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86-660: August Derleth and Mark Schorer originally created a being called Lloigor in their short story "The Lair of the Star-Spawn" (1932). Lloigor and its brother Zhar , together referred to as the Twin Obscenities, were typical pseudo-Lovecraftian tentacled monstrosities identified as two of the Great Old Ones . Derleth referred to Lloigor in several other writings, "The Sandwin Compact" (1940) in particular. It

172-399: A degree ) each generation. Additionally, the rule does not seem to apply to many-sided Polygons. For example, the sons of several hundred-sided Polygons will often develop 50 or more sides more than their parents. Furthermore, the angle of an Isosceles Triangle or the number of sides of a (regular) Polygon may be altered during life by deeds or surgical adjustments . An Equilateral Triangle

258-540: A disk ). The Sphere then levitates up and down through Flatland, allowing the Square to see the circle expand and contract between great circle and small circles. The Sphere then tries further to convince the Square of the third dimension by dimensional analogies (a point becomes a line, a line becomes a square). The Square is still unable to comprehend the third dimension, so the Sphere resorts to deeds: he gives info about

344-405: A "peace-cry" while moving about and to use separate doors from men. In the world of Flatland, classes are distinguished by the "Art of Hearing", the "Art of Feeling", and the "Art of Sight Recognition". Classes can be distinguished by the sound of one's voice, but the lower classes have more developed vocal organs, enabling them to feign the voice of a Polygon or even a Circle. Feeling, practised by

430-567: A Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. She became majority stockholder, President, and CEO of Arkham House in 1994. She remained in that capacity until her death. She was known in the community as a naturalist and humanitarian. April died on March 21, 2011. In 1960, Derleth began editing and publishing a magazine called Hawk and Whippoorwill , dedicated to poems of man and nature. Derleth died of

516-480: A Scribners' novel of which The Chicago Sun wrote: "Structurally it has the perfection of a carved jewel...A psychological novel of the first order, and an adventure tale that is unique and inspiriting." In November 1945, however, Derleth's work was attacked by his one-time admirer and mentor, Sinclair Lewis. Writing in Esquire , Lewis observed, "It is a proof of Mr. Derleth's merit that he makes one want to make

602-676: A cabin, writing Gothic and other horror stories and selling them to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth won a place on the O'Brien Roll of Honor for Five Alone , published in Place of Hawks , but was first published in Pagany magazine. As a result of his early work on the Sac Prairie Saga , Derleth was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship; his sponsors were Helen C. White , Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis and poet Edgar Lee Masters of Spoon River Anthology fame. In

688-687: A decade, an active supporting group was the Praed Street Irregulars, patterned after the Baker Street Irregulars . In 1946, Conan Doyle's two sons made some attempts to force Derleth to cease publishing the Solar Pons series, but the efforts were unsuccessful, and were eventually withdrawn. Derleth's mystery and detective fiction also included a series of works set in Sac Prairie and featuring Judge Peck as

774-400: A future generation that can see beyond their two-dimensional existence. Men are portrayed as polygons whose social status is determined by their regularity and the number of their sides, with a Circle considered the "perfect" shape. Women are lines, quite fragile but also dangerous, as they can disappear from view and possibly stab someone. To prevent this, they are required by law to sound

860-605: A heart attack on July 4, 1971, and is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sauk City. The U.S. 12 bridge over the Wisconsin River is named in his honor. Derleth was Roman Catholic . In Derleth's biography, Dorothy M. Grobe Litersky stated that Derleth was bisexual, and maintained long-term romantic relationships with both men and women. This assertion has not been verified; no names were given of these romantic partners (in

946-540: A million words yearly, very little of it pulp material." In 1948, he was elected president of the Associated Fantasy Publishers at the 6th World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto . He was married April 6, 1953, to Sandra Evelyn Winters. They divorced six years later. Derleth retained custody of the couple's two children, April Rose Derleth and Walden William Derleth . April earned

