ARCHIVE OF 313 TYPED LETTERS SIGNED (TLsS) and 38 TYPED NOTES SIGNED (TNsS) TO MALCOLM FERGUSON, WRITTEN BETWEEN 1941-1970, ALL UNPUBLISHED. The earliest letter is dated 22 August 1941, and the last letter is dated 8 June 1970. All letters and notes are single-spaced. Most are typed on Derleth’s personal stationary, but some are on letterhead from Arkham House, Stanton & Lee, or THE CAPITAL TIMES where Derleth served as the literary editor from 1941 to 1960. Three letters are V-Mail microfilms from World War II. The letters range in length from a single short paragraph to several pages. with most being Derleth's typical half-page correspondence. Thirty-six of the notes are on postcards, many imprinted with logos from either Arkham House or Stanton & Lee; one note is at the bottom of a signed typed note from Harrison Smith (1888 to 1971), the founder of Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, on stationary from THE SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, for which he served as the president and associate editor from 1938 to 1966; and one note is on the verso of an invoice for a copy of Marjorie Bowen’s BLACK MAGIC from Edw. G. Allen & Son, Ltd. A number of the letters contain remarks in Ferguson’s hand on the versos. Accompanied by several folders of ancillary material from Ferguson to his friend and fellow researcher John D. Squires (1948-2012) who acquired Derleth’s letters from Ferguson in 2000. The ancillary material is comprised of original and photocopied correspondence between Ferguson to Squires; photocopies of letters from Ferguson to noted M. P. Shiel scholar Reynolds Morse (1914-2000); photocopies of a brief exchange between Ferguson and C. S. Lewis about their mutual admiration of M. P. Shiel; and photocopies and typed manuscripts of several essays by Ferguson. The archive also includes Squires' working copy of "Dear Malcolm: August Derleth's Letters to Malcolm Ferguson: 1941-1970," a spiral-bound photocopy of Derleth's correspondence with Ferguson of which 5 copies were made for private circulation only to Ferguson, Squires, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the A. Reynolds Morse M. P. Shiel Collection at Olin Library, Rollins College. August Derleth's correspondence with Malcolm Ferguson (1919-2011) covers a 29-year period beginning in August of 1941 when Ferguson is a sophomore studying English literature at Harvard. His final letter to Ferguson is dated 8 June 1970, a little over a year before Derleth's death from a heart attack in 1971. A former sergeant in the Medical Administration Corps during World War II, Ferguson ran an antiquarian bookshop for 12 years in Brookfield, New Hampshire, and worked as a librarian for MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. As avid book collectors and readers, Ferguson and Derleth shared many common interests, including weird fiction, regional writing, Thoreau, and newspaper cartoons. Ferguson also published 5 stories in WEIRD TALES in the 1940s, most notably "Croatan" in the July 1948 issue. Because of the level of trust and friendship that developed over the years between the two colleagues, Derleth's letters are a significant archive of revealing insights into his work as a writer, editor, and publisher; his tastes in weird fiction; his business acumen; and his personal and professional struggles. For all the swagger and self-confidence in his letters, Derleth's insecurities about himself as an author are evident throughout. He is keenly aware that the numerous editing and writing projects he must undertake to keep Arkham House financially afloat greatly reduces his time for engaging in more serious work, such as his poetry, the SAC PRAIRIE SAGA (1937-1971), and non-fiction like WALDEN WEST (1961). Derleth's career as a writer and editor is, in fact, dictated entirely by market trends in mainstream publishing, what he can sell easily and to whom, so that Arkham House can remain a going concern. The frequency of the letters--often several per week during the earliest years--steadily tapers off after 1950 as Derleth raises a family, suffers health issues, and continues to face heavy demands on his time to keep Arkham House solvent. Derleth's letters also highlight Ferguson's role in the development of Arkham House during the 1940s and 1950s. From the outset, Ferguson functions as a researcher for Derleth, tracking down books and periodicals in the days before the Internet when physical copies of publications were essential for evaluating a novel or story's content. When he can, Ferguson buys books directly for Derleth, placing advertisements in trade publications for specific titles Derleth needs. More importantly, Ferguson's access to Harvard's library system allows him to borrow books he then sends to Derleth to