An extra item in all of your Miskatonic Missives packages...
10 months ago
– Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 11:51:05 AM
Hello backers,
As you are starting to receive your Miskatonic Missives rewards, some of you may have already noticed that we tucked an extra little something into each package.
As a thank you from us to each of you for your patience and kindness through all of the delays, and with generous permission from the owner of the original, Mr. Todd Warren, we have included a beautiful hand-printed reproduction of an illustration made by C.L. Moore for her story 'Shambleau'. HPL viewed the drawing during his visit to Barlow in the trip discussed in the letters in Miskatonic Missives, Vol. I, No. 2.
To the best of our knowledge, the illustration has not been published anywhere before. We hope that you will enjoy it as a token of our gratitude, and we thank Mr. Warren for permitting us to share it with all of you. To provide some further context of interest for the illustration, Mr. Warren has shared six mentions of the artwork found in letters written by Lovecraft and those in his circle, quoted below.
Best wishes,
HPLHS & Helios House
Reminder: it will take several weeks to ship everything out, and some packages might take a few weeks after shipment to arrive at their destinations, so not everyone will have received their packages yet. Once all shipping is complete, we will reach out with information on how to contact us if you have not received your package.
Mentions of the Shambleau illustration:
C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 16 May 1934
"Well, here is Shambleau, after a long wait. And of course I'm disappointed in her. Especially after reading PICKMAN'S MODEL, in one of the magazines you sent me, I realize my own deficiencies. Of course she was much more horrible than this! Well, it's an attempt, anyhow."
Robert E. Howard to August Derleth, 19 May 1934
"Miss Moore, author of “Shambleau”, &c., has just sent Barlow a drawing which shows fantastic talent beyond even Rankin. Barlow is quite an incipient artist himself—though handicapped by dangerously bad eyesight. You ought to see the bas-relief of Cthulhu he has just made—as well as the statuette of the Hindoo elephant-god Ganesa [sic] which he is making for old Bill Lumley."
H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 17 Jun 1934
"Miss Moore is also an artist of ability—last month she sent Barlow a drawing of Shambleau which displays phenomenal power. Some of her later W T work will be illustrated by herself—Wright having accepted several sketches."
H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 23 Jul 1934
"As to Miss Moore's drawings—"Shambleau" is extremely well done, though not as subtly horrible & richly potent as Howard Wandrei would have made it. It is in pen & ink, & so far as I know all her other drawings are. She most certainly has great & enviable talents."
Clark Ashton Smith to Robert Barlow, 10 Sep 1934
"Thanks for the photo of C. L. Moore's remarkable drawing of Shambleau. [...] C. L. Moore certainly must be a genius-I liked her "Dust of Gods" almost better than any of the tales so far published. [...] Thanks too for giving me her address-I'd like to write her, [...]."
H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 30 Sep 1934
"It will interest me to see what Ernst (a writer at times by no means bad) & Miss Moore will do in the illustrating line. Ar E'ch Bei shewed me the "Shambleau" sketch, which certainly displays vast cleverness even if it lacks the indefinable menace & cosmic remoteness that you or Howard Wandrei would put into it. Miss Moore is certainly the discovery of the last few years. No other newcomer is even in the running."
