Re: W.H.Hodgson
Posted by:
Platypus (IP Logged)
Date: 23 May, 2020 09:06PM
Earlier in this thread, the late Sam Moskowitz (may he rest in peace) was cited by Jeremy Lassen (by way of Minicthulhu) as an expert authority and "noted Hodgson scholar" allegedly establishing that the Derleth-published Hodgson stories, and specifically "The Find" and "The Hog", are genuine.
I have managed to locate a copy of the book that is apparently the source of the expert opinions cited. It is William Hope Hodgson, TERRORS OF THE SEA, ed. Sam Moskowitz (Donald M. Grant Publishers, 1996). And yes, Moskowitz does argue, on various grounds, that all the Derleth-published stories are genuine, with the limited exception of "The Crew of the Lancing", which Moskowitz believes is a genuine Hodgson story that Derleth re-edited.
Without yet going into detail as to Moskowitz's reasons for his opinions, I'd like to give some curious quotes from the book, that may put his opinions into a certain perspective.
"August Derleth's British representative, G. Ken Chapman, once told me
that Derleth had written one or more of the Hodgson stories he
published."
TERRORS OF THE SEA, at p. 25.
As far as I know, nothing compelled Mr. Moskowitz to reveal this little detail to us. It is certainly hard for me to regard him as a dishonest man, when he goes so far out of his way to disclose information so contrary to the thesis he is at least pretending to argue for.
Nor does it occur to Mr. Moskowitz to disbelieve Mr. Chapman. Instead he tries to convince himself, and us, that Mr. Chapman was referring to "The Crew of the Lancing". I find that curious, since "The Crew of the Lancing" is the one Derleth-published Hodgson story that can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt NOT to have been written by Mr. Derleth, since it is no more than a modest re-edit of "Demons of the Sea" (1923).
However, rather than debate the pros and cons of Moskowitz's opinions and the reasons for them (maybe later), I would like to move on to yet another expert opinion of the good Mr. Moskowitz, from the very same volume, where he vouches for the authenticity of yet another posthumously published Hodgson work: "The R.M.S. 'Empress of Australia'" (1996), which Moskowitz now presents to the public in TERRORS OF THE SEA for the first time:
"The R.M.S. Empress of Australia is science fiction laid in the year
1923, but it may have been written as early as 1906, the year of the
San Francisco earthquake. It must be remembered that William Hope
Hodgson died in 1918, so this story was set in the future. There is
some question on whether or not it was intended for professional
submission, since it was typed on legal-sized onion-skin paper and
is in a different typewriter face than that used on other manuscripts
which were typed in a much cleaner and newer pica face."
Moskowitz then gives a brief summary of the story, for which I instead substitute my own summary. The story, in the form of a log, is about a devastating earthquake and fire observed from the ship R.M.S. Empress of Australia, while it was docked at Yokahama, Japan. It details she ship's arrival on August 31, 1923, the first tremors on September 1, at around noon; the fires that had broke out by 12:15 pm and engulfed the whole city by 1:30 pm; the loading of the ship with 3,000 refugees, the arrival of RMS Empress of Canada on Sept. 2 to help with the refugees; the subsequent discharge of the refugees to various other ships and ports, etc., etc. etc.
Moskowitz then continues with his argument for authenticity:
"No record was kept of any submissions, though the story is
uncontrovertibly Hodgson's, not only from internal evidence
but also from his own handwritten corrections on the
manuscript."
TERRORS OF THE SEA, at p. 196.
While Jeremy Lassen was willing to cite Moskowitz's expert opinion in the case of "The Find", he is unwilling to do this here. In his COLLECTED FICTIONS, he places "R.M.S. 'Empress of Australia'" at the very end of volume 5, in a category labeled "Counterfeits". He does not explain his reasoning, but in this case none is necessary. I'm not sure "counterfeit" is the right word for a perfectly-accurate account of a very real tragedy, but I can certainly understand why Lassen found it hard to swallow Moskowitz's conclusion that Hodgson wrote it.
The thought occurs to me that maybe Moskowitz was deliberately pulling all our legs. But whether by accident or on purpose, I am certainly grateful to him for letting us know, in such a striking fashion, how much his expert scholarly endorsements of the authenticity of dubious Hodgson texts are worth.
Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 23 May 20 | 09:32PM by Platypus.