photocopy. He also searches library holdings of periodicals for stories by classic authors of supernatural from the late 19th and early 20th century whom Derleth is considering publishing collections by. Later, when Ferguson is stationed in England during the latter part of World War II, he locates volumes of weird fiction that Derleth wants to evaluate for possible publication in the United States by Arkham House, including Le Fanu's MADAME COWL'S GHOSTS AND OTHER TALES OF MYSTERY (1923), R. H. Malden's NINE GHOSTS (1943), A. M. Burrage's SOMEONE IN THE ROOM (1931), L. P. Hartley's NIGHT FEARS (1924), and Margaret Irwin's MADAME FEARS THE DARK (1935), books that Derleth has never been able to acquire because of their scarcity, many of which he considers unobtainable. For acquiring books and conducting research, Derleth not only reimburses Ferguson financially but also sends him copies of every Arkham House title he publishes in addition to review copies of the 50+ books Derleth receives weekly from publishers so that Ferguson can sell them in his bookshop. Not surprisingly, at Ferguson's request, Derleth provides frank criticism and editorial guidance, often somewhat harsh, on Ferguson's stories, poems, and essays, occasionally submitting some of them on Ferguson's behalf to periodicals such as PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY and THE SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. In addition, Derleth recommends books for Ferguson to read, such as Thomas Burke's LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS (1916) and John Collier's PRESETING MOONSHINE (1941), works Derleth feels share affinities with Ferguson's own fiction. He eventually includes the story he considers Ferguson's best, "A Damsel with a Dulcimer" in the Arkham House anthology, NIGHT'S YAWNING PEAL: A GHOSTLY COMPANY (1952). As his letters emphasize at great length, Derleth's prodigious output and tireless work ethic are absolute necessities given that Arkham House's survival is entirely dependent upon his personal finances and his success as a writer and editor in a variety of markets, a situation that results in him constantly shouldering substantial debt. Derleth rarely mentions any efforts or assistance from Arkham House's co-founder, Donald Wandrei, and his only constant support is Alice Conger, who functions as his secretary, stenographer, bookkeeper, research assistant, and even chauffeur since Derleth himself does not drive. Although he hires local high school boys to help with shipping books and mailing catalogues, the work of editing, proofing, advertising, and marketing Arkham House titles, as well as filling book orders, falls directly to Derleth. Given his responsibilities as a publisher, the fact that Derleth holds himself to a yearly output of at least 500,000 words is no less astonishing than his ability to simultaneously work on multiple writing projects across genres, including novels, short stories, poems, and essays. As his correspondence also makes clear, sales of Arkham House books are modest at best even during its steadiest periods, often barely covering their printing and binding expenses, especially after the start of World War II when paper, postage, and printing costs increased dramatically. Derleth's remarks to Ferguson about his fear of being drafted are particularly revealing in terms of the enormous pressure Derleth repeatedly finds himself under: "I have not only the affairs of Arkham House, which are more extensive than one may think, but a debt load of $13,000, my literary editorship of the Capital Times, contractual obligations to half a dozen publishers, and so on, so on, all of which will worry me since I know that if I am pulled away from my desk, even if with the gov[ernment]'s moratorium on debts, it will take too long to readjust and I will in all probability lose everything I have worked so hard for 20 years to have. Moreover, I have been driving myself very hard in the past two years, and the result is that I have just been pulled back from the edge of nervous prostration. Yet I have to work, I can't help it; if I don't, I start thinking, and after a spell of that, I begin getting melancholy spells again, and the whole damned cycle starts over" (27 November 1943). Derleth's mention of "melancholy spells" to Ferguson suggests Derleth may be manic depressive or bi-polar, a condition which would account not only for his incredible productivity but also for some otherwise inexplicable business decisions he makes in 1945 when unpaid printing bills have mounted to $15,000. Despite such debt, Derleth decides to create two additional publishing imprints, Staunton & Lee for his regional writing and juvenile books, and Mycroft & Moran for his Solar Pons stories and reissue of William Hope Hodgson's