Not Long for this World (1948) by August Derleth
Humdrum, pastiche, and cliche
Readers unfamiliar with Not Long for this World may want to read my notes only after reading the collection.
August Derleth (1909-1972) was a ground-breaking publisher and an accomplished anthologist. As a writer of science fiction, horror, and crime fiction, results were mixed.
Often intriguing content broke against humdrum style. Pastiches of Lovecraft and Conan Doyle are the best-known, but were they any more than exploitations of a niche publishing market? Derleth also attempted to write himself into the English ghost story and the E. C. Comics comeuppance horror tale.
Not Long for this World (1948) offers a broad sampling of short stories outside the Lovecraft/Conan Doyle axis. There are ghosts, revengers, revanents and crooked inheritors aplenty. Many of the stories take place in the UK, though these tales never quite ring true.
“The Shadow on the Sky”
Ancestral doom for Sir Hilary James is foretold by a shadow on the sky.
“Birkett's Twelfth Corpse”
Badger Prairie, Wisconsin, near t…
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