Ramsey Campbell
L'ultima rivelazione di Gla'aki

H.P. Lovecraft created, through his extensive production based on the Cthulhu Mythos, a new literary canon that has influenced numerous writers. Lovecraft himself, while still alive, was instrumental in the cultural and literary formation of authors like the great Fritz Leiber and Robert Bloch. But the bizarre universe of HPL did not fail to fascinate significant figures such as Jorge Luis Borges, who dedicated a story to him entitled There Are More Things. Upon his death, it was August Derleth, a brilliant publisher and writer, as well as a continuation of the Cthulhu Mythos, who preserved Lovecraft's work through the legendary publishing house Arkham House. Derleth published numerous volumes, not only of Lovecraft, but also of classics of the supernatural like, among others, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, and Clark Ashton Smith. But Derleth was also attentive to the new "weird" fiction and it was with great attention that he reviewed the stories of a young English writer from Liverpool, Ramsey Campbell. The American writer gave advice to his young disciple, suggesting he change the setting of his stories, which were too derivative of the imagination of Providence's reclusive figure, moving it from the imaginary Massachusetts to England. It was then that Campbell invented a new geography centered on the imaginary English towns of Brichester, Temphil, Goatswood, Severnford, and Clotton. Derleth appreciated the change and published his first collection of stories in 1964 for Arkham House, titled The Inhabitant Of The Lake And Less Welcome Tenants, which also featured the pseudobiblion The Revelations of Glaaki. Subsequently, Ramsey Campbell followed other paths and became well-known as one of the masters of contemporary horror: novels such as The Doll Who Ate His Mother (1976), The Face That Must Die (1979), and The Nameless (1981) are now considered classics of the genre where great attention is paid to character development, often marked by paranoid psychologies, and urban settings well describing Liverpool, his hometown.

However, the influence of a figure like Lovecraft has never truly diminished: Campbell has always considered HPL a great master and has always harbored the desire to honor him with a work that could finally be truly "Lovecraftian". In fact, too many authors declare their debt to the recluse of Providence – Stephen King comes to mind – although their work ends up being quite distant from the so-called Cosmic Horror. Finally, in 2013, Campbell published The Last Revelation Of Gla’aki (L’ultima rivelazione di Gla’aki) – fortunately just published in Italy by Edizioni Hypnos – in which the English writer returns to the Cthulhu Mythos on which his early stories were based. The novel is set in the coastal town of Gulshaw, a seashore resort very reminiscent of the mythical and mythological Innsmouth, where Leonard Fairman – a bibliophile very similar to the protagonist of The Shadow Over Innsmouth – goes to retrieve the 9 volumes that make up the cursed grimoire of The Revelations of Gla’aki. The plot is well-constructed and the tension never wanes: but Campbell has also paid great attention to the atmosphere, following one of the aspects Lovecraft cherished most by vividly describing the unhealthy landscape of Gulshaw, shrouded in perpetual fog. The inhabitants of Gulshaw are also well characterized and seem to emerge from some seedy hamlet in Innsmouth. However, Campbell’s touch is evident and the reader does not perceive it as a mere imitation, however well-executed, but as his own novel where a sense of paranoia, a typical characteristic of his, emerges.

The Last Revelation Of Gla’aki is a great horror novel that I highly recommend to all followers of the Cthulhu Mythos and all lovers of the genre and Ramsey Campbell.

The volume can be purchased directly online at the Edizioni Hypnos store or on Delosstore.

Ramsey Campbell “L’ultima rivelazione di Gla’aki” – 203 pages – ISBN 9788896952412 – 2016 – Euro 16,60