Lovecraft: History of the Necronomicon & Other Stories

By H. P. Lovecraft

A further collection of Lovecraft material. With his growing literary career and increasing publications, what we have here is more a collection of scraps and leftover material. Bits and pieces, most of which weren’t meant for publication, but nevertheless eventually were. Not exactly profound work, except for the History of the Necronomicon, but interesting.As usual, free online links are provided for each of the selections. 

The Descendant (Originally written in 1927, First published in Leaves in 1938). This isn’t a short story, but a fragment of one, which is why it wasn't published until after his death. It seems that Lovecraft was trying to use London as inspiration and was building some characters for the story about a man, his lineage (which stretched back to Roman times), and the Necronomicon (described here for the first time as having “a thick leather cover and brass clasp). It’s similar to the background in The Rats in the Walls. The writing is strong and I wished he’d written more of it.

History of the Necronomicon (Originally written in 1927, first published as a pamphlet in 1937). Again, this small snippet was not meant for publication, but was more for background notes for Lovecraft's to use when dropping hints in his stories. This goes into some background on the man who wrote it, the mad poet Abdul Alhazard, under the name Al Azif (which means the sounds insects make at night, which could be mistaken for the howling of daemons). It then goes into the various translations and printings of the book, called the Necronomicon after it was translated into Greek. But there is no mention of what actually is in the text, except that it's author worshiped Cthulhu and Yog Sothoth.

TheVery Old Folk (Originally written 1927, first published in Sceinti-Snaps in 1940). This wasn’t intended as a short story, but was part of a letter Lovecraft sent to a friend describing a dream, where he was a Roman commander leading an attack against “The Old Folk” who commit various evil rituals and sacrifices on the Sabbath. As such, it is written as one long paragraph and wasn’t originally even given a name. It is very detailed for a dream remembrance and I believe Lovecraft was filling in details that made it a more rounded tale.

Ibid (Originally written in 1928, first published in The O-Wash-Ta-Nong in 1938).  This is the last of Lovecraft’s comic stories. It is a mock biography of the fictional character Ibidus whose thoughts were profound in ancient times and whose skull was carried down into modern times. As you or may not know Ibid is “an abbreviation for the Latin word ibīdem, meaning "in the same place", commonly used in an endnote, footnote, bibliography citation, or scholarly reference to refer to the source cited in the preceding note or list item. Ibid. may also be used in the Harvard (name-date) system for in-text references where there has been a close previous citation from the same source material”. Not much used now, it was common in Lovecraft’s time. The purpose here is to poke fun at lazy students and scholars alike. A fun read. 

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.