In late 1937, after Lovecraft's death, Derleth and Wandrei sought to produce a collection of their friend's best weird fiction from the pulp magazines into a memorial volume. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. This article is about the city in fiction. Row after row of garish covers caught the eye romance, mystery, detective stories, westerns, and every variety of sports. I really love the format of the Arkham House books, and I was starting to get a good collection going too. Click to view African American Literature Part II The 1800s: Age of Abolitionists & Slave Narratives. Posted on January 25, 2022 by Don. The mainstream market for anthologies and single author collections of short fiction was oversold and sales were declining. While we have softened that somewhat in the current edition with only penalizing the trapped Investigator by sending them to Lost in Space & After several failed attempts to interest major publishers in the omnibus volume, the two men realized no publisher would be willing to take a chance with the collection. Show more Hide chat replay. One of Lovecrafts ghostwriting collaborations was penning a story for Weird Tales credited to magician Harry Houdini titled Imprisoned With the Pharaohs, in 1924. Batman Haunted House - Escape from Arkham Asylum at Warner Bros. Also in 1947 were books by three American writers, including the science fiction novel Slan by A.E. In 1948 Arkham House published six books: THE TRAVELLING GRAVE AND OTHER STORIES by L. P. Hartley, THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND by Donald Wandrei, THE FOURTH BOOK OF JORKENS by Lord Dunsany, ROADS by Seabury Quinn, GENIUS LOCI AND OTHER TALES by Clark Ashton Smith, and NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD by August Derleth, plus the first four issues of THE ARKHAM SAMPLER (four more were published in 1949). Like us for recipes, giveaways and more. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Turner expanded the company's range of authors to include such prominent science fiction and fantasy writers as Michael Bishop, Lucius Shepard, Bruce Sterling, James Tiptree, Jr., Michael Shea and J. G. Ballard, often publishing hardcover collections of shorter works. If Arkham House is truly gone not only does it mean that we lost a very historical publisher, but it's going to become next to impossible to find a used Arkham book at a reasonable price. 2023, Urban Milwaukee, Inc. All rights reserved. Arkham House suggested itself at once, since it was Lovecraft's own well-known, widely-used place-name for legend-haunted Salem, Massachusetts, in his remarkable fiction; it seemed to us that . Among the handful of books published during this decade were two slim volumes of verse by Clark Ashton Smith, prequels to his mammoth SELECTED POEMS (1971), THE FEASTING DEAD, a very short vampire novel by British writer John Metcalfe, NINE HORRORS AND A DREAM, the first collection of weird tales by the American poet Joseph Payne Brennan, and THE SHUTTERED ROOM AND OTHER PIECES, a miscellany of work by and about H. P. Lovecraft with "an abundance of interesting matter" (Joshi). Arkham House published under two additional imprints during its history. Arkham House remains a power in sf publishing, with books like Gravity's Angels (coll 1991) by Michael Swanwick; and with the memorial and definitive Her Smoke Rose up Forever (coll 1990) Arkham House did for James Tiptree Jr what half a century earlier it had done for Lovecraft and Smith. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. A lifelong love of the written word brought her to Biblio and she happily spends her days talking about books and delving into the wide world of antiquarian books. She became majority stockholder, President, and CEO of Arkham House in 1994, in which capacity she remained until her death. [6][7][8][9][10] The publisher's website announced in April 2011 that her children would take over the running of the firm. To put it bluntly and he did Derleth told me flat out I would never be a professional writer.. These papers and those held by WHS are essentially all the Arkham House papers that survive. Developed by Atom Brain Games and published by Bonus Stage Publishing. [2] Arkham Asylum, a fictional mental hospital in DC Comics' Batman mythos, is also named after Lovecraft's Arkham.[3]. From 1944 through 1948, in addition to his duties as director of Arkham House and editor and publisher of Mycroft & Moran and Stanton & Lee, Derleth published twelve of his own books (novels, poetry and nonfiction) with other publishers, as well as editing five anthologies of fantastic literature. This is an incredible feat for a small wartime and immediate post-war publisher, basically a one-man operation funded by loans from Derleth (his building loan for his home, Place of Hawks, and later mortgages on the property) and from Arkham House printer, the George Banta Printing Company. Derleth was a fan and promoter of Lovecrafts work and Lovecraft, likewise, was a fan of some of Derleths work. There's much reluctance in his decision as he fears that . 7. Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, Who Shall I Say Is Calling & Other Stories, Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 19611991, The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions, Dreams of Dark and Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee, Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft V (19341937), Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft IV (19321934), Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside, Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft III (19291931), Thirty Years of Arkham House, 193969: A History and Bibliography, Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft II (19251929), Colonel Markesan and Less Pleasant People, Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft I (19111924), The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, Dark of the Moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre, The House on the Borderland and Other Novels, "THE LOVECRAFT EXPERT: AN INTERVIEW WITH S.T. As of September 14, 2022 the Arkham House web site, arkhamhouse.com, has been down for several weeks. FINE book in FINE DJ. There is nothing in common betwixt Derleth A and Derleth B- no point of contact in their mental worlds- and yet one brain houses them bothartist and businessman, standing back to back and never speaking!. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. So, I still believe in the industry," Zhou added. In 1997, Peter Ruber was appointed as her consulting editor and successor to James Turner. 1948. . Arkham House has published so many good books and they are not just good for reading. H. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. Robert Weinberg has written that: "However, intense competition from the SF (science fiction) small presses as well as slow sales of certain titles put August Derleth in a precarious bind. The David Rajchel Arkham House Arkham House Archive documents extensively Derleth's work as a writer, editor, and publisher. The precise location of Arkham is unspecified, although it is probably near both Innsmouth and Dunwich. Literally hundreds of periodicals including the popular weekly and monthly pulp magazines ranked in gaudy array. Arkham House was officially in business when August Derleth and Donald Wandrei signed the George Banta Publishing Company's "Proposal for Printing" THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS by H. P. Lovecraft dated 25 August 1939. The architecture is still oppressive, and the better-known inmates seem to enjoy making life hell for each other, but it is shown to have some good doctors, who have some sadly temporary success with Harvey Dent, Harley Quinn and Edward Nygma. After changing hands many times, Arkham House is still publishing today. was less than completely devoted to Arkham House. The website has been in pretty sad shape for many years--not much content, nothing published recently. And it can take credit for launching the career of another writer -- one who perhaps secured a loftier status in weird fiction than any of those named, Lovecraft alone excepted: Ramsey Campbell" (S. T. Joshi). Charmaine Bingwa. no later than 5 p.m. on the seventh (7) business day following the sale. HOW? 1268 copies of this "landmark in the history of weird fiction and American publishing" (Joshi) were printed and most were sold for $5.00 each (then a high list price for a book of fiction). In this New England village, and nearby towns Dunwich, Kingsport and Innsmouth, we can turn our gaze over the gentle rolling hills and quiet old farms and see no trace of the ever-unfolding, gibbering horrors that originated in these thankfully fictitious places, fresh from the mind of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Among America's most important and best known twentieth-century small publishers, Arkham House Publishers (named for the fictional Massachusetts city loosely modeled on Salem, Massachusetts, the setting for many of H. P. Lovecraft's stories) had an enormous impact on the course and development of the horror fiction genre, particularly in the United States. He boasted of Derleths diverse skill in a letter to Lovecraft Circle writer E. Hoffmann Price, telling him he would send him copies of some of Derleths regional themed short stories. On that estate, there is a cozy-looking sandstone house, surrounded by trees, called the Place of Hawks. This reclusive, multi-storey gothic manor was constructed by Eric Mercey, a Gotham socialite who'd made his millions in the cement business, and had been abandoned for about ten years when the Joker arrived. These words of reflection penned by August Derleth some 20 years after the creation of Arkham House (AH) show the initial purpose of AH, but they also foretell what was to become of this now . That is not dead that can eternal lie. They also used amazing illustrations from Ronald Clyne, Frank Utpatel, Richard Taylor and Hannes Bok. Still down today, 10/31/22. Banta Proposal to Print THE OUTSIDER (1939), Request for Permission to Reprint a Short Story by H. F. Heard in BEYOND TIME AND SPACE (1950), Letter to Derleth from Rinehart About Extra Charges for Edits and Corrections, Typescript of a Short Story by A. E. Coppard, First Page of a Letter to Derleth from Brian Lumley, 21 May 1968, Letter to Derleth from Brian Lumley, 26 October 1970, Letter to Derleth from H. Russell Wakefield, 15 August 1946, Handwritten Manuscript of a Short Story by H. Russell Wakefield, Letter from Henry S. Whitehead to Bernard Austin Dwyer, 22 September 1930, Typescript of a Short Story by Colin Wilson, Letter from Ramsey Campbell to Derleth, 10 August [i.e. Writer and editor August Derleth, seen here at his desk in the Place of Hawks. For the fictional asylum featured in, Bibliography of works published by Arkham House. 