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Charles John Thompson (March 17, 1923 - February 11, 1991) was a pulp writer who used the pen name C. Hall Thompson. He wrote at least two well-regarded Cthulhu Mythos stories, though he reportedly faced resistance to his Mythos writings from Arkham House publisher August Derleth.
Thompson graduated from South Philadelphia High School for Boys in June 1942. Even before graduating, he had begun using his pseudonym--a tribute to his mother.[1] He published four stories in Weird Tales, including the Mythos stories "Spawn of the Green Abyss" (Nov. 1946) and "The Will of Claude Ashur" (July 1947). As the blog Tellers of Weird Tales reports:
Thompson sold nearly four dozen stories to Adventure, Argosy, Dime Western Stories, Frontier Stories, North-West Romances, 10 Story Western Magazine, and other titles, mostly Westerns, over the next six years. He also broke into the slicks with stories in Collier's and Esquire.[1]
The Derleth Controversy[]
Derleth intervened to keep Thompson from writing more Mythos stories, writing in a letter to Ramsey Campbell:
He borrowed flagrantly from HPL’s work, and we stopped it by writing to his editors pointing out his invasion of proprietary interests, though we would probably have given him the green signal to go ahead if he had submitted his work to us first. This he did not do; so it had to stop.[2]
Some Lovecraft scholars have read not only a proprietary attitude but also jealousy into Derleth's actions. Robert M. Price writes that
the story goes that August Derleth intimidated Thompson into dropping the Lovecraft pastiche hobby, apparently because Thompson was working Derleth’s side of the street (and selling a better product).[3]
S. T. Joshi also criticizes Derleth's approach:
It is not surprising that August Derleth apparently badgered Thompson to give up the idea of any further pastiches—not because Thompson had failed and was somehow tainting Lovecraft’s reputation, but precisely because he had succeeded, and succeeded far better than Derleth himself in any of his own Lovecraftian imitations.[4]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tellers of Weird Tales, "C. Hall Thompson (1923-1991)," by Terence E. Hanley, January 21, 2019.
- ↑ A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos: Origins of the Cthulhu Mythos, by John D. Haefele (Cimmerian Press, 2012).
- ↑ Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos, Robert M. Price, ed. (Fedogan & Bremer, 1992).
- ↑ A Mountain Walked: Great Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, by S. T. Joshi, ed. (Dark Regions Press, 2015).