May 04, 2017 - Sale 2446

Sale 2446 - Lot 384

Price Realized: $ 3,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
"ONE FEATURE OF THE CENTURIED ATTIC ALMOST AROUSES ONE TO TENEBROUS FICTION" LOVECRAFT, H.P. Autograph Letter Signed, "Ech-Pi-El," to Clark Ashton Smith ("Dear Klarkash-Ton"), with two small ink drawings, unsigned. The letter, praising Smith's stories including "The Double Shadow," expressing doubts about the worthiness of his own older stories, describing the darkly inspiring crawlspace in his attic, thanking for an article and remarking at its potential to give rise to new fiction, anticipating the visit of Miss [Helen?] Sully, expecting vast development in "Little Bho-Blôk" [Robert Bloch], and in a postscript written at upper left of first page, promising to send a story by "Comte d'Erlette" [August Derleth]. The drawings, sketches illustrating the crawlspace, lower right of first page. 2 pages, 4to, written on the recto and verso of a single sheet; folds. (MRS) "Field of the ultra-Spectral Rays" [Providence], "Hour of the Spiral Wind from Nith" [1935?]
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"The hand that indites these words trembles with a decay that is not of years alone, & the haggard face above the page is shrivelled with a thousand lives of horror that were not there two nights ago. For . . . & every god help me . . . I looked with a mirror's aid at a passage in that crumbling tome of Elder lore which stands next the Nameless Eibon! Now--in spite of all of Heaven's vaunted mercy--I know. The veil is withdrawn . . . & I have glimpsed that which has bowed me in convulsive terror for the few days or weeks of life which remain to me. . . .
"Well--I have read the brochure through now, & can truthfully say that each of the tales retains all its original appeal for me. Indeed--I think 'The Devotee of Evil' is even stronger than before . . . . The whole thing is really magnificent--& a marvellous value for a quarter. . . . Some day I may try 'Innsmouth' & 'The Mountains' as a booklet, but I can't afford any rights now. As for my earlier rejected tales---I'm beginning to agree with [Farnsworth] Wright about them, & am not at all sure that I wish them to appear. Even my old favourite 'The Nameless City' looked pretty naive & shoddy to me the last time I re-read it.
"My ancient quarters continue to fascinate me, & one feature of the centuried attic almost arouses one to tenebrous fiction. This is the narrow & hideously nighted space in the attic under the eaves--reached from the attic proper by low doors, & having no windows whatsoever. A man--or an entity not entirely a man--could crawl in there & lurk for years, or centuries . . . unsuspected. . . .
"Thanks prodigiously for the Thibetan article . . . . I must get hold of that book somehow--it must be a veritable hive of lore. The rolang (ugh!) has vast fictional possibilities--I've made a note about it in my hellish book of plot-germs. . . .
"Little Bho-Blôk, the Daemon Larva . . . is certainly quite a boy! His present efforts are obviously juvenile & extravagant, but he has the genuine atmospheric touch, & will probably develop vastly in the next few years. . . ."
The postscript: "A new tale by Comte d'Erlette is on its way to you, via one Edward Klein of Cincinnati. Dwyer seems to be holding up The Silver Key sequel, but you'll get it in the end."