CARNACKI THE GHOST FINDER (1947). Derleth also increases his already overly ambitious publishing schedule to include several key collections of weird and fantastic fiction that never materialize and are eventually published by other specialty presses, most notably C. L. Moore's SHAMBLEAU (Gnome Press, 1953), Henry Kuttner's MIMZY WERE THE BORGROVES (as GNOME THERE WAS, Simon and Schuster, 1950), and Manly Wade Wellman's WORSE THINGS WAITING (Carcosa, 1973). Other planned Arkham House titles from this period, such as Marjorie Bowen's KECKSIES AND OTHER TWILIGHT TALES (1976), M. P. Shiel's XELUCHA AND OTHER STORIES (1975), and Mary Wilkens-Freeman's COLLECTED GHOST STORIES (1974) are not published by Arkham House until several years after Derleth's death in 1971. When Ferguson offers to loan him $1,000 in the early fall, Derleth writes, "I have things pretty well in hand, thanks to Redbook's check for THE WIND IN THE CEDARS ($5,000), and the coming royalty checks due ($3,500). Consider: SOMETHING NEAR, WITCH HOUSE, 'IN RE: SHERLOCK HOLMES,' THE OPENER OF THE WAY, and THE LURKER AT THE THRESHOLD are all paid for in toto (at the printer's, current and running expenses not counted); even without the coming royalty check, I think I will have paid for BILL'S DIARY … within the coming 30 days. That leaves me to pay for EVENING IN SPRING, OLIVER THE WAYWARD OWL, GREEN TEA AND OTHER GHOST STORIES, THE DOLL AND ONE OTHER, and THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, 5 books which in total cost equal the previous 6. In advance orders from bookstores, there is easily half a thousand or more outstanding. I'll take a rain check on that offer of yours, particularly since next year I am erecting a building to house Arkham House, and remove the stock from my own dwelling, which his rapidly becoming overcrowded" (31 October 1945). Despite financial difficulties, Derleth is clearly in good spirits here despite his description of his home being full of Arkham House stock indicating the books are not selling as quickly as they could despite the advance orders he has yet to fill. Most importantly, Derleth's remarks at this point in his career indicate how critical writing romance novellas for REDBOOK is to Arkham House's survival. For 45,000-word pieces like THE WIND IN THE CEDARS, REDBOOK pays Derleth 11 cents a word, approximately $5,000, a considerable amount of money at that time. By 1948 when Arkham House sales are dwindling steadily, Derleth has begun to resent his reliance on such hackwork to pay the bills. "The book business is most certainly off. For us," he stresses," it's been [down] 50% or better since 1/1, and if it keeps on, the AH list will be even further protracted … As it is, I must write another Redbook novel in order to begin to catch up, a prospect I don't relish" (19 April 1948). The professional and personal toll Derleth is suffering are apparent; he knows his devotion to Arkham House is harming his career as a serious author: "Writing luck goes up and down, and actually it doesn't matter who you are (unless a Lewis or Ferber or Maugham or Baldwin with a consistent audience for whatever you write), the up-down cycle persists. At this end for instance, no sooner have I done the first chapter (10.000 words) of WESTERN WIND (already delayed 2 whole years from first intention to write it), that I must summarily put it down because Redbook flatly rejected CASSANDRA, and now I must write another for that market because I need the money that badly. That in a very real sense is far worse than any predicament of yours similarly, because I have less time left in which to do some worthwhile writing than you. We're shipping 500 copies of GENUIS LOCI today—but the advance on this title ought to have been twice that; so you can see what is draining my funds, and badly" (29 October 1948). By 1950, when REDBOOK is no longer buying Derleth's novellas regularly, he laments, "The book business is generally lousy, discouraging so. I am too much in the red to continue publishing at this time, must wat to clear some of my debt load before I go on. Unless I make a Redbook sale, this may take some time to do. The little things that sell more or less just keep me in expensive money, sometimes barely that" (27 March 1950). Most remarkably, Derleth's accounts of his never-ending financial difficulties illustrate his uncanny talent for adjusting to--and often predicting--shifting mainstream publishing trends and audience tastes. In the mid-1940s, Derleth's efforts to bring genre fiction to a wider audience through anthologies issued by major publishers is a direct result of his need to create additional income streams to support himself and Arkham House, factors that also contribute to his shift to writing more juvenile fiction in the