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Long-lost HP Lovecraft manuscript found.
Quoth The Guardian [theguardian.com] ...
A long-lost manuscript by HP Lovecraft, an investigation of superstition through the ages that the author was commissioned to write by Harry Houdini, has been found in a collection of magic memorabilia.
The Cancer of Superstition was previously known only in outline and through its first chapter. Houdini had asked Lovecraft in 1926 to ghostwrite the treatise exploring superstition, but the magician’s death later that year halted the project, as his wife did not wish to pursue it.
According to Potter & Potter Auctions of Chicago, the 31-page typewritten manuscript was discovered in a large collection of memorabilia from a now-defunct magic shop.
Three sections have been discovered “The Genesis of Superstition”, “The Expansion of Superstition”, and “The Fallacy of Superstition” covering everything from 'worship of the dead to werewolves and cannibalism, theorising that superstition is an “inborn inclination” that “persists only through mental indolence of those who reject modern science”' and concluding with “Most of us are heathens in the innermost recesses of our hearts,”
According to Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi, the manuscript was a joint effort between Lovecraft and fellow author CM Eddy with the synopsis written by Lovecraft, and the chapters themselves written by Eddy, with ‘Lovecraft’s interlinear emendations and additions’.
