3
After reading the Episodes, Smith was sanguine about the project, noting that “the unfinished one is particularly good, and certainly merits an ending. I hope I can do something that won’t fall too far short. The development that Beckford intended is obvious enough.”4 As enticing as the completion was to CAS as an artistic challenge, he was worried about whether he would be able to recoup the time and money invested:5 “I don’t feel at all sure, though, that [Farnsworth] Wright will be receptive: the length of the tale will militate against it—also, perhaps, the slight hint of perversity in the affection of Zulkaïs and Kalilah.”6
Smith finished “Zulkaïs” on September 16, 1932, and promptly announced its completion, along with the presentation of a typescript, to Lovecraft in suitably mock-archaic language:
As a result of your instigation I have striven, with all due necromantic rites, and the burning of Arabian gums in censers well greened with verdigris, to invoke the spirit of William Beckford. Our ghostly collaboration has eventuated in the continuation and conclusion of Zulkaïs and Kalilah enclosed herewith. It is, of course, tentative, and may require sundry revisions ere the aforementioned revenant will fully approve it. In the meanwhile, I should greatly appreciate your opinion, before submitting the composite whole to Tyrant Pharnabeezer. My feeling is, that the arbiter of W. T. will find it too poisonous, perverse, fantastickal, et al., for his select circle of Babbitts and Polyannas.
7
A few days later CAS would write to Lester Anderson that his contribution ran to 4000 words, as opposed to 13,000 by Beckford, and described the story as “a strange mixture of the ludicrous, the grotesque, the sinister and the devilish.” 8
Smith sent “Zulkaïs” to Wright,9 who held onto the typed manuscript for several months until reluctantly returning it on grounds that “he saw no opportunity of using it at present, but might possibly ask me to re-submit it at some future time.”10 Wright found much merit in “Zulkaïs,” as evidenced by its frequent mention in his latter letters to Smith. For example, when apologizing for the rejection of “The Coming of the White Worm,” he expressed a hope that he could use it and “Zulkaïs” at a time “when we can realize our ambition for Weird Tales….” 11 Wright confided to CAS in 1934 that
My head is full of plans, to be carried out in that hypothetical future (I hope not too hypothetical) when the Depression will be far enough behind us so that plans can be brought to realization. One of these plans is to put out yearly, on excellent paper, with an attractive typeface, a really attractive book. I think we could then use your “Third Episode of Vathek;” that is, we could then publish Beckford’s work, including your ending of the third episode, and starting the book off with a foreword by yourself or Lovecraft. What say, feller?
12
Unfortunately, such a project never came to fruition; Wright instead used the resources of the Popular Fiction Publishing Company to subsidize The Magic Carpet and Oriental Stories, unprofitable companion magazines to WT, as well as an edition of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream (part of a never-realized “Wright Shakespeare Library”).
Clark submitted the story next to The Golden Book, “which has published some mildly fantastic material of late,” but in mentioning this he gave more evidence of his growing disdain for the entire publication machine: “of course, I am thoroughly cynical about the chances of acceptance. I know too much about the gutless emmets and pismires who edit magazines—particularly of the ‘quality(?)’ type.”13
By the end of 1933, CAS had decided that “Zulkaïs” was not likely ever to sell. If it were ever to achieve the dignity of print, it would be in the humbler venue of the science fiction and fantasy fanzine. He approached R. H. Barlow to print the tale.14 Barlow, an intelligent and gifted, if socially awkward, teenager who was an earnest student and collector of weird fiction, owned a printing press with which he would later publish two issues of an amateur magazine called The Dragon-Fly as well as a poetry collection by Frank Belknap Long and a special edition of HPL’s “The Cats of Ulthar” as a Christmas card. He was a logical contender for this task, since none of the other fan publishers could consider printing the tale’s combined 17,000 words. (Barlow was also planning on issuing a new collection of Smith’s poetry, to be called Incantations.) Unfortunately, various personal disasters and permanent relocations prevented Barlow from publishing “Zulkaïs” until 1937, when it led off the first issue of a mimeographed fanzine called Leaves.
Smith had wanted to include “Zulkaïs” in his third Arkham collection of short fiction, Genius Loci and Other Tales, but because of space limitations it was included instead in The Abominations of Yondo, a book that did not appear until the year before CAS died. Our text is based upon the original typescript that was sent to Barlow for Leaves, which later came into the possession of August Derleth and was used in the preparation of AY; it is now in a private collection.
1. See CAS, letter to L. Sprague de Camp, October 21, 1953 (SL 371).
2. See Peter Cannon, “The Influence of Vathek on H. P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism, ed. S. T. Joshi (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1980) 153-157.
3. HPL, letter to CAS, August 27, 1932 (ms, Northern Illinois University Library Special Collections)
4. CAS, letter to AWD, September 11, 1932 (SL 188-189).
5. Postage for the typescript cost thirty-six cents each way (cf. CAS, letter to AWD, October 8, 1932 [SL 194]).
6. CAS, letter to AWD, September 11, 1932 (SL 188-189).
7. CAS, letter to HPL, c. September 15, 1932 (SL 189).
8. CAS, letter to Lester Anderson, September 7, 1932 (ms, private collection).
9. HPL wrote to Barlow (letter, December 10, 1932) that the story was submitted for WT’s companion magazine Magic Carpet, which specialized in non-fantastic adventures in the East (O Fortunate Floridian: H. P. Lovecraft’s Letters to R. H. Barlow, ed. S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz [University of Tampa Press, 2007]), p. 44).
10. CAS, letter to AWD, February 1, 1933 (SL 199).
11. FW, letter to CAS, September 29, 1933 (ms, JHL).
12. FW, letter to CAS, April 25, 1934 (ms, JHL).
13. CAS, letter to HPL, c. March 1, 1933 (SL 203-204).
14. CAS, letter to RHB, November 16, 1933 (ms, JHL).
Genius Loci
Smith announced to August Derleth that he had “round[ed] out my third year of professional fictioneering” by writing a new story that he called “rather an experiment for me—and I hardly know what to do with it.” This story, “Genius Loci,” was completed on September 2, 1932. It dealt with
a landscape with an evil and vampiric personality, which both terrifies and allures people and finally “gets” them in some intangible, mysterious way. An old rustic, who owned the place, is found dead there, apparently of heart-failure. Years later, a landscape painter senses the quality of the place, starts doing pictures of it, and undergoes a repellent change of temperament under the influence. His host, who tells the story, calls in the painter’s fiancé to counteract this influence, but the girl is too weak, too much under the domination of her lover, to help. Finally, one night, the narrator finds the pair drowned in a swimming pool that is part of the evil meadow-bottom. The indications are, that the artist has committed suicide, and has dragged the girl with him against her will. Coincidentally with this shocking discovery, the narrator sees a strange emanation that surrounds all the features of the place like a sort of mist, forming a phantom and “hungrily wavering” projection of the whole vampirish scene. From certain curdlings in this restless, ghostly exhalation, the faces of the old man,—the first victim—and of the newly dead painter and girl—emerge as if “spewed forth by that lethal deadfall,” and are decomposed and reabsorbed. There is a hint in the tale that the painter had previously been very much frightened by something that came out of the place at night; and the presence of the old man, as an elusive figure of the scene, was also suggested. At the end, there is a hint that the narrator may eventually make a fourth victim. It was all damnably hard to do, and I am not certain of my success. I am even less certain of being able to sell it to any editor—it will be too subtle for the pulps, and the highbrows won’t like the supernatural element. Oh, hell….