“Henry Louis Hasse (February 7, 1913 – May 20, 1977) was an American science fiction author and fan. He is probably known best for being the co-author of Ray Bradbury’s first published story, “Pendulum”, which appeared in November 1941 in Super Science Stories.” (Wikipedia)

Hasse also wrote some intriguing mythos work in the 1930s and 40s, which I will be commenting on now. He wrote two mythos stories as far as I’m aware: “The Guardians of the Book” (1937) and “Horror At Vecra” (1943). I read these stories in Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos and Acolytes of Cthulhu respectively.

The Guardians of the Book (1937)

Mythos story about a book collector who acquires an interesting old volume. The book has a lengthy preface warning people not to read it, featuring two people, Tlaviir and his friend Kathulhn which the protagonist begins reading. The action in the preface supposedly takes place on the planet Vhoorl ending in tragedy.

Really cool story in many ways. It seems it was somewhat influential on Lin Carter who used the similar device of telling the story as if it’s directly taken from an occult book in a number of stories such as “The Madness Out of Time” (supposedly from the Necronomicon), “Papyrus of the Dark Wisdom” (supposedly from the Book of Eibon) and “The Red Offering” (supposedly from the Zanthu Tablets). Lin Carter also argued that Cthulhu was born on the planet Vhoorl which is introduced in this story.

“The Guardians of the Book” is also interesting because of how well researched it is. For 1937 the author knows seemingly everything there is to know about the mythos. He mentions the Hunters from Beyond (see “The Hunters from Beyond” by Clark Ashton Smith), the Hounds of Tindalos (see the “Hounds of Tindalos” by Frank Belknap Long) and of course all the usual suspects like Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Chaugnar Faugn etc. It even mentions the King in Yellow as a mythos grimoire and I believe this is the first story to ever have done so. Lovecraft mentioned the Yellow Sign (see “The Shadow Out of Time”) and Derleth of course made Hastur into a Great Old One (see “The Return of Hastur”) but they never used the book itself.

Highly enjoyable and underrated story!

Horror at Vecra (1943)

Two men take a wrong turn and arrive at the New England back-country town named Vecra, where something mysterious is going on. A young boy briefly sees the face of his missing brother appear to him, and rumors abound surrounding the activities of a local esotericist…

Not as original as Hasse’s earlier tale “The Guardians of the Book”, but mythosians Should like this. The story is actually quite lengthy and builds up the atmosphere of dread and mystery, albeit the plot is pretty generic.

There are some pretty chilling parts though, I must admit (“…his cries reverted again to an incoherent gibberish, like the memory of a horrible language long dead.” (yikes)) and the monster of the story is cool as well.

This fairly obscure story is mostly known for having introduced the lesser grimoire Monsters and Their Kynde.