Munn, H[arold] Warner

   (1903–1981)

   American writer of fantasy and horror tales, and friend of HPL. His first story, “The Werewolf of Ponkert” ( WT,July 1925), was based on a remark in HPL’s letter to WT(March 1924): “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?” But it appears that Munn misunderstood the import of HPL’s remark, for he has the werewolf regret his condition. Munn wrote several more werewolf stories under the generic title “Tales of the Werewolf Clan”; some were gathered as The Werewolf of Ponkert (1958). He was introduced to HPL by W.Paul Cook in the summer of 1927; HPL visited him in Athol, Mass., in the summer of 1928, at which time (on June 28) Munn took HPL to the Bear’s Den, a remarkable forest gorge later cited in “The Dunwich Horror” (1928). Cook and Munn visited HPL in Providence in June 1929; HPL returned the favor by visiting Cook and Munn in Athol the next June. HPL and Munn seemed to communicate only sporadically in the 1930s. Munn went on to write many stories for the pulps as well as fantasy and historical novels, including Merlin’s Ring (1974) and The Lost Legion (1980). Late in life he wrote a brief memoir, “H.P.L.: A Remembrance” ( Whispers,December 1976; in LR).