Did FB Long invent Dee's NECRONOMICON?

[John Whelan]

... or is that an unsubstantiated legend?

THE LEGEND: In early September, 1927, HPL writes "History of the
Necronomicon". In late September, 1927, HPL receives a manuscript
copy of "The Space Eaters" by Frank Belknap Long, and notices the
epigraph from "John Dee's NECRONOMICON". "Cool idea" says HPL, and
immediately pencils a reference to John Dee's translation of the
NECRONOMICON into his manuscript of "History of the Necronomicon",
between 2 lines.

The facts, as I know them, are as follows.

The manuscript of "History of the Necronomicon" has no internal
evidence of dating, except that it is written on the back of a letter
dated April 1927. The reference to John Dee's translation is
evidently written somewhat later than much of the rest of the text,
since it is squeezed in tiny handwriting between two normal spaced
lines.

In November, 1927, HPL writes a letter, in which he summarises much of
the content of the "History..." So it already existed, in some form,
at this stage. However, two things suggest it is not in its final
form: (1) there is no mention of Dee's NECRONOMICON in the letter
summarizing the History; and (2) the letter contains an anachronistic
reference to the NECRONOMICON being placed on the "Index of Forbidden
Books" by Pope Gregory, an error that has been fixed in the surviving
manuscript, which merely says Pope Gregory "banned" it.

At some point during this period, HPL reads, in manuscript, a story
"The Space Eaters" by his friend Frank Belknap Long. according to
S.T. Joshi (citing HPL's SELECTED LETTERS), HPL received the
manuscript in late September 1927, and had read it no later than
January 1928. To my knowledge, however, there is no good reason to
believe this manuscript contained any reference to John Dee's
NECRONOMICON.

"The Space Eaters" is later published in the the July 1928 issue of
WEIRD TALES. This version contains no reference to John Dee's
NECRONOMICON.

In the summer of of 1928, HPL writes "The Dunwich Horror", which
introduces a John Dee's priceless English version of the NECRONOMICON,
in horrible condition, and inherited by Old Man Whateley through 2
centuries of Whateley ancesters. It is perhaps a plot device to
explain why a pair of relatively-uneducated back-woods hicks (Lavinia
Whateley and Old Man Whateley) are able to read a text normally
available only in Latin and Greek. Plausibly, it is around this time
that he inserts an extra line in his "History of the Necronomicon",
describing this unique text.

"The Dunwich Horror" is first published in WEIRD TALES in April
1929. It is popular with readers and is reprinted a number of
times: THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS (1939); GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE
SUPERNATURAL (1944); THE DUNWICH HORROR (1945); BEST SUPERNATURAL
STORIES OF H.P. LOVECRAFT (April 1945 and again in Sept 1945 and June
1946, etc.); AVON GHOST READER (1946).

Meanwhile, "The Space-Eaters" was not (to my knowledge) reprinted
until THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS (Arkham House 1946). But I don't know if
the 1946 version contained the Dee epigraph either, for S.T. Joshi
reports that the epigraph is "missing in many reprints of the story".
THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS is reprinted in August 1963; and "The Space-
Eaters" also appears in MAGAZINE OF HORROR (Nov 1963); TALES OF THE
CTHULHU MYTHOS (Arkham House, 1969) and thereafter.

In any event, it was long after HPL's death, and certainly no earlier
than 1946, that "The Space-Eaters" first appeared with the Dee
Epigraph. The Dee Epigraph is NOT in any way an integrated or
necessary part of the story. Since by this time the tale had long
been foreshadowed by its far-more successful counterpart, the logical
suspicion is that the epigraph was added to help market the tale, by
strengthening its connection to Lovecraft's "Mythos".

Frank Belknap Long died in 1994. As far as I know, he never claimed,
during his lifetime, that he had invented John Dee's connection to the
NECRONOMICON.

IN 1996, 2 years after Long's death, a biography of HPL appears, in
which the author notes that HPL once read Long's manuscript, and
subsequently added a line to his "History of the
Necronomicon" (evidently true enough), and then concludes illogically
that since the first event occurred before the second event, therefore
the first event CAUSED the second event.