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1032-406: A result, when they manifest in our universe they appear as disconnected floating body parts — notably eyes and tentacles — belonging to some larger beast that is complete in the higher dimension, similar to how a three dimensional being would appear in flatland as its parts pass through the plane of that two-dimensional world. The many-angled ones plan to impose rigid geometrical order on

1118-480: A set of points on a line. Thus, the Square attempts to convince the realm's monarch of a second dimension but cannot do so. In the end, the monarch of Lineland tries to kill the Square rather than tolerate him any further. Following this vision, the Square is visited by a sphere . Similar to the "points" in Lineland, he is unable to see the three-dimensional object as anything other than a circle (more precisely,

1204-567: A story told "with tenderness and charm", while the Chicago Tribune concluded: "It's as though he turned back the pages of an old diary and told, with rekindled emotion, of the pangs of pain and the sharp, clear sweetness of a boy's first love." Helen Constance White, wrote in The Capital Times that it was "...the best articulated, the most fully disciplined of his stories." These were followed in 1943 with Shadow of Night ,

1290-565: A struggle between good and evil, nevertheless the basis of Derleth's systemization are found in Lovecraft. He also suggests that the differences can be overstated: Derleth was more optimistic than Lovecraft in his conception of the Mythos, but we are dealing with a difference more of degree than kind. There are indeed tales wherein Derleth's protagonists get off scot-free (like "The Shadow in

1376-450: A study of his serious virtues. If he could ever be persuaded that he isn't half as good as he thinks he is, if he would learn the art of sitting still and using a blue pencil, he might become twice as good as he thinks he is – which would about rank him with Homer." Derleth good-humoredly reprinted the criticism along with a photograph of himself sans sweater, on the back cover of his 1948 country journal: Village Daybook . A lighter side to

1462-462: Is a member of the craftsman class . Squares and Pentagons are the "gentlemen" class, as doctors, lawyers, and other professions. Hexagons are the lowest rank of nobility, all the way up to (near) Circles, who make up the priest class . The higher-order Polygons have much less of a chance of producing sons, preventing Flatland from being overcrowded with noblemen. Apart from Isosceles Triangles, only regular Polygons are considered until chapter seven of

1548-420: Is above a stated amount, the irregular Polygon faces euthanasia ; if below, he becomes the lowest rank of civil servant . An irregular Polygon is not destroyed at birth, but allowed to develop to see if the irregularity can be "cured" or reduced. If the deformity remains, the irregular is "painlessly and mercifully consumed." In Flatland , Abbott describes a society rigidly divided into classes. Social ascent

1634-516: Is not prepared to receive "revelations from another world". The satirical part is mainly concentrated in the first part of the book, "This World", which describes Flatland. The main points of interest are the Victorian concept of women's roles in the society and in the class-based hierarchy of men. Abbott has been accused of misogyny due to his portrayal of women in Flatland . In his Preface to

1720-567: Is referred to as an emissary of the Lloigor when he is sent to negotiate a truce with the Blazing World at the end of the comic. In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume IV: The Tempest , a Demogorgon appears and is identified as a Lloigor. A race of creatures known as Lloigor was the subject of the song "Lloigor" by the atmospheric black metal band Dark Fortress . The song references "A thousand young", most likely referring to

1806-464: Is set in Sac Prairie of the 1920s and can thus be considered in its own right a part of the Sac Prairie Saga , as well as an extension of Derleth's body of mystery fiction. Robert Hood, writing in the New York Times said: "Steve and Sim, the major characters, are twentieth-century cousins of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer; Derleth's minor characters, little gems of comic drawing." The first novel in

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1892-640: Is specifically stated – on multiple occasions – that "the many-angled ones live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set ". The DC comic book Hitman , by Garth Ennis , briefly featured demons called "The Multi-Angled Ones", similar in concept to the Many-Angled Ones of Zenith . These beings killed most of the dysfunctional superhero team Section 8 . The many-angled ones also appear in Simon R. Green 's Secret History series of books The Man with

