Haggopian and Other Stories

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This book of short stories is presented as a companion volume to my Subterranean Press collection of Cthulhu Mythos novellas, and to repeat what I said in the introduction to that book, it isn’t my intention to offer any kind of in-depth definition of the Mythos here. That has already been done by too many others. Also, because it seems you’ve opted to read this book, I think I can be reasonably sure that you are already familiar with H. P. Lovecraft’s most enduring, most fascinating creation. (Well, at least he created its roots, since when the vast bulk of the Mythos—much like the gradually expanding acreage of diseased earth and vegetation around HPL’s “Blasted Heath”—just keeps on growing, though by no means as slowly!)

When they talk about the Mythos, most people automatically associate it with HPL. And rightly so, to a degree, insofar as Cthulhu was his creation…but the Mythos itself was not. It came into being when HPL’s friends—fellow authors with whom he regularly corresponded, certain revision clients, and others that he himself invited to build upon his literary foundations—when they began to contribute their own stories fashioned in the same vein. But it was not until August Derleth established Arkham House to immortalize Lovecraft, and set about publishing his own Lovecraftian pastiches and so-called “collaborations,” along with the Lovecraft-inspired works of other authors, that the more solid foundations of the Mythos were laid. Indeed, it was with Derleth’s remarkable landmark anthology, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos—the Arkham House volume that finally tied the ungainly thing together—that the first real cornerstone was set in place.

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