“A Night in Malnéant” was completed on October 15, 1929, according to one of two typescripts at JHL (one in the CAS papers, and the other the original manuscript presented to HPL in the Lovecraft Collection.) FW rejected it, stating that while “I was rather charmed by this story… the plot thread is too slight and I fear that it would not go over with our readers. I may underestimate the artistic appreciation of our readers, but I think not.”¹ Writing several years later of this rejection, CAS quoted Wright’s remarks to Virgil Finlay, adding that “Possibly [FW] is right in this. I doubt if any of my work will ever have a wide public appeal, since the ideation and esthetics of my tales and poems are too remote from the psychology of the average reader. It is reassuring, however, that my work should appeal so strongly to a few.”² CAS revised the story “which I lightened of several paragraphs and sentences which really contributed nothing to the story’s development,”³ but to no avail. It would finally appear in an edited form in the September 1939 issue of WT, in which form it was reprinted in OST. Before that appearance, though, CAS submitted it to other magazines such as Trend⁴ before selecting it for inclusion in his self-published collection The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies. He describes the story in an advertising flyer for this as “The tale of a bereaved lover who sought oblivion in far wanderings, but found the phantom of his dead love awaiting him in a spectral city.” CAS presented the original typescript to HPL, who wrote him that “It has the true dream-quality in a phenomenally great degree, & seems full of the subtle Poe-Dunsany element which I vainly seek in most weird writing.”⁵ CAS ranked the story as his third favorite among those included in the pamphlet,⁶ and would include it in a proposed paperback collection of his stories, Far From Time, that he unsuccessfully marketed in the fifties. The text used follows The Double Shadow and the typescript given to HPL.

1. FW, letter to CAS, April 19, 1930 (ms, JHL).

2. CAS, letter to Virgil Finlay, September 27, 1937 (SL 315).

3. CAS, letter to AWD, May 26, 1932 (ms, SHSW).

4. AWD, letter to CAS, July 23 [1933] (ms, JHL): “I understand [Trend] took your

A NIGHT IN MALNEANT, so H. P. writes, and undertook to compliment the editors when I last wrote to them.”

5. HPL, letter to CAS, October 29, 1929 (Arkham House transcripts).

6. CAS, letter to DAW, August 6, 1933 (SL 217).

The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake

The story was completed on October 9–10, 1929, according to dates on the holograph and typed copies of the first draft that CAS presented to his friend George Haas. However, this represents an earlier draft that does not incorporate plot changes suggested by Mrs. Sully: “This latter is pretty punk, except for the touch of genuine horror at the end—which by the way, I owe to the same friend who liked ‘Randolph Carter’ so much. It was she who suggested the finding of the bloody rattles in Godfrey’s clenched hand. Apart from this the tale owes something to Bierce.”¹ (CAS is probably referring to Bierce’s story “The Man and the Snake.”) HPL responded to the story with his typical enthusiasm and encouragement: “‘The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake’ is haunting, too. You manage to fill the atmosphere with a certain dark portentousness as the end approaches, & the climax fits on very neatly—even though it is an adopted suggestion.”² FW accepted the story for the October 1931 issue of WT, and paid CAS twenty dollars.³ It was collected posthumously in OD. The title used on the manuscripts is “The Resurrection of the Rattle-Snake,” but CAS was inconsistent in his spelling of this term, so we have settled upon his most usual nomenclature.

1. CAS, letter to HPL, January 27, 1930 (SL 109, LL 6).

2. HPL, letter to CAS, February 2, 1930 (ms, JHL).

3. FW, letter to CAS, January 27, 1930 (ms, JHL).

Thirteen Phantasms

The only existing manuscript is a typescript at the JHL of a late draft called “Twenty-Nine Phantasms” that is dated October 11, 1929. We cannot locate any references to this story among CAS’s correspondence, nor can we find evidence of its submission to any magazine prior to its publication in Julius Schwartz’s fanzine Fantasy Magazine for March 1936. The title change was apparently made by CAS, since on his “Completed Stories” log “Twenty-Nine” is struck through and replaced by “13.” In addition, Roy A. Squires offered for sale a typescript of the story under the current title in his Catalog no. 7 (1973?) Despite the name change, the Brown University typescript and Fantasy Magazine versions are essentially identical, differing only in details such as paragraphing. It was likewise uncollected during CAS’s lifetime, being collected in OD.

The Venus of Azombeii

Completed on November 4, 1929, “The Venus of Azombeii” was accepted by FW for publication in the June-July 1931 issue of WT, for which CAS received the munificent sum of seventy-five dollars. CAS described the story to Derleth thus: “The tale is an odd mixture of poetry and melodrama, and may (I’m not sure) prove quite popular with Wright’s clientele. It was one of my earliest, and has had to wait about eighteen months for publication.”¹ Writing to HPL of the lack of overt supernaturalism in the story, CAS observed that “I’d like some time to edit a collection of first-class weird fiction, and would exclude from it anything that lacked the authentic note of supernatural and cosmic terror. A lot of my own stuff, such as ‘The Venus of Azombeii,’ would scarcely be eligible!”² “The Venus of Azombeii” received third ranking in the O. Henry Memorial Award Stories of 1932, ed. Blanche Colton Williams (NY: Doubleday, 1932). It was collected posthumously in OD. This text is based upon a typescript at JHL.

1. CAS, letter to AWD, June 15, 1931 (SL 154).

2. CAS, letter to HPL, c. early November 1931 (SL 166).

The Tale of Satampra Zeiros

Completed on November 16, 1929, “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” was published in WT’s November 1931 issue, and was included in LW. Lovecraft positively bubbled over with enthusiasm for the story when he read it in manuscript:

I must not delay in expressing my well-nigh delirious delight at “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros”—which has veritably given me the one arch-kick of 1929! Yug! n’gha k’yun bth’gth R’lyeh gllur ph’ngui Cthulhu yzkaa … . what an atmosphere! I can see & feel & smell the jungle around immemorial Commoriom, which I am sure must lie buried today in glacial ice near Olathoë, in the land of Lomar! It is of this crux of elder horror, I am certain, that the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred was thinking when he—even he—left something unmention’d & signify’d by a row of stars in the surviving codex of his accursed & forbidden

Necronomicon!

You have achieved in its fullest glamour the exact Dunsanian touch which I find it almost impossible to duplicate, & I am sure that even the incomparable Nuth would have been glad to own Satampra Zeiros as his master. Altogether, I think this comes close to being your high spot in prose fiction to date—for Zothar’s sake keep it up…. my anticipations assume fantastic proportions!

¹