mid-1950s. Released in 1944 from Farrar & Rinehart, Derleth's first anthology from a mainstream publisher, the highly regarded SLEEP NO MORE: TWENTY MASTERPIECES OF HORROR FOR THE CONNOISSEUR, is an enormous success. A Book-of-the-Month Club selection, SLEEP NO MORE sells out its first printing of 5,000 copies and eventually, as Derleth notes, goes into "a 4th edition, another 5,000 copies, bringing total printings to over 16,000 copies. Presumably at least 12,000 copies have so far been sold, and one can hardly complain on that score" (6 April 1945). The paperback Armed Services edition of SLEEP NO MORE, according to Derleth, is 150,000 copies, and the royalties from the anthology provide him with a significant financial boost. Derleth hopes to replicate this success with 2 additional anthologies from Rinehart, WHO KNOCKS: TWENTY SPECTRAL MASTERPIECES FOR THE CONNOISSEUR (1946) and THE NIGHT SIDE (1947); however, sales of these 2 books are not nearly as strong, and he tells Ferguson, "Rinehart, who are usually astute about such matters, tend to believe the bottom has fallen out of the anthology market" (3 March 1947). By the summer of 1948, Rinehart, in fact, has remaindered 1,500 copies of WHO KNOCKS and 3,000 copies of THE NIGHT SIDE, a far cry from the success of SLEEP NO MORE. With the market for horror fiction dwindling, Derleth focuses on science fiction anthologies, beginning with STRANGE PORTS OF CALL from Pelligrini and Cudahy in April 1948, a move no doubt prompted by Arkham House's success with A. E. van Vogt's SLAN, a science fiction novel that is Arkham House's fastest-selling title in the 1940s. "STRANGE PORTS OF CALL," Derleth writes, "has done quite well, about 4,000 to date, I understand, and that is enheartening" (10 July 1948). He quickly follows STRANGE PORTS OF CALL with 4 additional science fiction anthologies published between 1949 and 1951, but almost immediately, he grasps how mainstream publishers will eventually oversaturate the market with too much product. As Derleth observes in the spring of 1950, "S-F … is currently the rage, and I fear, being pushed into the ground at the same time" (24 April). With publishing trends and the public's reading tastes fickle at best, specific genres fall in and out of favor quickly, circumstances that influence not only the success of Derleth's anthologies from mainstream publishers but also specialty titles from Arkham House: "Things are slow, very slow. AH sales are way off, though my anthologies seem to do fairly well, because s-f is all the rage now, and other fantasy has declined in public interest, at least temporarily" (8 May 1950). As the demand for science fiction anthologies slows, Derleth's pivot to writing historical novels for young readers allows him to tap into an entirely new market, albeit one that is less financially rewarding despite its popularity. Sales for Derleth's historical juvenile novels, which he considers substantially inferior to his more literary writing, eclipse the sales for any of his horror and science fiction anthologies or Sac Prairie novels. "My most recent royalty reports," he states, "indicate that my own best-selling books are my mediocre junior historicals—each of the first two, THE COUNTRY OF THE HAWK and THE CAPTIVE ISLAND, has now passed 15,000. Closest competitor has been SLEEP NO MORE (14,000) and then came WIND OVER WISCONSIN (10,000). It astonishes me, to tell the truth, though the royalty is pathetically low—from 2 and 3/10ths cents per copy to 7 " (8 April 1954). Likewise, during this same period, his juvenile mysteries featuring Stephen Grendon and Simoleon Jones become another important source of income that allows Arkham House to keep publishing collections of weird fiction. As he notes on the eve of Arkham House's twentieth anniversary in 1959, "The Jr. Literary Guild has tagged my August book, THE MILL CREEK IRREGULARS, with a 12,000-copy print order, which ought to help me pay for Smith's YONDO" (24 July). Given their mutual love of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, Derleth, as might be expected, freely shares his frank assessments of numerous authors and their works with Ferguson, providing considerable insight into his personal literary tastes and reading habits during the formative years of Arkham House. Among classic ghost stories, Derleth praises Robert Hitchens' "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" (1897), and he considers May Sinclair's "The Intercessor" (1911) to be "one of the finest ghost tales I know" (10 Marcy 1944). He refers to Dennis Parry's little-known supernatural novel, THE SURVIVOR (1940), as "the best of the recent novels in this genre" (15 November 1941), and he states that Arthur Machen's "HILL OF DREAMS is his best, bar none. Then I think THE THREE