Bloch, Robert

   (1917–1994)

   American novelist and short story writer. He first encountered HPL’s work in WT in 1927; he corresponded with HPL (1933–37); see Letters to Robert Bloch, ed. David E.Schultz and S.T.Joshi (Necronomicon Press, 1993; supplement, 1993). Bloch invented an analogue to HPL’s Necronomicon, Ludvig Prinn’s Mysteries of the Worm,in “The Secret in the Tomb” ( WT,May 1935); HPL coined the Latin title, De Vermis Mysteriis . Bloch also created Cultes des Goules(often misattributed to August Derleth because the fictionalauthor is the “Comte d’Erlette”), The Cabala of Saboth,and the Black Ritesof the mad priest Luveh-Keraph. He wrote a playful trilogy with HPL, comprising Bloch’s “The Shambler from the Stars” ( WT,September 1935), HPL’s “The Haunter of the Dark” (written November 1935; WT,December 1936), and Bloch’s “The Shadow from the Steeple” ( WT,September 1950). HPL lent advice on Bloch’s early tale “Satan’s Servants” (written in early 1935; first published in Cats), but does not appear to have written any prose in the story. Most of Bloch’s Lovecraftian tales are collected in Mysteries of the Worm, ed. Lin Carter (1981; rev. ed. [by Robert M.Price] Chaosium, 1993). Bloch later turned to the genres of mystery and suspense, writing such notable novels as The Scarf (1947), Psycho (1959), The Dead Beat (1960), and many others. Strange Eons (1978) is a Lovecraftian pastiche.

   See his autobiography, Once Around the Bloch (1993).

   See Randall Larson, Robert Bloch (Starmont House, 1986); Randall Larson, The Complete Robert Bloch: An Illustrated International Bibliography (Fandom Unlimited, 1986); S.T.Joshi, “A Literary Tutelage: Robert Bloch and H.P. Lovecraft,” Studies in Weird FictionNo. 16 (Winter 1995): 13–25.