The Temple of Dagon

HAHAHAHA!

If it wasn't for August Derleth, and I have been talking with April now for a good part of two years -- we may not of known who H.P. Lovecraft was. This is coming from someone who April compared to both her father and H.P. Lovecraft as the hybrid of the two. Derleth added something to the Mythos but it wasn't the same as what Lovecraft did, Derleth has some good entries in the horror genre and I was lucky enough to find one of them. People don't give Derleth enough credit, but I will say he deserves as much credit as H.P. Lovecraft. And this is coming from soneone who is now swapping authors with April Derleth.

Derleth did add something that will be later known as also Stephen King's trademark too, that being the sense of good and evil. But Lovecraft had that "fuck you" vibe going back then. There are authors who have the ability to combine both Lovecraft's you're fucked aspect with Derleth's awareness of Good and Evil. I think you can blame that aspect on the fact Derleth is a Catholic. But I think Lovecraft and Derleth go hand in hand because you can't talk about Lovecraft without mentioning Derleth or vice versa.

NickolausPacione wrote:But I think Lovecraft and Derleth go hand in hand because you can't talk about Lovecraft without mentioning Derleth or vice versa.

are you talking about the literature or the publishing? on the business side, i'm sure derleth was indispensable in getting hpl's stories into our hands.. but it has nothing to do with why the stories are great. if you look at it purely in the light of artistic expression, hpl's work stands alone and derleth's can only be explained as a dubious appropriation

Well said, JJ.

Not to say that Derleth was a bad writer but, I belive that his stories would have been much better if he had not tried to make them Lovecraftian.
If he had put more work into making a 'Derleth mythos' maybe then his work would stand out more...

Or just stand out to begin with.