1978-429: Is the main aspiration of its inhabitants, apparently granted to everyone but strictly controlled by the top of the hierarchy. Freedom is despised and the laws are cruel. Innovators are imprisoned or suppressed. Members of lower classes who are intellectually valuable, and potential leaders of riots , are either killed or promoted to the higher classes. Every attempt for change is considered dangerous and harmful. This world

2064-648: The St. Louis Dispatch concluded, "Derleth has achieved a kind of prose equivalent of the Spoon River Anthology ." In the same year, Evening in Spring was published by Charles Scribners & Sons. This work Derleth considered among his finest. What The Milwaukee Journal called "this beautiful little love story", is an autobiographical novel of first love beset by small-town religious bigotry. The work received critical praise: The New Yorker considered it

2150-470: The British comics anthology 2000 A.D. The names directly corresponded to the names of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. The name "Iok Sotot" and his epithet "Eater of Souls" came from The Illuminatus! Trilogy where it referred to Yog-Sothoth. They are referred to as "many-angled ones" (possibly the first use of this moniker) and appear to be entities who exist in a space with more dimensions than our own. As

2236-545: The Sac Prairie Saga and the Wisconsin Saga . He also wrote history; arguably most notable among these was The Wisconsin: River of a Thousand Isles , published in 1942. The work was one in a series entitled "The Rivers of America", conceived by writer Constance Lindsay Skinner during the Great Depression as a series that would connect Americans to their heritage through the history of the great rivers of

2322-520: The Sac Prairie Saga is a series of quasi-autobiographical short stories known as the "Gus Elker Stories", amusing tales of country life that Peter Ruber , Derleth's last editor, said were "...models of construction and...fused with some of the most memorable characters in American literature." Most were written between 1934 and the late 1940s, though the last, "Tail of the Dog", was published in 1959 and won

2408-541: The Scholastic Magazine short story award for the year. The series was collected and republished in Country Matters in 1996. Walden West , published in 1961, is considered by many Derleth's finest work. This prose meditation is built out of the same fundamental material as the series of Sac Prairie journals, but is organized around three themes: "the persistence of memory...the sounds and odors of

2494-485: The University of Wisconsin , where he received a B.A. in 1930. During this time he also served briefly as associate editor of Minneapolis-based Fawcett Publications Mystic Magazine . Returning to Sauk City in the summer of 1931, Derleth worked in a local canning factory and collaborated with childhood friend Mark Schorer (later Chairman of the University of California, Berkeley English Department). They rented

2580-522: The Vision . They later become the antagonists of The Thanos Imperative miniseries, and it is stated that Shuma-Gorath is one. In the 2010 remake of the video game Splatterhouse , scripted by 2000 AD writer Gordon Rennie , the Many-Angled Ones is one of the names for the demonic race known as the Corrupted. August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971)

2666-437: The "insides" of the house, moves a cup through the third dimension, and even goes inside the Square for a bit. Still unable to comprehend 3D, the Sphere takes the Square to the third dimension, Spaceland. This Sphere visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hope of eventually educating the population of Flatland. From the safety of Spaceland, they can oversee

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2752-516: The American Novel , "What Mr. Derleth has that is lacking...in modern novelists generally, is a country. He belongs. He writes of a land and a people that are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. In his fictional world, there is a unity much deeper and more fundamental than anything that can be conferred by an ideology. It is clear, too, that he did not get the best, and most fictionally useful, part of his background material from research in

2838-613: The American writers of distinction." Derleth's first novel, Still is the Summer Night , was published two years later by the famous Charles Scribners' editor Maxwell Perkins , and was the second in his Sac Prairie Saga. Village Year , the first in a series of journals – meditations on nature, Midwestern village American life, and more – was published in 1941 to praise from The New York Times Book Review : "A book of instant sensitive responsiveness...recreates its scene with acuteness and beauty, and makes an unusual contribution to

