By Mike Griffiths
Dranke, H.B. The Shadowy Thing. Hippocampus Press (2010). 246 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0982429686.
The Shadowy Thing is a classic horror tale and, although it has been recently reprinted by Hippocampus Press, the original release date for the book was 1928. This is part of the Hippocampus Press collection entitled The Lovecraft Library. The theory behind the collection is that these are books which not only influenced Lovecraft, but would also be the titles one found upon entering the author’s personal library.
The story: an exciting tale set in the rural English estates of the 1920s. Dick is a well-bred, athletic young man who leaves his home to attend Oxford. Dick is strong-willed, straightforward, and has little tolerance for superstitions or ungentlemanly behavior.
When a college chum, Gaveston, runs into an odd fellow named Avery Booth, Dick is drawn into a dark mystery of the likes he never thought possible. Avery is a queer sort of person who amuses his fellow students with odd hypnotic tricks. Fearing that his friend Gaveston is being taken advantage of, Dick goes up against Avery’s mesmerism as a joke, but succeeds in earning an enemy when Avery is unable to pierce Dick’s strong will.
As it turns out, Dick’s intervention is not enough and Gaveston is admitted into an asylum for the dangerously insane. During this time, Dick returns home to find Blanche, his younger sister, not only grown but involved with the mysticism craze that is affecting so many. His other college friend, Olave, is at once taken with his sister, but Dick quickly returns the favor by becoming completely enraptured by Olave’s young sister Katrina.
Blanche is working to help Gaveston recover and she tells Dick that Avery is to blame for Dick’s old friend’s worsening condition. Things only get more unsettling when Avery meets Katrina and takes a fancy to her as well.
Dick is a natural skeptic and has a very hard time giving any credence to the mystic wars for Gaveston’s soul that Blanche claims to be fighting. Yet, when Katrina is led into Avery’s web and her faithful hounds are whimpering at the mere scent of the foul man, even Dick has to rethink his beliefs.
Sending Katrina to London for the winter backfires on Dick because, in his absence, Avery makes a serious move upon the girl and, before Dick can prevent it, she is spirited away. True horror strikes poor Dick when Avery uses his mesmerism to not only win Katrina affections, but also her hand in marriage.
With everything stacked against him, how can Dick go up against someone who possesses powers that he does not believe in, or understand?
One of the most exciting aspects of this novel was experiencing a concept of horror that is now almost a century old. Mediums and hypnotism are not common horror fare in recent times, but mesmerism and its potential evils were quite the worry in the 1920s. Seeing such an different vision of the terrors than can befall man was captivating.
The reader is drawn in, not only by the intense writing style of Drake, but also the greater social pressures and beliefs of the time. Dick was forced to dance through the social requirements of the era in a manner we would find quite limiting today.
Another aspect of this story than many modern readers might find interesting is how it could have influenced Lovecraft himself. Within its pages, one can detect certain concepts or ideas that could have channeled the creations that Lovecraft envisioned. Lovecraft himself states that, “H.B. Drake’s The Shadowy Thing summons up strange and terrible vistas.”
The only negatives that I could see affecting the horror fan might be that the book is bit thick. Some modern readers, that are used to faster-paced lives and means of communication, might find the book slower to get started (even though, compared to many books written around that time, The Shadowy Thing is faster-paced and doesn’t linger for two pages over the descriptions of the curtains). Yet, for some readers, this could be part of its charm.
Drake did something that Lovecraft failed to do. He wrote a full-length novel which takes the reader through a longer journey into the terror that strikes at humanity. So, whether you are a Lovecraft fan and would like to explore his influences, or you would enjoy a chance to discover the horrors of a different era, you should grab yourself a copy of Hippocampus’ reprint of The Shadowy Thing.
Purchase The Shadowy Thing through Amazon.com.