Arkham House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arkham House is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Arkham House published the first hardback collections of H. P. Lovecraft's works. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city Arkham.
In addition to volumes of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction, Arkham House published collections of his letters to peers, friends and family. Among his correspondents were Arkham House founders, Derleth and Wandrei.
Arkham House also published fiction from several of Lovecraft's contemporaries, including Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, and Derleth himself; classic genre fiction by authors such as William Hope Hodgson, Algernon Blackwood, H. Russell Wakefield, Seabury Quinn, and J. Sheridan Le Fanu; and later writers in the Lovecraft school, such as Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley.
Despite the wealth of talented writers who appeared under the Arkham House imprint, it was not a financial success. Derleth wrote in 1970, "[T]he fact is that in no single year since its founding have the earnings of Arkham House met the expenses, so that it has been necessary for my personal earnings to shore up Arkham House finances." After Derleth's death, his successors expanded the company's range of authors to include such prominent science fiction and fantasy writers as Michael Bishop, Lucius Shepard, Bruce Sterling, James Tiptree Jr., Michael Shea and J. G. Ballard, often publishing hardcover collections of shorter works.