This illogical conclusion been cited, uncritically, in multiple
publications ever since, until, by repetition, it has come to be
regarded as accepted fact. Even the acknowledgment that the original
publication of "The Space-Eaters" in WEIRD TALES contained no
epigraph, has failed to cause those involved (I suppose there is no
great need to name them) to rethink this unlikely conclusion.

Looking at the epigraph seems to confirm the suspicion that it is a
later addition. I merely cites "John Dee's NECRONOMICON", without
explaining what this means. Is it an English translation of the
Alhazred's NECRONOMICON by John Dee? An entirely separate book by John
Dee which also happens to be called NECRONOMICON? Or just another
Latin edition Alhazred's edition that just happens to have commentary
by John Dee? Or something else? The obvious answer is that no
explanation was necessary, because, by the time this epigraph was
added to the text, John Dee's English version of the NECRONOMICON was
already famous from "The Dunwich Horror". There was no need to
explain what it meant.

Anyway, those are my suspicions at the moment. If I am wrong, and
there is good reason to believe Frank B Long originated the "John Dee"
connection, I would love to know what that reason is. Thanks in
advance for any info provided.

[John Whelan]

I found, on usenet, the following quote (provided by Dan Clore) from
HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT: DREAMER ON THE NIGHTSIDE (1975) in which
Long claims that he ...

> "contributed . . . one forbidden book, John Dee's English
> translation of _The Necronomicon_, which I placed at the
> head of _The Space Eaters_ when that story first appeared
> in_Weird Tales_, but later omitted when the story was
> reprinted in _The Magazine of Horror_, fearing that my
> invention might take on an appalling life of its own and
> appear on the shelves of some unsuspecting and
> defenseless book dealer!"

It would be nice to have the entire quote in context. In any event,
it seems there was indeed an un-cited source, and this is it.

There is of course a problem with the quote, since it seems that at
least part of what it says is not true. The epigraph did not appear
in WEIRD TALES.

Some sources have suggested that Long submitted the epigraph to WEIRD
TALES, but the editor edited it out. I cannot accept this as a
reasonable interpetation of the quote. The only fair reading of what
he is saying is that he SUCCESSFULLY added the story to an earlier
publication (which he mis-recalls as being WEIRD TALES), and then
decided to remove the epigraph in a later revision.

The published history of the tale seems to be as follows:
1928: WEIRD TALES (no epigraph)
1946: THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS (epigraph)
1963: MAGAZINE OF HORROR (revised, epigraph removed by Long)
1974: TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS (no epigraph, following the revised
MAGAZINE OF HORROR version).

Apparently the epigraph was later restored in Joshi-era editions of

TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS

Note that Long does not seem to be saying that the epigraph was part
of the original manuscript of "The Space-Eaters". He mentions it only
as something he added to the tale at time of publication (which, it
turns out, was actually the HOUNDS OF TINDALOS 1946 publication, and
not the WEIRD TALES 1928 publication). Hence, there is no basis for
supposing the epigraph was part of some early manuscript read by HPL
in late 1927 of early 1928.

This does not prevent us from independently crediting Long's claim
that "Dee's NECRONOMICON" was his own invention. HPL and Long
evidently read each others stuff, and probably made suggestions to
each other. This could have been a suggestion provided by Long to HPL
at any time. It is just that there is no reason to connect the
suggestion to the original "Space-Eaters" manuscript.

On the other hand, in light of Long's other evidence of poor memory,
it is hard to rule out the possibility that Long has no independent
recollection of having invented Dee's NECRONOMICON, but merely
concludes that he did because his story was published before HPL's
story, and because others have reached the same conclusion based on
the same logic.

[Aardvark]

Here's an image of the "Weird Tales" first page of "The Space-Eaters":

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/WEIRD-TALES-pulp-excerpt-story-SPACE-EATERS-by-Frank-Belknap-Long-July-1928-/231822043549?hash=item35f9aba99d:g:ykMAAOSwoydWmIlN

Seems I've been misinformed. Judging from this image, it has the quote.

That poor fellow in the picture does look a bit like HPL, no?