The Dark Brotherhood by August Derleth, H. P. Lovecraft

The Dark Brotherhood

August Derleth H. P. Lovecraft
Arkham House (1966)
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    August Derleth’s
“Posthumous Collaborations”
After Lovecraft’s death, August Derleth based a number of stories on fragments written by Lovecraft and published these as “posthumous collaborations” between Lovecraft and Derleth. Since then, these stories have been marketed as being by “H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth”, “H.P. Lovecraft with August Derleth”, or by H.P. Lovecraft alone. Some of the books that make this error include:
The Lurker at the Threshold  (Arkham House, 1945; Beagle/Ballantine Books, 1971; Carroll Graf, 1988)
The Survivor and Others  (Arkham House, 1957; Ballantine, 1962)
The Shuttered Room and Other Tales of Terror  (Beagle/Ballantine Books, 1971)
The Watchers Out of Time and Others  (Arkham House, 1974)
The Watchers Out of Time  (Carroll Graf, 1991; Del Rey, 2008)
The following excerpt from S.T. Joshi’s  H.P. Lovecraft: A Comprehensive Bibliography  explains the matter further:
      These sixteen stories, listed as by “H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth,” were in fact written almost entirely by Derleth. In most cases, the stories were based on one or more ideas noted in Lovecraft’s  Commonplace Book ; for example, “The Fisherman of Falcon Point” was based on this entry: “Fisherman casts his net into the sea by moonlight—what he finds.” Plotting, description, dialogue, characterization, and other elements were entirely by Derleth. As such they cannot be classified as works by Lovecraft.
      In some instances Derleth incorporated actual prose passages by Lovecraft into his stories.  The Lurker at the Threshold  (a 50,000-word novel) contains about 1,200 words by Lovecraft, most of it taken from a fragment entitled “Of Evill Sorceries Done in New England” (see B-i-42), the balance from a fragment now titled “The Rose Window” (see B-ii-322). “The Survivor” was based on a comparatively lengthy plot sketch plus random notes for the story jotted down by Lovecraft in 1934. A descriptive passage of “The Lamp of Alhazred” was based on a portion of a letter by Lovecraft to Derleth, 18 November 1936. These extracts or paraphrases, however, have not been deemed significant enough to merit inclusion in this bibliography.
The 16 stories to which Joshi refers are listed below:
“The Ancestor”
“The Dark Brotherhood”
“The Fisherman of Falcon Point”
“The Gable Window”
“The Horror from the Middle Span”
“Innsmouth Clay”
“The Lamp of Alhazred”
The Lurker at the Threshold
“The Peabody Heritage”
“The Shadow in the Attic”
“The Shadow out of Space”
“The Shuttered Room”
“The Survivor”
“The Watchers out of Time”
“Wentworth’s Day”
“Witches’ Hollow”
Again, these works are entirely the work of August Derleth and cannot be considered among the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

THE DARK BROTHERHOOD
    It is probable that the facts in regard to the mysterious destruction by fire of an abandoned house on a knoll along the shore of the Seekonk in a little habited district between the Washington and Red Bridges will never be entirely known. The police have been beset by the usual number of cranks, purporting to offer information about the matter, none more insistent than Arthur Phillips, the descendant of an old East Side family, long resident of Angell Street, a somewhat confused but earnest young man who prepared an account of certain events he alleges led to the fire. Though the police have interviewed all persons concerned and mentioned in Mr. Phillips’ account, no corroboration—save for a statement from a librarian at the Athenaeum, attesting only to the fact that Mr. Phillips did once meet Miss Rose Dexter there—could be found to support Mr. Phillips’ allegations. The manuscript follows.

I
    The nocturnal streets of any city along the Eastern Seaboard afford the nightwalker many a glimpse of the strange and terrible,