The Last Test

This Adolphe de Castro story was revised by Lovecraft. Here is an excellent article on the many facets of HPL's relationship to de Castro.

It includes this letter to Frank Belknap Long

And I am calling in your aid right now in the case of old ‘Dolph! He’s too gordam [sic] fussy to make his work a paying proposition for me -- for his fiction is unspeakable, his paying ability meagre, and his demands for revision - after his first version - extensive. I about exploded over the dragging monotony of a silly thing which I renamed Clarendon’s Last Test.... Now - after thinking it over - he decided to use the tale just as I fixed it up. Vaya con Dios, Don Adolfo - here’s one reviser who won’t raise any controversy by claiming authorship of the beastly mess! (SL I.207-8)