2924-463: The Americana of the present day." The New York Herald Tribune observed that "Derleth...deepens the value of his village setting by presenting in full the enduring natural background; with the people projected against this, the writing comes to have the quality of an old Flemish picture, humanity lively and amusing and loveable in the foreground and nature magnificent beyond." James Grey, writing in

3010-910: The Attic", "Witches' Hollow", or "The Shuttered Room"), but often the hero is doomed (e.g., "The House in the Valley", "The Peabody Heritage", "Something in Wood"), as in Lovecraft. And it must be remembered that an occasional Lovecraftian hero does manage to overcome the odds, e.g., in "The Horror in the Museum", "The Shunned House", and 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'. Derleth also treated Lovecraft's Great Old Ones as representatives of elemental forces, creating new fictional entities to flesh out this framework. Such debates aside, Derleth's founding of Arkham House and his successful effort to rescue Lovecraft from literary oblivion are widely acknowledged by practitioners in

3096-464: The Avengers, who received their powers from the Many-Angled Ones in exchange for adoration and worship from the heroes. That world's Iron Man states that the Many-Angled Ones have outgrown their reality and need a new place to feed and be worshiped. They intend for Quasar to show them the way to his Earth. The Many-Angled Ones are opposed on this Earth by the heroes who believe in pure science, such as

3182-598: The Golden Torc (2007), Daemons Are Forever (2008), and The Spy Who Haunted Me (2009). In the Marvel Comics cosmic crossover event " Realm of Kings ," written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning , Quasar travels through a time/space rift to an alternate earth with multiple Lovecraftian elements being part of the everyday reality of that world. There Quasar meets the Revengers, that world's counterparts to

3268-485: The Monarch understands them at all, he accepts them as his own – for he cannot conceive of any other except himself – and plumes himself upon the variety of Its Thought as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this god of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction." The Square recognises

3354-531: The Second and Revised Edition, 1884, he answers such critics by emphasizing that the description of women was satirizing the viewpoints held, stating that the Square: was writing as a Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the views generally adopted by Flatland and (as he has been informed) even by Spaceland, Historians; in whose pages (until very recent times) the destinies of Women and of

3440-468: The Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace. The Square then has a dream in which the Sphere revisits him, this time to introduce him to a zero-dimensional space , Pointland, of whom the Point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any communication as a thought originating in his own mind (cf. Solipsism ): "You see," said my Teacher, "how little your words have done. So far as

3526-456: The book used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to comment on the hierarchy of Victorian culture, but the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions . A sequel, Sphereland , was written by Dionys Burger in 1957. Several films have been based on Flatland , including the feature film Flatland (2007). Other efforts have been short or experimental films, including one narrated by Dudley Moore and

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3612-418: The book when the issue of irregularity, or physical deformity is brought up. In a two-dimensional world, a regular polygon can be identified by a single angle and/or vertex . To maintain social cohesion , irregularity is to be abhorred, with moral irregularity and criminality cited, "by some" (in the book), as inevitable additional deformities, a sentiment with which the Square concurs. If the error of deviation

3698-561: The central character. Derleth wrote many and varied children's works, including biographies meant to introduce younger readers to explorer Jacques Marquette , as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau . Arguably most important among his works for younger readers, however, is the Steve and Sim Mystery Series, also known as the Mill Creek Irregulars series. The ten-volume series, published between 1958 and 1970,

3784-495: The company derived from Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham , Massachusetts , which features in many of his stories. In 1939, Arkham House published The Outsider and Others , a huge collection that contained most of Lovecraft's known short stories. Derleth and Wandrei soon expanded Arkham House and began a regular publishing schedule after its second book, Someone in the Dark , a collection of some of Derleth's own horror stories,

3870-454: The country...and Thoreau's observation that the 'mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. ' " A blend of nature writing, philosophic musings, and careful observation of the people and place of "Sac Prairie". Of this work, George Vukelich, author of "North Country Notebook", writes: "Derleth's Walden West is...the equal of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,Ohio , Thornton Wilder's Our Town , and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology ." This

