‘There’s nobody who has done more to earn my thanks [than August Derleth].’
-- David Drake, October 2008

August William Derleth died of a heart attack on the Fourth of July, 1971. Thus ended a literary career that spanned six decades. Derleth won awards for his fiction, co-founded one of the most beloved small presses in the history of publishing and nurtured the careers and literary reputations of a legion of legendary authors—H.P. Lovecraft and Ramsey Campbell being just two examples. AWD also helped co-found the Cthulhu Mythos along with HPL, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.

I covered Augie's many, many accomplishments two years ago in this post. Feel free to check that out and then continue reading this essay.

One area I didn't touch on at all in that post was Derleth's role as a ground-breaking editor of science fiction anthologies. Between 1948 and 1954, AWD edited eight brand-new SF anthologies. Just peruse the table-of-contents of 1948's Strange Ports of Call. Heinlein, Sturgeon, Leiber, Bradbury, van Vogt--and many, many other worthies. That is a very strong roster, especially considering that Augie was having to pick authors in 'real time', while the entire field of SF was very much in flux. In my opinion, the argument could be made that Derleth--during that long decade from 1948 to 1961--was just as influential on the SF genre as Donald A. Wollheim or John W. Campbell. Unlike Wollheim or Campbell, AWD enjoyed a good reputation in 'mainstream' literary circles at that time. His imprimatur carried some real weight beyond the realms of SF fandom, giving some early legitimacy to the likes of Bradbury and Heinlein.

You'll notice that Augie included Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness' in Strange Ports of Call. Just one example of his 'nurturing the literary reputation' of HPL that I mentioned at the beginning of this essay. AtMoM received a rough reception when it debuted in Astounding Stories. Even that early, there were proto-'Hard SF' gatekeepers in SF fandom ready to shoot down anything that didn't fit their narrow definitions.

Of course, any discussion of 'Lovecraft's literary reputation' and 'Derleth' automatically conjures up the imp of Sunand Tryambak Joshi, better-known as 'S.T. Joshi'. The award-winning SFF scholar, John D. Haefele, has covered just about all of that debate in A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos, which I reviewed here. However, Mr. Haefele is, by nature, a kind and forgiving person. One aspect of the Derleth-Joshi feud he has alluded to, at most, only in passing, is Joshi's envy of Derleth.

Before he was thirty, AWD had been praised by the likes of Lovecraft, REH and Sinclair Lewis. He'd also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. By that time, Derleth had also co-founded Arkham House, which is the most legendary small press in the history of genre fiction. Derleth died having advanced the careers of numerous notable authors and getting the work of several classic SFF/weird authors--William Hope Hodgson, for instance--into print for the first time in the States.

Joshi has tried to equal/supplant Derleth in numerous ways. His--sometimes worthy--efforts for the likes of Necronomicon Press, Hippocampus Press and even the post-Derleth Arkham House still have not brought STJ up even with Derleth's legacy. I predict he will not surpass that legacy before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

Meanwhile, we are seeing Derleth's legacy in 'real time' every day. Haefele's incredibly perceptive Lovecraft: The Great Tales was written by a life-long fan of the Notorious AWD. I predict that his take on Lovecraft will supplant Joshi’s sterile, anti-factual/anti-pulp pontifications on HPL. Doug Draa--a huge fan of Derleth as an editor--edits Weirdbook and Startling Stories for Wildside Press. Both publications can stand with--and surpass--any anthologies edited by Joshi. As has been noted many times before, Chaosium's Call of Chtulhu RPG would scarcely have been possible without Derleth's pioneering work in co-founding the Cthulhu Mythos.

As always, Augie's tales of a somewhat updated 'not-Sherlock Holmes'--his stories about the detective, Solar Pons--enjoy a strong readership. The Solar Pons tales are generally considered the best of the 'Holmes imitators' stories which have been written over the last century or so.

In closing, the influence and legacy of August William Derleth is still strong a half-century after his death. Books like A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos have done much to clear away the calumnies of worm-tongues like Joshi. Haefele's forthcoming work-in-progress, August Derleth of Arkham House, should do even more to solidify Derleth's reputation in the history of the SFF/Horror genre.