Eldritch Tales (86 page)

As a result, they were at liberty to sell paperback rights to the H.P. Lovecraft works in those territories they controlled to another publisher, if they so chose.

As Gollancz was not producing mass-market softcover books during this period, in July 1962 the publisher signed a five-year contract with Hamilton & Co. (Stafford) Ltd, owners of the Panther Books imprint, to publish
The Haunter of the Dark and Other Stories
(this is the title on the contract) in paperback. Hamilton & Co. paid Gollancz a £200.00 advance against the usual royalty for the sub-rights to this uniquely British Lovecraft collection.

In February the following year, Panther published
The Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales of Terror
at three shillings and sixpence. While the uncredited cover painting adapted an image of the monster from Hammer Films’
The Revenge of Frankenstein
(1958), the contents were the same as the 1951 Gollancz volume. The paperback edition sold well, and it was reprinted in 1965. The license was presumably extended for another five years in 1968, before being renewed for apparently a further eight years in 1973.

Boasting a much classier cover painting, the short novel
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
was also issued in a single softcover edition by Panther in May 1963. The publisher was obviously doing well with its Lovecraft reprints – so well, in fact, that they went elsewhere for their next Lovecraft volume.

With all the existing Gollancz material at that time now published in paperback in Britain, Panther apparently decided to put together its own original collection of Lovecraft’s work.

The result, published in November 1964 and entitled
The Lurking Fear and Other Stories
, took its title from a 1947 American paperback released by the Avon Book Company (and reissued in the late 1950s and early 1960s in both the US and UK as
Cry Horror!
). However, because the British rights to some stories were already being held by Gollancz, the contents were significantly different.

This new compilation contained ‘The Lurking Fear’, ‘The Shunned House’, ‘In the Vault’, ‘Arthur Jermyn’, ‘Cool Air’, ‘The Moon-Bog’, ‘The Nameless City’, ‘The Unnamable’, ‘The Picture in the House’, ‘The Terrible Old Man’, ‘The Hound’, ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ and ‘The Shadow Out of Time’.

Not only did it contain six stories that would appear in the subsequent Gollancz edition of
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales
, and another from
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror
, but the collection also included all six of the remaining Lovecraft stories that John Bush would belatedly gather together in
The Shadow Out of Time and Other Tales of Horror
some four years later!

As a consequence of these differing contents, the
Shadow Out of Time
volume eventually saw print in Britain in an abridged paperback version.

In March 1968, Panther Books bought the sub-rights for five years to
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror
for an advance of £150.00. In May the following year, Panther also contracted for the
Dagon
collection, splitting it into two volumes,
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales
and
The Tomb and Other Tales
. They paid an advance of £150.00 for each book.

Both collections appeared in paperback that same year. The six stories that had already been published in
The Lurking Fear and Other Stories
were dropped, and the remaining contents slightly re-ordered to balance out the two volumes.

Following Gollancz’s lead, Panther issued the short novel
The Lurker at the Threshold
as a single volume in 1970. Although both H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth are credited as authors, you would have to look very closely at the cover to spot the latter’s name.

Also released that same year, for a £300 advance for the rights in a contract dated January 2, 1970, Panther’s edition of
The Shuttered Room and Other Tales of Horror
contained just the ten ‘posthumous collaborations’ between the two authors that had originally appeared in
The Shadow Out of Time and Other Tales of Horror
.

Across the Atlantic, Ballantine Books had been successfully publishing Lovecraft in paperback in America for a number of years. In the early 1970s, as part of their innovative ‘Adult Fantasy’ imprint edited by Lin Carter, they decided to repackage some of the author’s ‘dream’ stories and other tales into new editions.

As the ‘Adult Fantasy’ series was also being imported into Britain through a co-publishing deal with Pan Books, this apparently sent alarm bells ringing in the Gollancz offices.

On July 9, 1971, Giles Gordon wrote to August Derleth in Sauk City: ‘There seems to be a little confusion about the rights situation in our market in some of the Lovecraft stories which we have contracted with you for. We have heard that Ballantine are planning to publish early next year two volumes in our territory under the titles
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
and
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
.’

He went on to point out that twenty of the stories Ballantine proposed to include in their two volumes had previously appeared in the Gollancz editions of
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales
and
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror
. ‘Both books which we published in this market holding the exclusive territories from you. Likewise, both books are published in paperback editions here by Panther. They are currently in print in the Panther editions, Panther having sub-contracted for the paperback rights with ourselves.’

After quoting from the pertinent clause in the contract, Gordon concluded his letter: ‘No doubt you will agree that the two proposed Ballantine volumes would be in clear violation of the rights you have granted us as both their proposed books reproduce in substantial part our two volumes.

‘We very much hope you will be able to give us your assurance as soon as possible that the Ballantine editions will not be sold in the exclusive market which you have granted us.’

What Giles Gordon did not know at the time was that August Derleth had died unexpectedly five days earlier. The man who had almost single-handedly championed the work of his friend H.P. Lovecraft for more than three decades, and who had orchestrated all the dealings between Arkham House and Victor Gollancz, had never fully recovered from gall bladder surgery. He was just 62 years old.

Despite the death of its co-founder, Arkham House continued, initially under the guidance of Forrest D. Hartmann, an attorney in the Wisconsin firm of Hill, Quale & Hartmann who represented the Estate of August Derleth.

In a letter dated November 22, 1971, and copied to Gollancz, Hartmann wrote to Don R. Benson at Ballantine Books: ‘I am still staggering under the enormous task presented by the death of August Derleth,’ he began. ‘However, slowly I am getting control of things and this letter is in regard to one of the problems that should have been taken care of months ago.’

Hartmann included a copy of Giles Gordon’s letter and observed, ‘If the facts are true as stated, it would seem that the Gollancz people have a very legitimate concern.’ He went on to suggest that Ballantine resolve the matter to everyone’s satisfaction and that Benson reply directly to the British publisher.