Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Werewolf of Ponkert


Cover done by Andrew Brosnatch.

In a letter to Edwin Baird (Lovecraft's "Miscellaneous Writings") from Lovecraft dated "early November 1923" which is probably the one one published in the March 1924 Weird Tales and contains the comment, "Take a werewolf story, for instance -- who ever wrote a story from the point of view of the wolf, and sympathising strongly with the devil to whom he has sold himself?"

This was impetus for Munn to attempt such a perspective.
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Lovecraft to Barlow on 28 August 1931: I have never written a story called "The Wolf". Can you be thinking of H. Walter Munn's "Werewolf of Ponkert" series?

Barlow (O Fortunate Floridian, p. 405) sys that Lovecraft told him this anecdote. "H. Warner Munn has such a belief in the supernatural as to have caused him to become Catholic after his marriage; and almost repudiate his earlier work as morbid and not nice.

Robert Howard to Lovecraft: 24 May 1932: "...and his 'Tales of the Werewolf Clan' had the real historic sweep. He is evidently a deeply read student of history."

TotWC was shorthand for a series of stories appearing in Weird Tales: "The Werewolf of Ponkert" (July 1925), "The Return of the Master" (July 1927), "The Werewolf's Daughter" (October, November and December 1928), "The Master Strikes" (November 1930), "The Master Fights" (December 1930), "The Master Has a Narrow Escape" (January 1931).]


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This edition is a first and Limited by Grandon (1958) Hardcover. Providence, Rhode Island. This copy is signed by H. Warner Munn on the front fly. Limited edition of 300. Early Donald M. Grant publication, the 5th (and last) title from Grandon.
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This is the Centaur (1971) edition with a pretty neat dust jacket art. Part of the “Time-Lost” series. The initials appear to be Steve Fabian's on the art.

The first edition was published in 1925, this edition also contains a second story, “The Werewolf’s Daughter” which was originally published in Weird Tales as a three-part serial in 1928.

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The Werewolf of Ponkert was reprinted in January 1953 Weird Tales (cover art Kelly Freas) Once There Was a Little Girl. Everil Worrell; I Can't Wear White, Suzanne Pickett; & The Gloves, Garnett Radcliffe

1 comment:

w. h. pugmire, esq. said...

I was good friends with Harold Munn from the early 1970s until his death. He was a wonderful yet very strange guy. I think he actually believed that he was a reincarted lover of Joan of Arc, about whom he wrote a book-length poem sequence. His friendship was fantastic, because at the time I was a young new Lovecraft fan, and to have met someone who knew HPL and used to take him for drives in a car -- it was sweet. Munn's big regret was that when he moved to the Northwest from New England he got rid of a lot of stuff, and he BURNED Lovecraft's letters to him!!! Argh!!!! -hopfrog

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