THE DEEP ONES: "The Black Tome of Alsophocus" by H.P. Lovecraft and Martin S. Warnes

"The Black Tome of Alsophocus" by H.P. Lovecraft and Martin S. Warnes

Discussion begins June 16, 2021.

First published in New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1969).



ONLINE VERSIONS

No online versions found to date.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?94005

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

MISCELLANY

https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Nyarlathotep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntTla4kdlcc
https://tinyurl.com/jctschd

Unexpectedly, I found myself with access to a copy of New Tales, so I read this in the weekend.

I thought the completion of Lovecraft’s fragment a bit of a letdown, I’m afraid, and not only because it adopts the banished-by-the-Elder-Gods thing which I dislike, but that aspect made me wonder about one thing: if this is supposed to prequel the titular entity’s foray on Earth in “Nyarlathotep”, what are we to make of his claim there to have awakened from the blackness of twenty-seven centuries? The Elder Gods banished the Great Old Ones from Earth less than 3000 years ago, well within recorded history?

In I Am Providence, Joshi notes that the original fragment (later finished by Warnes) was probably written by HPL ca. 1933, and was entitled "The Book". It seems to have basically been an attempt to write out Fungi from Yuggoth in prose form. He goes on to say, "The very fact that he undertook such a task suggests that Lovecraft, despairing of finding new ideas for fiction (in spite of dozens of unused entries in his commonplace book), was desperately seeking to cannibalize from his own work in a a vain attempt to revive his flagging inspiration."

I read somewhere on the 'webs that HPL noted he'd experimented with various approaches and styles (not just this story) around this time, but destroyed most of the results. Fits with Joshi's comment.