IMPOSTERS" (23 September 1946). Derleth proclaims THE MARTAIN CHRONICLES as the "best s-f of the year … really superb" (15 May 1950), but he believes Bradbury's ego is swelling due to his increasing success: "Ray Bradbury, for all his excellence as a writer, is developing an overweening sense of self-importance, which is amazing. I called him on it though' (7 December 1950). Other writers Derleth admires include E. F. Benson, Thomas Burke, Robert W. Chambers, Maurice Level, and Oliver Onions, as well as classic weird fiction authors from the United Kingdom whose work he is interested in bringing to an American audience, such as Algernon Blackwood, M. P. Shiel, and H. R. Wakefield. Even writers whom he has championed, however, are not spared Derleth's critical eye. Of William Hope Hodgson, he notes, "I am virtually dead from proofing THE NIGHT LAND; Hodgson is the most abominable writer in the field of the weird, for punctuation, capitalization, and just generally bad writing; he tops them all—that is, of the better writers" (9 May 1959). Of Clark Ashton Smith, he states, "I agree with you about most of Smith's excesses, yet I enjoy most of his fiction; his s-f is mediocre on the whole, exemplifying the difficulties of trite stale plots in Smith's prose. I think WT would publish anything Smith sends the magazine" (17 May 1949). Derleth's most brutal comments for an Arkham House author are reserved for Seabury Quinn who for "bad writing … nobody could top" (9 May 1946). Although Quinn's Christmas novella, ROADS, initially has strong sales of 800 copies in just two weeks, Derleth does not think highly of the work: "The story is so-so, as you might expect it would be of SQ. Q., however, is tremendously set up about it, and already has all the roseate visions of all 'first' book authors, dreaming fantastically of radio, movie, and all other sources of income. Ah, me! Only experience can teach them!" (13 December 1948). Derleth's criticisms of authors and books he truly detests are even harsher. He refers to L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER as "a lousy weird novel, pure bilge" (24 September 1941), remarking, "I can't see much in de Camp, and if I ever do a survey of the weird tale in English from 1880 or thereabouts, I'll dress him down all right" (2 October 1941). He characterizes Jack Snow's DARK MUSIC AND OTHER SPECTRAL TALES as "indescribably awful" (14 March 1947) and stresses, "I assure you without any sort of prejudice it is the worst book in the field currently being offered to the suckers—and whoever busy it IS a sucker (19 March 1947). Stanley G. Weinbaum's A MARTIAN ODYSSEY fares no better in Derleth's opinion since "W. could hardly write above the claptrap pulp level" 4 June 1949). In addition to the wealth of details about his writing career and managing Arkham House, Derleth's letters to Ferguson highlight Ferguson's role as his confidante whom Derleth trusts with intimate details about his personal life, including colleagues and friends in Sauk City, romantic affairs, and the strain of raising a family. Derleth's tortured account of his relationship with his wife, Sandra Winters, whom he first meets when she is 14 and he is 39, is particularly poignant. When Winters is 5 months pregnant with their first child, for example, Derleth's finances are so dire that the couple cannot afford a freezer or TV and Arkham House may have to cease publishing. "The financial strain is more than I can bear," he admits, and "I do not see how I can continue on" (25 March 1954). Furthermore, Ferguson's handwritten comments on the verso of several of Derleth's letters and cards provide a fascinating addendum to their correspondence, ranging from grocery lists, books Ferguson intends to recommend to Derleth, and the revelation that Ralph Adams Cram, noted author of the classic weird fiction collection, BLACK SPIRITS & WHITE (1895), was architectural partners with Ferguson's grandfather and "self-taught, having never been to college … and needed the superior engineering ability of my grandfather to found his dream castles" (3 May 1945). A previously untapped resource of indispensable biographical and bibliographical information, August Derleth's letters to Malcolm Ferguson merit further detailed study for any scholar or researcher interested in Derleth's life and career, as well as Arkham House's successes and struggles as one of the first major specialty presses of the 20th Century. While Derleth's ambitions as a publisher and an author always exceeded his grasp, what he accomplished with his own writing and with Arkham House is truly astonishing, a testament to his unbelievable work ethic and his devotion to the authors of weird fiction he so deeply loved.
Price: $35,000.00
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