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Ah, horror orgies! Fond memories!

The most memorable horror orgies were each based on a single book. And, of those, three stand out from the rest:

M. G. Lewis The Monk (abridged edition Paul Elek, Bestseller Library, 1960).

L. Sprague de Camp (ed.) Swords and Sorcery (Pyramid Books, 1963). This title now sounds unpromising to my ear, but it includes such gems as Clark Ashton Smith's The Testament of Athammaus and C L Moore's Hellsgarde. For me at least, this was my first introduction to Clark Ashton Smith. We both emerged from the horror orgy as his devotees.

Bernhardt J. Hurwood (ed.) Monsters Galore (Fawcett Gold Medal Books, 1965). A wonderful compilation of grue -- both fictional and fact-based. It was, for both of us, a first introduction to the opening passage of Varney the Vampire and to the real life (and real death) Countess Bathory. Best of all, perhaps, were a series of of what we might call "world stories" (by analogy with world music) as told (or re-told) by Bernhardt J. Hurwood himself. They include a number of Siberian demon tales and Mohammed Bux and the Demon. I haven't seen these stories elsewhere and have wondered sometimes whether Bernhardt J. Hurwood made them up from scratch. Good luck to him if he did!

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I remember those - but I needed reminding by a superior retention.

The underlying theme, I do recall, was 'The Hound' in those ancient days and in more recent readings.
'The Hound' is indeed a masterpiece. More musical even than the Music of Erich Zann, often more enigmatic than the deepest poetry, and it slides off the tongue like it was meant to be and could not exist in any other way.
A credo, an archetype, an incantation, a perfect confection of form and content...
The inaugural flight of the craftigator.

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I agree that The Hound is like a piece of music. It is a wonderful piece of sound more than it is a story, in my opinion. (Paradoxically, perhaps, it is much more so than any of Lovecraft's verse.) Possibly because of its musicality, The Hound is (like good music) endlessly reprisable. And, no doubt, because of this reprisability I think that the majority of our horror orgies included a reading of The Hound (perhaps the vast majority of them). Whether any of the three horror orgies I mentioned included the story, I don't know. I'm virtually certain that the Monk one didn't. (Reading the entire book was a tall order without tacking on anything else!) None of the three books include The Hound, but it is possible that a reading of the story was added to either or both of the Monsters Galore and Swords and Sorcery horror orgies.

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I’ve scanned in the covers of the books that formed the bases for the three great horror orgies.

First of all, the front and back covers of the edition of The Monk which Des read to me during a single night. This was the first edition of The Monk that either of us had seen.

This isn’t the horror orgy copy, but it’s the same edition, with the same cover.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1095

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1094

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Here’s my second posting of the covers of the books that formed the bases for the three great horror orgies. This time, Monsters Galore.

This isn’t the horror orgy copy, but it’s the same edition, with the same cover.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1097

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1096

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Here’s my final posting of the covers of the books that formed the bases for the three great horror orgies – this time Swords & Sorcery.

This is the actual horror orgy copy, presented to me (as a gift) by Des whilst I was an in-patient in Lancaster University Medical Centre. That was in the summer of 1969. The Swords & Sorcery horror orgyhad taken place at some time during that academic year. This time, as well as scans of the back and front covers, there is also one of inside the front cover – including Des’ dedicatory inscription. KZ refers to the central character of The Testament of Athammaus. Perhaps this book did not contain the only copy of The Testament of Athammaus in the world, but it contained the only copy in our world. It was a gift for which I have ever since felt grateful.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1100

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1099

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1098

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"By making a combined use of its various mouths and members, the abnormality* was devouring both of the hapless persons whom it had seized."
The Testament of Athammaus (Clark Ashtom Smith 1932)

*the thing that once was Knygathin Zhaum (KZ)

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Just for the record on this thread - my 'novel' entitled THE VISITOR was originally written longhand in 1974 with carbon copies to PFJ for his epistolary comments. Chapter by chapter, PFJ indeed kindly commented on it in his on-going letters to me and his comments were written by me into the novel (while I was still writing the novel) as part of the novel!!

Later I typed the whole thing on an old-fashioned typewriter (in the 1970s or 80s). Of course, that was not the same as word-processing it. That typing was bad and consequently, in 2005, I found it impossible to scan it into a Word Doc. So in 2006, I typed the whole thing again (!) as a Word Doc, which, in 2006, I put on a blog. I also incorporated some brief 2006 comments from myself to describe illustrations I had originally drawn for the 1974 longhand version and other 'house-keeping' matters concerning the text. And below, for the record, I show just my 2006 comments at the end of the whole blogged novel:


DFL 2006 comment:
and so ends something I wrote in 1974, incorporating a few things from my writings in the sixties. I was born in 1948. Judge for yourself how young or old I must have been then. Having reVisited ‘The Visitor’ to blog it here, I wondered what the hell! It’s really bad, just as bad as I recall it. But, equally, it is better than I remember it. It echoes forward to later things. I have kept it more or less untouched … despite an urge to rewrite and refigure and make my visit an intrusive one. I am a believer in selves and the judgement of and by selves (Proustian?). Why should an earlier self of mine be dictated to by one of its future selves (ie. me!)? All selves are crazy. As are all commentators. Which brings me to PFJ whose actual 1974 epistolary comments you’ve just read piecemeal in this exercise of re-living. I have had a long correspondence with him weekly (I guess) through the post from 1967 – and a valued friendship (less frequently in person). Furthermore, he constructively commented in letters on lots of my stories in the late eighties and early nineties, for which I (and the world?) are eternally grateful. DFL the writer would not exist without him. Nor would DFL exist without various DFL selves throughout the decades. Together with RO'C's 1980/1990s' considerate views of the DFL publications and his advice re reading SF etc. I am pleased by the memory-breaking exercise of re-typing the whole of ‘The Visitor’ to have been part of those DFL selves again. I hope I was welcome.

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If I recall correctly, The Visitor (Des' sprawling novel) was named after the Morecambe local newspaper of that name. Well, sort of. In the centenary year of The Visitor (the newspaper, that is) the Lancaster postmark commemorated the fact. So the envelope of every letter from me Des received (for an extended period) bore an inscription saying something like The Visitor family-owned newspaper 1874-1974. (At that time, I was still living in Lancaster.) It was after this inscription, I believe, that Des named his novel.

In fact, I think that the original handwritten manuscript quoted this postmark inscription in full.

On the Lancaster connection, note the Lancaster Market Bookstall stamp inside Swords and Sorcery (as shown in a scan already posted to this thread). :rolleyes:

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Thanks for reminding me of that!!!!!

And that makes me remember that the actual title was really "The Visitor etc."