Today marks the one hundred and fifteenth birthday of Catherine Lucille “C.L.” Moore. Hailed as a ‘Grandmaster of Fantasy’ and also ‘The Queen of Sword and Sorcery’ by some, Moore contributed mightily to Weird Tales in the 1930s and then blazed trails in the sci-fi realm with her husband, Henry Kuttner. It’s been eight years since I did a C.L. Moore birthday post, so let’s get caught up on few things.

Back in 2018, I wrote an essay about Catherine's popularity amongst the 'Lovecraft Circle' of writers called "C.L. Moore and the Lovecraft Circle". Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and Robert Bloch all thought the world of Moore, which admiration definitely puts a dent in the 'Misogynist Weird Tales Club' narrative some have tried to put out there.

In fact, as I pointed out, HPL, CAS and Bloch all seemed to prefer Moore over REH. In the case of Smith, his ranking vis a vis Howard and CLM is a bit vague. The fact remains that he declared Catherine a 'genius'. While he definitely grew to admire Howard more and more as the years went by, I don't recall Clark ever calling Bob a 'genius'.

At the end of my post, I said this:

"All of this begs the question: What was it that HPL, CAS, Bloch and others found more to their liking in Moore's tales of Jirel rather than REH's Conan stories? Something to look at another time."

That time is now.

After years of rumination and reading many more letters, I'm fairly sure of what was going on. Lovecraft and Smith were both fans of H. Rider Haggard growing up. HPL was also a fan of the John Carter/Barsoom tales early on. Smith was an unabashed admirer of Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar. All that said, they both gravitated toward more moody, atmospheric fiction, preferably with a horror element. Gritty, bloody adventure fiction wasn't really their thing, though both gave REH a pass because he was simply that good. I should note both loved Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros...but that classic novel of heroic fantasy is not 'gritty' in the slightest. Very cool, but not 'gritty'.

When it comes to Robert Bloch, we know he was no fan of Conan--but he did really like Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith. It should be noted that Bloch was a fan of REH's horror and macabre verse. His early tale, "Black Lotus"--it could be argued--is the very first Hyborian Age/post-Hyborian Age pastiche ever written.

What is the common thread here? All three tended to like the type of fiction C.L. Moore was pushing more than they did Howard's. Most of "Black God's Kiss" reads like a team-up between HPL and CAS. Almost none of the Jirel stories have anything approaching Howardian levels of violence. What Moore was writing was simply more in their wheelhouse.

I should also mention Henry Kuttner. He was young member of the Lovecraft Circle like Moore and Bloch. He was also a lifelong fan of Haggard and Merritt. Henry started corresponding with Catherine by way of the Lovecraft Circle and married her in 1940. I haven't read any letters regarding what he thought of REH, but his tales of Elak and Prince Raynor both bear the imprint of the Man from Cross Plains.

A final note in regard to all of this is that Moore was, herself, an enthusiastic fan of Robert E. Howard's fiction. Only a portion of their correspondence--facilitated, once again, by the Lovecraft Circle--survives. What does survive indicates the two had a pretty vigorous 'mutual admiration society' going on. Their correspondence ended with Bob's death.

Moving on from that to the 'Solar Systems' segment of this post...

"Man has conquered Space before. You may be sure of that. Somewhere beyond the Egyptians, in that dimness out of which come echoes of half-mythical names -- Atlantis, Mu -- somewhere back of history's first beginnings there must have been an age when mankind, like us today, built cities of steel to house its star-roving ships..." -- "Shambleau", 1933

I'm short on time and the research I've done on this topic was a couple of years ago--I should've taken better notes. I'll also admit that this topic deserves a full post, if not more than one. However--since I've seen nothing on it out among the Interwebz--I'm putting this out there.

C.L. Moore did not launch her career at Weird Tales with Jirel and "Black God's Kiss'. What put her on the map was a tale of hard-boiled interplanetary horror called "Shambleau". The protagonist was an Earthman named Northwest Smith down on his luck on Mars. Further tales about him would be Moore's bread n' butter for the next couple of years.

Moore, with the publication of "Shambleau", created the archetype of what I call the 'Planetary Noir Solar System' which Leigh Brackett then took to greater heights, in my opinion. Moore's Mars and Venus--not Edgar Rice Burroughs' renditions--served as the templates for Leigh Brackett tales such as "The Last Days of Shandakor", "The Moon That Vanished" and "The Dancing Girl of Ganymede".

Moore was something of a mentor to Brackett early on. We know Leigh read Weird Tales. There are Northwest Smith stories which can be matched up pretty closely with later tales by Brackett. All of this demands a full blog entry. I'll get to it when I can.

One more note about Northwest Smith: he was blonde. The last time I read through my Northwest Smith collection, I took special note of that,

Finally, Jon Zaremba--a friend of the DMR blog--posted a video about his rereading of "Black God's Kiss". He brought up some insightful points. Check it out here.

Happy birthday, Catherine!