3956-560: The ensuing class war at length. The population of Flatland can " evolve " through the "Law of Nature", which states: "a male child shall have one more side than his father, so that each generation shall rise (as a rule) one step in the scale of development and nobility. Thus the son of a Square is a Pentagon , the son of a Pentagon, a Hexagon ; and so on". This rule is not the case when dealing with Isosceles Triangles (Soldiers and Workmen) with only two congruent sides. The smallest angle of an Isosceles Triangle gains 30 arc minutes (half

4042-651: The fictional detective Solar Pons , a pastiche of Arthur Conan Doyle 's Sherlock Holmes . A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow , Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga , a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing. The son of William Julius Derleth and Rose Louise Volk, Derleth grew up in Sauk City, Wisconsin . He

4128-411: The funding from his Guggenheim Fellowship to bind his comic book collection, most recently valued in the millions of dollars, rather than to travel abroad as the award intended.). Derleth's true avocation , however, was hiking the terrain of his native Wisconsin lands, and observing and recording nature with an expert eye. Derleth once wrote of his writing methods, "I write very swiftly, from 750,000 to

4214-462: The genre. While Derleth considered his work in this genre less important than his most serious literary efforts, the compilers of these four anthologies, including Ramsey Campbell, note that the stories still resonate after more than 50 years. In 2009, The Library of America selected Derleth's story The Panelled Room for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales. Derleth also wrote many historical novels, as part of both

4300-417: The horror field as seminal events in the field. For instance, Ramsey Campbell has acknowledged Derleth's encouragement and guidance during the early part of his own writing career, and Kirby McCauley has cited Derleth and Arkham House as an inspiration for his own anthology Dark Forces . Arkham House and Derleth published Dark Carnival , the first book by Ray Bradbury , as well. Brian Lumley cites

4386-458: The identity of the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of higher dimensions. Once returned to Flatland, the Square cannot convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announced that anyone preaching the existence of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). For example, he tries to convince his relative of

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4472-670: The importance of Derleth to his own Lovecraftian work, and contends in a 2009 introduction to Derleth's work that he was "...one of the first, finest, and most discerning editors and publishers of macabre fiction." Important as was Derleth's work to rescue H.P. Lovecraft from literary obscurity at the time of Lovecraft's death, Derleth also built a body of horror and spectral fiction of his own; still frequently anthologized. The best of this work, recently reprinted in four volumes of short stories – most of which were originally published in Weird Tales , illustrates Derleth's original abilities in

4558-461: The interest of privacy according to Litersky), and no evidence or acknowledgement of Derleth having a bisexual or homosexual orientation has ever been found in his personal correspondence. Derleth wrote more than 150 short stories and more than 100 books during his lifetime. Derleth wrote an expansive series of novels, short stories, journals, poems, and other works about Sac Prairie . Derleth intended this series to comprise up to 50 novels telling

4644-457: The journey and see his particular Avalon: The Wisconsin River shining among its islands, and the castles of Baron Pierneau and Hercules Dousman. He is a champion and a justification of regionalism. Yet he is also a burly, bounding, bustling, self-confident, opinionated, and highly-sweatered young man with faults so grievous that a melancholy perusal of them may be of more value to apprentices than

4730-421: The leaders of Flatland, acknowledging the Sphere's existence and prescribing the silencing. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste), including the Square's brother. After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth dimension and higher spatial dimensions. Still,

4816-597: The legendary dragons . In the distant past, the Lloigor came from the Andromeda Galaxy to the continent of Mu and used human slaves as their labor force. When their power dwindled, the Lloigor retreated below ground and left their former slaves to their own devices. Eventually, these early humans migrated from Mu and populated the earth. In modern times, the Lloigor are too weakened to pose any real threat to humanity. Nonetheless, they can draw psychic energy from sleeping humans in nearby towns or villages —

