 136-page graphic novel. Obtain your copy now if you would like to join us.
My review of our summer group read, such as it is: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... I'm glad to have read it. It added to my historical perspective regarding where werewolf lore was in 1924. But I'm also glad to move on to our Fall 20222 read next week. My copy of Alabaster: Wolves arrived two days ago. The graphic novel appears to have excellent production values, good art, and a nice word balloon to story ratio. I am a little surprised my copy is a harback one. Anyone else up for this modern werewolf story starting next week?
Werewolves
Books mentioned in this topic
Alabaster: Wolves (other topics)Invaders from the Dark (other topics)
The novel is a classic of a genre many werewolf fans might not have heard of: weird fiction. But it's not that snooty New Weird fiction stuff that came out at the turn of this century. This is weird fiction of yore, read by people who liked classical Weird Tales type literature. The story, I expect, I don't know for sure because I have not yet read it either, should bear a strong resemblance to classical horror, but horror with an unexpected twist, meant more to surprise and amaze than to shock, frighten, or gross out.
The author wrote by my count twenty short stories and four novels over the span of her writing career (1919-1951), all of which, frankly, look interesting:
1) The Gargoyle (1925)
2) Fettered (1926)
3) The Portal to Power (1931), and
4) this one, Invaders from the Dark (1960).
Even though I list it fourth here, we are actually reading Ms. La Spina's (her real last name, by the way, even if through marriage) earliest (first) novel. It is her only novel you will find featured in GoodReads's database because it was the only one printed under its own cover, entire, by Arkham Press no less. It was published as a reprint by them in 1960 when our author was 80 years old and long retired. The other three novels require similar treatment in my humble opinion. I'd certainly read them! All four novels were serialized in Weird Tales, numbers two and three on the list over a span of four months each, the first and fourth three months. Our slightly shorter werewolf story here was serialized in the April, May, and June 1925 issues; the The Gargoyle was serialized in the three Fall months of 1925. Our group read this month is thus exactly 97 years old!
During this early era in Weird Tales, H. P. Lovecraft held sway. This was his time, and much of the work appearing in the magazine from 1925 to 1940 clearly shows his influence. La Spina is no exception. I've seen Lovecraftian themes in all short stories by her I have read, not that many, I grant. Nevertheless, Greye La Spina has her own voice and writing style. While she sometimes will mimic Lovecraft's subject matter, she never attempts to match Lovecraft's rhetorical flourishes. Her prose is very fluid and readable.
About the book (from the blurb on it): "The manuscript that became this book of malevolent lycanthropy in the astral plane has a strange provenance. It was thrown to Greye La Spina by Sophie Delorme, a mysterious woman leaning from a window on the second story of a house that was immediately destroyed by an explosion. La Spina read and published it despite a series of threats and actual attacks by person or persons unknown. All of this took place in 1924 and the stamp of that decadent era is all over the tale about a visit to Differdale mansion by young Owen Edwards, and his encounter with Sophie's beautiful niece, Portia, and the exotic Princess Tchernova. All seems so innocent, despite the presence of a pack of wolves kept as pets by the princess, until deaths start piling up in the countryside. As Owen investigates, the clues seem to point to something more dangerous than mere feral pets: werewolves! Ramble House is proud to reprint this masterpiece of astral evil which was first published in WEIRD TALES in 1925, then later reprinted in 1960 by Arkham House."
Available new only as an e-book, the price is $17.99 from Amazon. Used copies are out there, but the book has been out of print since 1960. Arkham Press only published a small number of copies, just 1,500 if my source is right. You would expect copies therefore to be selling in the hundreds if not thousands of dollars, but surprisingly, a large number of those 1960 copies are available, as low as in the $45-$60 range. Check bookfinder.com if you're interested. At a price amounting to less than a tankful of gas these days, I couldn't resist. A 1960 Arkham Press copy (with dustjacket) is on its way to me.
Whichever way you choose to read this novel, and a free way is to pull up those three issues of Weird Tales on the internet, I hope you'll join in on the fun this summer. If you get the book electronically, you will be able to start earlier than me, but let's try to hold off commenting on the story until the first day of summer at least, which this year falls on June 21. Spoilers behind tags as always please.