The Sussex Manuscript is a text created by Fred Pelton in the 1940s, presented as a transcription of an occult text from the Renaissance called Cultus Maleficarum. The text is dedicated to the fictional Frederick I, Baron of Sussex, and is dated 1598.
Pelton described his creation:
The manuscript contains four books: the first deals with the Mythos up to the time of the Coming of Cthulhu, the second with that Reign of Cthulhu and his overthrow, the third with the rites and ritual of the cult, and the fourth is a book of prophecy. It is now well established that the Sussex Manuscript will rank with the dreaded Necronomicon as one of the most reliable and detailed texts concerning the Mythos. The author of this masterpiece is unknown.[1]
Pelton submitted the manuscript to August Derleth at Arkham House, who at one point planned to publish it; Derleth even included a reference to The Sussex Manuscript in his short story "The Gorge Beyond Salapunco" (written in 1946 and published in 1949). Derleth later wrote to Edward P. Berglund, who had expressed interest in publishing Pelton's work:
THE SUSSEX MANUSCRIPT, I assure you, was not worth publishing—a hodgepodge of stuff, some from the published HPL & other Mythos stories, some made up to fill in the gaps. Pelton did a persuasive job in places, but the performance was very uneven. And certainly not a viable addition to the Mythos or we'd have published it. . . . Nor would other publication be likely, for we'd not permit the quotations from our stories to be used. So forget it.[1]
Pelton's text was eventually published in the Eastertide 1989 issue (#63) of Crypt of Cthulhu, and was later included in Robert M. Price's The Necronomicon: Selected Stories and Essays Concerning the Blasphemous Tome of the Mad Arab (Chaosium, 1996)[2] and Pelton's A Guide to the Cthulhu Cult (Armitage House, 1998).
Derleth also made reference to the Sussex Fragments in his short story "The Seal of R'lyeh," published in 1957. These are sometimes identified with the translation of the prehistoric Eltdown Shards, said to have been offered by the Reverend Arthur Brooke Winters-Hall, "a deeply learned Sussex clergyman of occultist leanings," in the round-robin short story "The Challenge from Beyond."
A True Labor of Love[]
The original physical copy of The Sussex Manuscript was lost after Fred L. Pelton's death in 1950. However, his son John inherited and preserved his father's papers and books and later passed the original still-extant material to Edward P. Berglund.[3] In Edward P. Berglund's own words:
"John Pelton informed me that his father had died in 1950. He did have the Sussex Manuscript in his possession, although it was only partially complete. Of the four books or chapters, he had only the first three in their entirety, with the opening pages of the fourth. The manuscript in toto was in a large, 12" x 19 1/2", leather-bound book."
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Crypt of Cthulhu, "What Was the Sussex Manuscript?" by Edward P. Berglund, Hallowmas 1985 (#35).
- ↑ Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: The Sussex Manuscript."
- ↑ "The History of the Sussex Manuscript" by Chris Perridas