4902-566: The library; like Scott, in his Border novels, he gives, rather, the impression of having drunk it in with his mother's milk." Jim Stephens, editor of An August Derleth Reader , (1992), argues: "what Derleth accomplished....was to gather a Wisconsin mythos which gave respect to the ancient fundament of our contemporary life." The author inaugurated the Sac Prairie Saga with four novellas comprising Place of Hawks , published by Loring & Mussey in 1935. At publication, The Detroit News wrote: "Certainly with this book Mr. Derleth may be added to

4988-589: The lower classes and women, determines the configuration of a person by feeling one of its angles . The "Art of Sight Recognition", practised by the upper classes, is aided by "Fog", which allows an observer to determine the depth of an object. With this, polygons with sharp angles relative to the observer will fade more rapidly than polygons with more gradual angles. Colour of any kind was banned in Flatland after Isosceles workers painted themselves to impersonate noble Polygons. The Square describes these events, and

5074-552: The masses of mankind have seldom been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration. Flatland did not have much success when published, although it was not entirely ignored. In the entry on Edwin Abbott in the Dictionary of National Biography for persons who died in the period of 1922 to 1930, Flatland was not even mentioned. The book was discovered again after Albert Einstein 's general theory of relativity

5160-457: The mid-1930s, Derleth organized a Ranger's Club for young people, served as clerk and president of the local school board , served as a parole officer, organized a local men's club and a parent-teacher association . He also lectured in American regional literature at the University of Wisconsin and was a contributing editor of Outdoors Magazine . With longtime friend Donald Wandrei , Derleth founded Arkham House in 1939. Its initial objective

5246-404: The nation. Skinner wanted the series to be written by artists, not academicians. Derleth, while not a trained historian, was, according to former Wisconsin state historian William F. Thompson , "...a very competent regional historian who based his historical writing upon research in the primary documents and who regularly sought the help of professionals... ." In the foreword to the 1985 reissue of

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5332-523: The post-World War I era, in the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Though Derleth never wrote a Pons novel to equal The Hound of the Baskervilles , editor Peter Ruber wrote that "Derleth" produced more than a few Solar Pons stories almost as good as Sir Arthur's, and many that had better plot construction." Although these stories were a form of diversion for Derleth, Ruber, who edited The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus Edition (2000), argued: "Because

5418-579: The projected life-story of the region from the 19th century onwards, with analogies to Balzac 's Human Comedy and Proust 's Remembrance of Things Past . This, and other early work by Derleth, made him a well-known figure among the regional literary figures of his time: early Pulitzer Prize winners Hamlin Garland and Zona Gale , as well as Sinclair Lewis, the last both an admirer and critic of Derleth. As Edward Wagenknecht wrote in Cavalcade of

5504-498: The series, The Moon Tenders , does, in fact, involve a rafting adventure down the Wisconsin River , which led regional writer Jesse Stuart to suggest the novel was one that "older people might read to recapture the spirit and dream of youth." The connection to the Sac Prairie Saga was noted by the Chicago Tribune : "Once again a small midwest community in 1920s is depicted with perception, skill, and dry humor." Derleth

5590-451: The short films Flatland: The Movie (2007) and Flatland 2: Sphereland (2012). The story describes a two-dimensional world inhabited by geometric figures (flatlanders ); women are line segments , while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square , a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The first half of

5676-471: The spirit and atmosphere with as much fidelity?" Queen adds, "his choice of the euphonic Solar Pons is an appealing addition to the fascinating lore of Sherlockian nomenclature." Vincent Starrett, in his foreword to the 1964 edition of The Casebook of Solar Pons , wrote that the series is "as sparkling a galaxy of Sherlockian pastiches as we have had since the canonical entertainments came to an end." Despite close similarities to Doyle's creation, Pons lived in

