The Story of Herr Hackenschmidt

 

Illustration to Benjamin Welton's "The Story of Herr Hackenschmidt" in The Lovecraft eZine #32.

William Hope Hodgson

Returning to scratchboard portraits in time to remember the birthday of British author of weird fiction, William Hope Hodgson, who ran away from home at the age of 13 for a life at sea… which would influence his works such as The Ghost Pirates and The Boats of the Glen Carrig. He enlisted in England's Royal Artillery at the start of World War I and he died at Ypres in 1918 at the age of 40.

Lovecraft wrote of Hodgson, "few can equal him in adumbrating the nearness of nameless forces and monstrous besieging entities through casual hints and insignificant details, or in conveying feelings of the spectral and the abnormal in connexion with regions or buildings." (The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature, Hippocampus Press, 2012, p.77)

For more info on the works of William Hope Hodgson, visit the blog administered by the Hodgson authority Sam Gifford.

On the Birthday of H.G. Wells

To commemorate H.G. Wells' 148th birthday, I offer a humble portrait of the author of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and The War of the Worlds... I did not know Wells was also responsible for the story that influenced the 1976 film, The Food of the Gods. Incredible!

Viking vs Skeletons

This is a smaller version- 5" x 7" scratchboard- of a drawing done for a friend last year, which I called "Jim's Tattoo idea, or The Fall of the Skeleton King." The skeleton has since lost his crown but is no longer so readily vanquished.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Edward Bulwer-Lytton was an Eighteenth Century English novelist, playwright, and politican who coined the famous phrases "the pen is mightier than the sword" (from his play Richelieu, 1839) and "It was a dark and stormy night," the first line from his novel Paul Clifford (1830). He sat in Britain's Parliament for nine years and the science fiction and occult nature of his fiction inspired theosophical works, and his 1862 novel A Strange Story is said to have inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula.

H.P. Lovecraft had this to say about Bulwer-Lytton:

"At this time a wave of interest in spiritualistic charlatanry, mediumism, Hindoo theosophy, and such matters, much like that of the present day, was flourishing; so that the number of weird tales with a 'psychic' or pseudo-scientific basis became very considerable. For a number of these the prolific and popular Edward Bulwer-Lytton was responsible; and despite the large doses of turgid rhetoric and empty romanticism in his products, his success in the weaving of a certain kind of bizarre charm cannot be denied. 'The House and the Brain,' which hints of Rosicrucianism and at the malign and deathless figure perhaps suggested by Louis XV's mysterious courtier St. Germain, yet survives as one of the best short haunted-house tales ever written."

Robert W. Chambers

A bestselling author of turn-of-the-century romances now forgotten, Robert W. Chambers is remembered today for his story collection "The King in Yellow" and its influence upon contemporary weird fiction, from the work of Joe Pulver to HBO's True Detective.


"Song of my soul, my voice is dead,/ Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed/ Shall dry and die in/ Lost Carcosa." - Robert W. Chambers, "Cassilda's Song in The King in Yellow."

Bram Stoker

Irish author Bram Stoker worked as civil servant and theater manager in Dublin before publishing the classic gothic horror novel Dracula in 1897.

5" x 5" scratchboard portrait.