lovecraft's co-conspirator, c.m. eddy, jr.-the other providence horror writer
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7/22/2019 Lovecraft's co-conspirator, C.M. Eddy, Jr.-The other Providence horror writer.
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P r s r t . S t
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U . S .
P o s t a g e
P A I D
W o r c e s t e r , M
A
P e r m i t N o . 2
STURBRIDGETIMESMAGAZINE
N OVEMBER 2013 THE
T HE C HRONICLE OF S TURBRIDGE C OUNTRY L IVING
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7/22/2019 Lovecraft's co-conspirator, C.M. Eddy, Jr.-The other Providence horror writer.
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6 T HE C HRONICLE OF S TURBRIDGE C OUNTRY L IVING THE STURBRIDGE TIMESMAGAZINE
every post on the Pray for Gray site, but we can’t re-spond because there are so many,” she said. “When
you read how this is impacting other people in their
own lives, it really puts our circumstances into per-
spective.”
In the end, Nate says they are seeing beauty in
the ashes of the ugliness of the disease. “Our hope is
the idea of redemption…the knowledge of how God
takes really bad things and turns them to good. We
read the stories on Facebook of how someone was
touched by what we wrote and turned it into some-
thing meaningful and we are grateful for those
things. We know if things don’t end up the way we
hope, God will take the ashes and turn them into
something beautiful.”
For updates on Grayson on Facebook, search
“Pray for Gray”.
The legacy of Howard Philips Lovecraft is such
that the term Lovecraftian is well known
among horror fans. Though possessing a fol-
lowing in life, his existence eventually became one of
threadbare poverty. Today, he is a giant.
Lovecraft comes across as a strange and driven
man after a little biographical research. Odd then
that he would collaborate with a fellow author
whose normal life seems a mirror opposite?
Near forgotten now, Charles Martin Eddy, Jr. like
Lovecraft, was a Providence native. The stamp of
New England is on all his fiction. Unlike Lovecraft,
his domestic life was orderly and though not
wealthy, Eddy does not appear to have ever been in
dire straits.
The two authors first met face to face in 1923.
Lovecraft was a frequent visitor at the Eddy’s home.
Eddy was part of Lovecraft’s circle of friends and au-
thors. The two men edited each other’s work and
traveled and explored together.
Interestingly, both men worked as investigatorsfor Harry Houdini. The man was the country’s fore-
most debunker of spiritualists. The two writers were
known for stories conjuring the occult. They also
were Houdini’s ghostwriters, preparing works for his
byline. This employment ended with the magician
death in 1926.
The Lovecraft/Eddy relationship is the subject of
The Gentleman From Angell Street: Memories of
H.P. Lovecraft. It is a short book recounting the re-
lationship of the Eddy’s and Lovecraft by Eddy and
his wife, Muriel. Also in the same volume, the
Eddy’s daughter recounts the strange man’s late
night visits to the family home during her child-
hood.
As to Eddy’s writing, it does contrast with Love-
craft’s. In the main, it is not near as dark, though
dark it is. It is similar in style and language, but
Eddy seems to get to the point quicker. This does
not make his work better, just different. The drawn
out tales of Lovecraft allow you to lose yourself in
his mythology. The more succinct stories of his con-
frere are no worse for their dispatch.
The most famous exploration the two men made was the search for the Dark Swamp In 1927, thought
Continued from previous page
Continued on page 8
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Free Yoga for caregivers
B OOK R EVIEW
A look at two works by C.M. Eddy, Jr.
B Y R ICHARDMORCHOE
The Loved Dead & Other Tales
By C.M. Eddy, Jr., paperback, 257 pp..Fenham, 2008
List $16.95 Amazon: $116.95Exit into Eternity: Tales of the
Bizarre and Supernatural
By C.M. Eddy, Jr., paperback, 194 pp..
Fenham, 2000
List $14.95 Amazon: Out of Stock
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8 T HE C HRONICLE OF S TURBRIDGE C OUNTRY L IVING THE STURBRIDGE TIMESMAGAZINE
to be between Chepachet, Rhode Is-
land and Putnam, Connecticut.
Whether the two men found it is not
known. No matter, it would be the
background for a story by each of
them. It is the locale for Eddy’s
posthumously published Black Noon.
Fortunately for one of the story’s
main characters Eddy did not live to
finish it. Another chapter and the
man would have had a gruesomedeath as opposed to a professional dis-
appointment.
Eddy’s notorious, The Loved Dead
was a controversy in its day. It is a
grisly tale that had trouble getting
published. According to his grand-
son, Jim Dyer, Eddy’s agent told him
no one would touch it in this country
and to "try to publish it in France. He
thought it might find an audience in
Paris, where they had the Grand-Guignol,
a theater of the bizarre. Eventually the
pulp horror magazine, Weird Tales pub-
lished the story in 1924, even though the
editor still had his doubts. As it turned
out, the controversy helped sell more
copies of the magazine."
Weird Tales needed the help. It was
foundering. The firestorm around the
story was such that it was banned in places
and that made the forbidden fruit all themore popular. C.M Eddy, Jr. was able to
save a journal and scare a country.
The Loved Dead is grisly in the ex-
treme. The story is not a tale of filial piety
toward the deceased. Rather, it is of a
young man who loves, literally, the dead.
An undertaker, by trade, he freelances to
insure the supply meets his demand.
Eventually, he is too reckless and knows
exposure imminent and does to
himself what he had done to others.
It is in that first story you get the
idea of his ability with the turn of
the phrase. The protagonist de-
scribes his dull upbringing thus,
“My early childhood was one long
prosaic and monotonous apathy.”
This ability is something he shares
with Lovecraft and it enhances all
their prose.
With the demise of pulp horrormagazines, Eddy’s career went into
an eclipse. He did not die relatively
young, as did Lovecraft. In Love-
craft’s case this almost seems like
what Gore Vidal said of Capote, “a
good career move.” Eddy, however,
had a life outside horror. He was
employed as a booking agent and a
proofreader. Also, he worked for
the state and as an officer in profes-
sional organizations. It is hard to
picture his friend accepting such a
life.
Grandson Jim Dyer set up Fen-
ham Publishing to produce the
work of his ancestor. His website
implies there is more to come. Whether the books will join the
canon of high literature is doubtful.
As pleasures in and of themselves,
they more than succeed.
Continued from page 6
Book review
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