$28,000
Houdini, Harry and H. P. Lovecraft (ghostwriter). The Cancer of Superstition. Circa 1926. Collection of 31 leaves, paginated 1 – 10 [11 – 13 lacking] 14 – 34, being an unpublished manuscript of a work in progress on superstition, divided into the three sections, “The Genesis of Superstition,” “The Expansion of Superstition,” and “The Fallacy of Superstition.” Scattering of typed corrections over misspellings or word changes. Differing inks observed between first ten leaves and remainder of file. Pagination inclusive of bibliography (two leaves). Minor foxing, a few short tears and nicked edges, fine overall. Previously known only in outline and through part of a first chapter, the work was suspended soon after Houdini’s death as the magician’s widow Beatrice did not wish to pursue it further (Joshi and Schultz, An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia (2004) [116 – 17]). The material here shows the project further along than other surviving sources have indicated it had reached, Lovecraft and Houdini putting forth a general theory of the history of superstition as an “inborn inclination” traceable to “primitive races” “utterly ignorant of the laws of Nature” that now “persists only through mental indolence of those who reject modern science.” Situating superstition at great length among an array of pre-modern belief systems including animism, fetishism, witchcraft, and black magic, the fascinating document shows the authors struggling to balance this primitivist theory of the developmen
Auctioneer:
Potter & Potter
Date:
2016-04-09
