“Life and Death“

Life and Death
   Short story or prose poem; evidently published in an amateur journal (c. 1920), but text not currently available.
   This is one of the few authenticallyloststories by HPL, but its existence and whereabouts remain in doubt. In his commonplace book (entry \#27) HPL records the title and plot germ of the story:Deathits desolation & horrorbleak spacessea-bottomdead cities. But Lifethe greater horror! Vast unheard-of reptiles & leviathanshideous beasts of prehistoric junglerank slimy vegetationevil instincts of primal manLife is more horrible than death.” The entry probably dates to early 1920; in contrast to other used entries, HPL has not crossed out this entry or otherwise indicated that it was used. He never mentions or alludes to the story in any extant correspondence. After HPLs death, R.H.Barlow wrote to August Derleth that he thought he once sawLife and Death” (Barlow to Derleth, June 14, 1944; ms., SHSW). Around this time W.Paul Cook told Derleth that he thought the story had appeared in the United Amateur,but this is not the case. George T.Wetzel, in describing the research for his bibliography of HPL, stated that he saw the story as published in an amateur journal, but he subsequently lost the reference and was unable to locate it (seeThe Research of a Biblio,” in Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Memoirs, Critiques and Bibliographies [1955]). Wetzels research on HPLs amateur publications was conducted largely at the Fossil Collection of Amateur Journalism, then at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia; but the collection was subsequently vandalized, as many published works by HPL were cut out of the journals with a razor. Examination of many other amateur journalism collections by several scholars has failed to turn up the item.
   One wonders, then, whether HPL actually wrote and publishedLife and Death.” The plot germ above could in fact refer to the prose poemEx Oblivione” ( United Amateur,March 1921), and the rather vague recollections of Barlow, Cook, and Wetzel may refer to it or to some other work altogether.

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