5762-418: The stories were generally of such high quality, they ought to be assessed on their own merits as a unique contribution in the annals of mystery fiction, rather than suffering comparison as one of the endless imitators of Sherlock Holmes." Some of the stories were self-published, through a new imprint called " Mycroft & Moran ", an appellation of humorous significance to Holmesian scholars. For approximately

5848-423: The story goes through the practicalities of existing in a two-dimensional universe, as well as a history leading up to the year 1999 on the eve of the 3rd Millennium. On New Year's Eve, the Square dreams of a visit to a one-dimensional world , "Lineland", inhabited by men, consisting of lines, while the women consisted of "lustrous points". These points and lines are unable to see the Square as anything other than

5934-614: The term appears to be synonymous with Great Old One —for example, H. P. Lovecraft 's creation Yog-Sothoth is called a lloigor. The term Lloigor is again equated with Great Old Ones in Alan Moore 's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen , in the final chapter of " Allan and the Sundered Veil ;" here, both terms are used to describe Ithaqqa , a single facet of the self-aware idea known as " Yuggoth ". In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier , Nyarlathotep

6020-437: The third dimension but cannot move a square "upward," as opposed to forward or sideways. Eventually, the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason, with only occasional contact with his brother, who is imprisoned in the same facility. He cannot convince his brother, even after all they have both seen. Seven years after being imprisoned, A Square writes out the book Flatland as a memoir , hoping to keep it as posterity for

6106-440: The thousand young of Shub-Niggurath . However, the verse of each song refers to a single entity. The Lloigor are also referred to as Yuggoth, a single entity. This is the first connection between Shub-Niggurath and Yuggoth made in this way. Scottish comics writer Grant Morrison used the Lloigor as the primary villains (possessing the bodies and minds of various superhumans on various parallel earths) in their Zenith series for

6192-485: The victims so affected awaken feeling drained or ill, yet regain all lost vitality by nightfall — with which they can perform strange, preternatural feats, such as causing mysterious explosions or altering the flow of time . In The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975), the lloigor are mentioned as the gods of the aboriginal natives of the People's Republic of Fernando Po , as well as the original gods of Atlantis . Here,

6278-485: The whole universe, essentially reducing it to clockwork. A number of British authors, often those who had previously written for 2000 AD , have since included the Many-Angled Ones in their works under that name. The many-angled ones were mentioned in Charles Stross 's The Atrocity Archives . This work features the usual appearances by "nameless horrors of the abyss," which may or may not be many-angled ones. It

6364-547: The work by The University of Wisconsin Press , Thompson concluded: "No other writer, of whatever background or training, knew and understood his particular 'corner of the earth' better than August Derleth." Additionally, Derleth wrote a number of volumes of poetry. Three of his collections – Rind of Earth (1942), Selected Poems (1944), and The Edge of Night (1945) – were published by the Decker Press , which also printed

6450-508: The work of other Midwestern poets such as Edgar Lee Masters . Derleth was also the author of several biographies of other writers, including Zona Gale , Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau . Flatland Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott , first published in 1884 by Seeley & Co. of London. Written pseudonymously by "A Square",

6536-581: Was a correspondent and friend of H. P. Lovecraft – when Lovecraft wrote about "le Comte d'Erlette" in his fiction , it was in homage to Derleth. Derleth invented the term "Cthulhu Mythos" to describe the fictional universe depicted in the series of stories shared by Lovecraft and other writers in his circle. When Lovecraft died in 1937, Derleth and Donald Wandrei assembled a collection of Lovecraft's stories and tried to get them published. Existing publishers showed little interest, so Derleth and Wandrei founded Arkham House in 1939 for that purpose. The name of

6622-785: Was a series of 70 stories in affectionate pastiche of Sherlock Holmes , whose creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , he admired greatly. The stories feature a Holmes-styled British detective named Solar Pons , of 7B Praed Street in London. These included one published novel as well ( Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey ). The series was greatly admired by such notable writers and critics of mystery and detective fiction as Ellery Queen ( Frederic Dannay ), Anthony Boucher , Vincent Starrett , and Howard Haycraft . In his 1944 volume The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes , Ellery Queen wrote of Derleth's "The Norcross Riddle", an early Pons story: "How many budding authors, not even old enough to vote, could have captured

