John Martin Leahy (1886–1967)

This is a rather splendid Lovecraftian tale set in the Antarctic that precedes Lovecraft's famous 'At the Mountains of Madness' of 1931 by three years. Little seems to be known about the author, John Martin Leahy, but he was a frequent pulp fiction writer and illustrator over a fairly long period.

Both stories were published in 'Weird Tales' and, although the beginning of Leahy's is a little confused (to this reader), the final effect is genuinely creepy and the tale one of true horror - a show more sort of half way house between a Jack London or Algernon Blackwood story and the horrors to come.

The Antarctic setting is not uninteresting. It was only in 1910/1911 that Amundsen had reached the South Pole pipping the unfortunate Scott by five weeks and Leahy muddles his history deliberately for effect.

Weird Tales needed frontiers for young American readers who might not need to ask too many questions as to detail - the Antarctica was one, the jungles of Central and Southern America another - just as British readers would have read tales of Africa and the North West Frontier. show less