Manly Wade Wellman

Lonely Vigils

Bryan Alexander

Lonely Vigils collects a group of Manly Wade Wellman's occult detective stories. If you don't know that genre, its name is nicely descriptive. Tales feature an investigator, professional or amateur, probing a supernatural mystery. 

For this book that means two major characters, plus a one-off story with a third. Judge Pursuivant and John Thunstone are similar in many ways: physically impressive; deeply learned; passionate about defeating occult evil; quick to organize people around them. They are very manly men. Thunstone in particular is quite violent, more like a Robert E. Howard character, capable of beating up monsters with his fists (228) and throwing a man "like a javelin" at a wall (326). He's also very religious, compared to John the Baptist and St. Dunstan (173). Pursuivant is a World War One veteran (76).

Most of the stories follow a similar pattern. An innocent or not so innocent person becomes involved with an evil scheme based on a supernatural threat, and Pursuivant or Thunstone rescue them. Each story is based on a detailed slug of knowledge about some domain, be it voudon, Lord Byron's manuscripts, Leonardo da Vinci's youthful art, or any one of various tall tales and shafts of folklore. Some classic horror monsters appear, like werewolves and doppelgangers. There are ominous books (113-4). There's also some invention, like the chilly Shonokin (a race of possible pre-human humanoids, scheming to retake the world) and the evil Deep School for sorcerers.

Wellman gently integrates his stories into the horror and weird fiction tradition. Real world writers and their creations appear in glancing references, from H. P. Lovecraft (342) and Algernon Blackwoord (53) to Jules de Grandin, neatly involved in Wellman's world:Thunstone... wished that Lovecraft were alive to see and hear - Lovecraft knew so much about the legend of Other People, from before human times, and how their behaviors and speech had trickled a little into the ken of the civilization known to the wakeaday world. (342)His style is very clear and direct, without the prose extravagance of Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith, yet he can set up suspense and ominous feelings quite well.

These are stories mostly from the 1930s and 40s, so they date themselves. Women are never protagonists and have few roles other than temptress, heiress, or actress. Most of the characters are white. Thunstone's masculinity might seem comical or dangerous to modern audiences. Same-sex desires isn't spoken of, and so on. The militant Christianity of our heroes is never questioned. Yet there are cosmopolitan features. Native Americans are respected and their folklore treated very seriously, only being criticized by villains. 

Notes on some stories:

"The Hairy Ones Shall Dance" - interesting setting for werewolves, with some science worked in alongside local community shenanigans and seances.
"The Black Drama" - a kind of tribute to Byron. Really a novella, the longest piece in the collection.
"The Third Cry to Legba" - introduces Thunstone. 
"Letters of Cold Fire" introduces the Deep School, a hideous underground facility where acolytes suffer, learn, and have their personalities demolished. 
"The Dead Man's Hand" is genuinely creepy. Introduces the Shonokin. 
"Twice Cursed" - a manic doppelganger story with military veterans, leading to an evil bookstore, monsters, secret societies, and something like dream warfare. 

Overall, a good example of the 1930s and 40s Weird Tale.

A note on the illustrations by George Evans: they are splendid, a real pleasure to examine for each story. They tend to be literal, realizations of certain scenes, and quite effective.

Physically, a lovely volume from Carcosa.

Lonely Vigils

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