6708-750: Was an American writer and anthologist. He was the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft . He made contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the cosmic horror genre and helped found the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK). Derleth was also a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction , poetry , detective fiction , science fiction , and biography . Notably, he created

6794-480: Was apparently a wind elemental that possessed the ability to somehow draw its sacrificial victims to it, perhaps through teleportation . Colin Wilson borrowed the name for "The Return of the Lloigor" (1969), but his creatures are very different from Derleth's. The Lloigor take the form of invisible vortices of psychic energy, though they may sometimes make themselves manifest as great reptilian beasts, akin to

6880-779: Was educated in local parochial and public high school. Derleth wrote his first fiction at age 13. He was interested most in reading, and he made three trips to the library a week. He would save his money to buy books (his personal library exceeded 12,000 volumes later on in life). Some of his biggest influences were Ralph Waldo Emerson 's essays, Walt Whitman , H. L. Mencken 's The American Mercury , Samuel Johnson 's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia , Alexandre Dumas , Edgar Allan Poe , Walter Scott , and Henry David Thoreau 's Walden . Forty rejected stories and three years later, according to anthologist Jim Stephens, he sold his first story, "Bat's Belfry", to Weird Tales magazine in 1926. Derleth wrote throughout his four years at

6966-681: Was essentially his own fiction; S. T. Joshi refers to the "posthumous collaborations" as marking the beginning of "perhaps the most disreputable phase of Derleth's activities". Dirk W. Mosig , S. T. Joshi, and Richard L. Tierney were dissatisfied with Derleth's invention of the term Cthulhu Mythos (Lovecraft himself used Yog-Sothothery ) and his presentation of Lovecraft's fiction as having an overall pattern reflecting Derleth's own Christian world view, which they contrast with Lovecraft's depiction of an amoral universe. However, Robert M. Price points out that while Derleth's tales are distinct from Lovecraft's in their use of hope and his depiction of

7052-464: Was followed eight years later by Return to Walden West , a work of similar quality, but with a more noticeable environmentalist edge to the writing, notes critic Norbert Blei . A close literary relative of the Sac Prairie Saga was Derleth's Wisconsin Saga , which comprises several historical novels. Detective fiction represented another substantial body of Derleth's work. Most notable among this work

7138-421: Was published in 1941. Following Lovecraft's death, Derleth wrote a number of stories based on fragments and notes left by Lovecraft. These were published in Weird Tales and later in book form, under the byline "H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth", with Derleth calling himself a "posthumous collaborator". This practice has raised objections in some quarters that Derleth simply used Lovecraft's name to market what

7224-466: Was published, which brought to prominence the concept of a fourth dimension. Flatland was mentioned in a letter by William Garnett entitled "Euclid, Newton and Einstein" published in Nature on 12 February 1920. In this letter, Abbott is depicted, in a sense, as a prophet due to his intuition of the importance of time to explain certain phenomena: Some thirty or more years ago a little jeu d'esprit

7310-583: Was to publish the works of H. P. Lovecraft, with whom Derleth had corresponded since his teenage years. At the same time, he began teaching a course in American Regional Literature at the University of Wisconsin. In 1941, he became literary editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison , a post he held until his resignation in 1960. His hobbies included fencing, swimming, chess, philately and comic-strips (Derleth reportedly used

7396-535: Was written by Dr. Edwin Abbott entitled Flatland . At the time of its publication it did not attract as much attention as it deserved... If there is motion of our three-dimensional space relative to the fourth dimension, all the changes we experience and assign to the flow of time will be due simply to this movement, the whole of the future as well as the past always existing in the fourth dimension. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography subsequently revised his biography to state that [Abbott] "is most remembered as

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