John D. Haefele slips a toe into the Autograph Hound Saturday action, writing:
“You and your cohorts seem focused on the first third of the twentieth century.
“Here is one of interest from the middle. I didn’t even know I had it until I stumbled on it by accident yesterday.
“I don’t know what the word is over the date — a nickname? Any ideas?”
My best guess is “October” — any other possible guesses I will forward along.
The inscription is by Karl Edward Wagner, author of the Kane series of Sword-and-Sorcery stories and novels, anthologist, horror writer, one of the publishers of those big fat Carcosa books. An interesting figure, but I’m guessing his signatures are a dime a dozen. He went to lots of conventions where books could be signed, sent out lots of cards and letters in his role as a publisher and editor of the Year’s Best Horror Stories. Without even trying, I must have close to ten books or pieces of mail with his John Hancock.
No, the main reason I’m putting this one up is because it happens to be inscribed to Eric Carlson. I was just mentioning Eric, part of the old MinnCon Lovecraftian crew. He did a particularly good rebuttal to some of the L. Sprague de Camp nonsense about HPL and REH as that fight erupted in 1975 and 1976.
If I remember right, Eric took on de Camp — who presented as one smug, arrogant asshole — for deriding various beliefs or ideas Lovecraft entertained as if no one could ever possibly have believed something like that. No way.
Pretty sure Eric was the guy who first pointed out that in books such as Lost Continents, on the Atlantis myths, that de Camp mocked the concept of continental drift. Big masses of land just drifting around? — ridiculous!
Among other knives Eric stuck into the old boy.