1944. . Anyone able to shed any light on the matter? On March 15, 1937, Bloch got a somber phone call from Derleth Lovecraft was dead at age 46. Does anyone know if Arkham House are still in business? Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Membership, which includes a host of perks, including an ad-free website, tickets to marquee events like Summerfest, the Wisconsin State Fair and the Florentine Opera, a better photo browser and access to members-only, behind-the-scenes tours, starts at $9/month. Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. The archive is also rich in material covering Derleth's involvement with the postwar entertainment industry and his business with many literary and artist's agents. But the big money was in films, and Derleth's biggest asset was a dead author whose work ultimately turned out not to be an Arkham House property -- it was in the public domain. Although he achieved a small bit of cult fame among his peers and readers during his lifetime, Lovecrafts impact lives on through his influence on modern horror, and through the publishing house named after his infamous town of Arkham. #8 A more recent mapping of Lovecraft Country reinforces this suggestion,[citation needed] with Arkham being situated close to the location of Gordon College; in Lovecraft's work this would presumably be replaced by Miskatonic University itself. I've also heard they tend to cancel orders abruptly. Arkham himself was slowly driven insane shortly following the grisly murder of his wife and child by a lunatic named Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins. But Derleth's perseverance ultimately brought new, fresh literary talent into the Arkham House tent (including Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley and Basil Copper) and he managed to continue publishing the work of the older writers as well (including H. Russell Wakefield, John Metcalfe, Frank Belknap Long and Clark Ashton Smith). To summarise, collecting Arkham House can be very rewarding, there's an active buying and selling community, plenty of books for all budgets, and even ephemera. Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Splatterhouse easter eggs and references guide", "The Real Ghostbusters (a Titles & Air Dates Guide)", "A Short Tour of Lovecraftian New England", Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arkham&oldid=1138785932, Fictional populated places in Massachusetts, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Wikipedia articles with style issues from March 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Arkham appears in "The Collect Call of Cthulhu", episode 32 from season 2 of, "An Arkham Halloween", a short story appearing in Bewildering Stories, in which The, Arkham is the setting for all of the stories in the 2006 anthology, Arkham is mentioned in two novels by author, This page was last edited on 11 February 2023, at 16:21. Reproduction of book descriptions in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Biblio can save you 10% everyday on your book purchases. Honestly, Arkham House appears to be half-dead. JOSHI", "Locus Online News April R. Derleth (1954-2011)", "SF Site News Obituary: April R. Derleth", "Longtime operator of publishing firm dies", Inventory of the Arkham House Collection at University of Texas Libraries, Picture of "Arkham House: A Retrospective" panel at the 2005 World Fantasy Convention, Madison Wisconsin (picture includes Walden Derleth), Picture of April and Walden Derleth representing Arkham House at the 2005 World Fantasy Convention, Madison, Wisconsin, Arkham House Still Publishing in Its 65th Year, "The Black Seas of Copyright: Arkham House and the H. P. Lovecraft Copyrights" by Chris J. Karr, "The Origins of Arkham House" by D.J. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. There are times when I am certain that all good writers should be castrated and chained to their typewriters, it would be much simpler.. Find top employees, contact details and business statistics at RocketReach. Does anyone know what's up? Three additional anthologies were prepared by Derleth during the 1950s, but Rinehart declined to publish them, and except for the sale of a rejected anthology of horror fiction, WHEN EVIL WAKES (1963), to a UK publisher, Derleth could not sell any anthologies of fantastic fiction to mainstream publishers after 1954. September] 1961. Arkham House also published horror and weird fiction by several other authors, including the first edition of Dark Carnival by Ray Bradbury. No greater compliment could have been paid me or Arkham House.'"[3]. Derleth revealed to Keller and Moskowitz that he owed his printer $2500 and had exhausted every possible source of help. Some writers were so prolific that they would write multiple stories per issue, using pseudonyms. 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