An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

correspondent of HPL (1931–37). Shea, residing in Pittsburgh, engaged HPL in numerous involved (and at times heated) discussions on politics (especially concerning Hitler and the Nazis) and society. Shea’s lifelong interest in films also seemed to rub off a bit on HPL, who discussed with Shea numerous films he saw in the 1930s, including Berkeley Square. Shea wrote some fiction at this time (HPL was much impressed with a short story called “The Tin Roof; see SL4.93–94), but it was not published. Shea published a few weird and science fiction stories in magazines in the 1940s and 1950s, and still later wrote some tales imitating HPL: “The Haunter of the Graveyard” (in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos,ed. August Derleth [1969]) and “Dead Giveaway” ( Outré,1976). Shea compiled two nonweird anthologies, Strange Desires(1954) and Strange Barriers(1955). He wrote a poignant memoir, “H.P.Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows” ( Fantasy & Science Fiction,

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May 1966; rpt. Necronomicon Press, 1982). See his collection, In Search of Lovecraft(Necronomicon Press, 1991).

Shepherd, Wilson (b. 1917),

weird fiction editor and publisher in Oakman, Alabama, and associate of HPL (1932–37). HPL first heard of Shepherd indirectly from R.H.Barlow, who protested that Shepherd was trying to bamboozle him in regard to the exchange of some pulp magazines. HPL’s (unintentionally comical) piece, “Correspondence between R.H.Barlow and Wilson Shepherd” (1932; first published in LSNo. 13 [Fall 1986]: 68–71), attempts to unsnarl the misunderstanding. In 1936 HPL heard directly from Shepherd, who was now assisting Donald A.Wollheim in editing the Phantagraph . The two editors also conceived of a semi-professional magazine, Fanciful Tales,which was issued in Fall 1936 and contained a severely misprinted version of HPL’s “The Nameless City.” Shepherd was also attempting to write poetry. HPL slightly touched up an apparently unpublished poem called “Death” (see HPL to Shepherd, August 11, 1936; ms., JHL) and more exhaustively revised a poem called “Wanderer’s Return” (see HPL to Shepherd, September 5, 1936), published in the Literary Quarterly(Winter 1937). In acknowledgment, Wollheim and Shepherd printed HPL’s sonnet “Background” ( Fungi from Yuggoth30) as a broadside for his forty-sixth birthday (it purports to be Volume 47, No. 1 of The Lovecrafter). After HPL’s death Shepherd printed A History of the Necronomiconunder the imprint of the Rebel Press (1938).

Sherman,———.

In At the Mountains of Madness,the cache operator on the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition of 1930– 31, stationed at the supply cache at McMurdo Sound.

Shiel, M[atthew] P[hipps] (1865–1947).

British weird writer. HPL discovered Shiel in 1923, when W.Paul Cook lent him The Pale Ape and Other Pulses(1911), containing “The House of Sounds” (originally published as “Vaila” in Shapes in the Fire[1896]), which HPL deemed one of the ten best weird tales in literature. HPL also enjoyed “Xélucha” (also in Shapes in the Fire) and the “last man” novel The Purple Cloud(1901; rev. 1929), whose opening pages (describing a trip to the Arctic) may have influenced HPL’s At the Mountains of Madness(1930). Shiel’s Xélucha and Others(1975) and Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk (1977) contain most of his best short weird work.

See A.Reynolds Morse, The Works of M.P.Shiel: A Study in Bibliography(Los Angeles: Fantasy Publishing Co., 1948; rev. ed. 1980 [with John D. Squires]); A.Reynolds Morse, ed., Shiel in Diverse Hands: A Collection of Essays(Cleveland: Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1983).

“Shunned House, The.”

Novelette (10,840 words); written in mid-October 1924. First published as a booklet (Athol, Mass.: W.Paul Cook, 1928 [printed but not bound or distributed]); rpt. WT(October 1937); first collected in O;corrected text in MM;annotated version in An2

On Benefit Street in Providence, there is a peculiar house about which rumors have long been whispered. This house, occupied by several generations of the Harris family, is never considered “haunted” by the local citizens but merely

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