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I'll pound you to a "Pulp" if you don't show off yours!
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Started by mr.schomburg,

9,050 posts in this topic

RedFury

RedFury

Posted
Posted

Update!

I asked Bobby Derie about the date of Moore's letter to Barlow to see if it matched the date on the artwork.  It did!  And he provided this amazing quote from her letter where she talks about it.  Amazing!

"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."

- C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 16 May 1934

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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On 2/18/2019 at 11:46 AM, RedFury said:

Story time. :)

Two weeks ago I bought some original pulp-related art on Ebay, an illustration of the story Shambleau by C.L. Moore.  The listing made it sound like the art appeared in the original pulp, the November 1933 Weird Tales.  I was away on vacation without access to my collection, but I was skeptical that the art appeared there.  I didn't recognize it.  But I really liked the art and it appeared old so even though I wasn't sure what it was, I bought it anyway.

I got home and checked the November 1933 Weird Tales and as I suspected, it wasn't in there.  Then I checked the 1953 Gnome Press collection Shambleau and Other Tales, but it wasn't in there either.  I even checked the 1981 Donald M. Grant collection Scarlet Dream.  Not in there either.

I asked a noted pulp art collector about it, and he said he was aware of it but didn't know what it was.  His best guess was it had appeared in a fanzine in the 1930s.

I resigned myself to having a cool, yet-to-be identified piece of artwork for a classic C.L. Moore Weird Tales story.

And then yesterday this post by Bobby Derie appeared on the Robert E. Howard blog On an Underwood No. 5.
Conan and Jirel: Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore Part One by Bobby Derie

Midway through the post was a picture of the artwork I had just purchased, and this line:

"...Moore sent Barlow one of her drawings for “Shambleau”—Wright having requested a drawing or two to accompany her stories, much as he had for the artist-writer Clark Ashton Smith around the same time—and Barlow showed it to Lovecraft, who was visiting his young friend in Florida at the time."

It appeared the artwork was actually the work of C.L. Moore herself!  I asked Bobby for more information in the blog comments and received this:

"Moore did a few drawings to accompany some of her stories, a couple of which were used by Weird Tales as illustrations (much as they did with Clark Ashton Smith). That particular drawing is (probably) the one which Moore sent to R. H. Barlow in '34.

"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, 17 Jun 1934, LFB 184-185

The above quoted letter from Lovecraft is dated Jun 17, 1934, and he mentions "last month she sent Barlow a drawing of Shambleau", so that would have been May 1934. 

On the back of the artwork, written in pencil, is the date "May 16, 1934".  Wow!

I think that might as close to confirmation as we'll get.  I now feel pretty confident saying this Shambleau artwork was drawn by author C.L. Moore herself, sent to Robert Barlow in Florida, where he showed it to the visiting H.P. Lovecraft in May 1934.  Awesome!

So here's the artwork.  As you can see, it is signed in the lower right "C. Moore".  But until the confirming details were uncovered I wasn't sure if that was Moore signing her work (it had crossed my mind) or a fanzine artist attributing story credit to Moore.  Glad to know it's by her!

BFQtanVh.jpg

And the back cover with the date.

 

What a weird tale!

I'll leave now. :sorry:

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RedFury

RedFury

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One more small update.  I found a letter from Clark Ashton Smith to Robert Barlow dated September 10, 1934 in which CAS says:

"Thanks for the photo of C. L. Moore's remarkable drawing of Shambleau. I have been so doubtful of my ability toward bettering this from any angle, that I have not yet tried the pencil sketch that you suggested. Perhaps I'II have it to send in my next. C. L. Moore certainly must be a genius-I liked her "Dust of Gods" almost better than any of the tales so far published. My one objection is the omnipresent ray-gun, whose use seemed particularly unnecessary in this tale, since the dust could better have been ignited by some secret device installed aeons ago to protect it from desecration. Thanks too for giving me her address-I'd like to write her, but hesitate to do so at present because of my accumulated Ossa and Pelion of correspondence, to which I can hardly do justice."

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OtherEric

OtherEric

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31 minutes ago, thewritestuff said:

I am new to the world of pulps, but recently picked up these for $2 apiece.

E5439AE0-3251-4DB8-85F8-EEF43FB5DE5D.jpeg

Welcome to the world of pulps!  Fiction House is always a good pickup; I genuinely envy you the New Detective  (it's a book I've been looking for for quite a while, just not very hard.  Three John D. MacDonald stories in the issue.)  Not sure on the paperback, although I gather finding the dime Dells is generally a bit of a trick.  And while the Future and the Fantastic Adventures are not particularly notable as far as I know, I would still pay the $12 you paid for all 6 books if it was just those two and I spotted them in the wild.  (Not necessarily a lot more, though.)

A good haul, is what I'm saying.

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