August Derleth 18 min read

'It's always been a moot point with me,' Harrigan begins over a glass of sherry, and unfolds a strange tale of a man consumed, body and soul, by his obsession with the writer Somerset Maugham.

August Derleth's 1953 story is a wry hard-SF and horror tale of literary fixation. Clever, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a genial club-tale from the prolific Arkham House master, where an all-consuming devotion to a famous author takes a turn stranger and more sinister than mere fandom.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

18 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).