Editing Arkham House (section)

== Founding ==

In late 1937, after Lovecraft's death, Derleth and Wandrei sought to produce a collection of their friend's best weird fiction from the pulp magazines into a memorial volume. After several failed attempts to interest major publishers in the omnibus volume, the two men realized no publisher would be willing to take a chance with the collection. Derleth and Wandrei then decided to form their own company, Arkham House with the express purpose of publishing all of Lovecraft's writings in hardcover. The omnibus volume was scheduled as the first offering from Arkham House and priced at $5.00, although advance orders were accepted at $3.50. Even at that bargain price, only 150 advance orders were received for ''The Outsider and Others'' before its release in 1939.

[[File:H. P. Lovecraft in Florida, June 1934.png|thumb|upright|left|alt=A photo of H. P. Lovecraft, facing right|Arkham House was founded to publish the works of H. P. Lovecraft.]]

''The Outsider'' was printed by the George Banta Co. of Wisconsin in an edition of 1,268 copies. The book was over 550 pages long with small print and featured a dustjacket by fantasy artist [[Virgil Finlay]]. The omnibus sold slowly but steadily. Derleth was a successful writer and had a good deal of revenue coming in from his writing work, which allowed him to subsidize Arkham House's operations without it needing to realize a quick profit.

A second Lovecraft omnibus, [[Beyond the Wall of Sleep (collection)|''Beyond the Wall of Sleep'']], appeared in 1943 as sales on all Arkham House books continued to advance. By 1944, Arkham House was established as a successful small press, with four titles appearing (collections of works by Donald Wandrei, Henry S. Whitehead, Clark Ashton Smith, and a final Lovecraft omnibus). In 1945, Arkham House widened its range by publishing two novels, neither of which had seen print in any form before. These were'' [[Witch House]] ''by [[Evangeline Walton]] and'' [[The Lurker at the Threshold]] ''by August Derleth (based on an outline by H. P. Lovecraft). Derleth also widened Arkham's range by publishing collections of stories by well-known fantasy authors, the first being ''[[Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories]] ''by the Irish author [[J. Sheridan Le Fanu]]. Collections by Englishmen [[A.E. Coppard]], [[H. Russell Wakefield]], [[William Hope Hodgson]] and [[Algernon Blackwood]] followed in 1947. Also in 1947 were books by three American writers, including the science fiction novel ''[[Slan]]'' by [[A.E. Van Vogt]]. Derleth must have felt he was in the wrong field as ''Slan'', with a print run of over 4,000 copies proved to be the fastest and best selling Arkham House of the 1940s.

Arkham House published many books in the fantasy and horror field including a small but steady number throughout the 1950s. [[Robert Weinberg (author)|Robert Weinberg]] has written that: "However, intense competition from the SF (science fiction) small presses as well as slow sales of certain titles put August Derleth in a precarious bind. Only a generous loan from Dr [[David H. Keller]] prevented Arkham from going bankrupt during a period of cash flow problems in 1948.<ref>Robert Weinberg, "Science Fiction Specialty Publishers" in Hall, Hal W. (ed). ''Science Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural and Weird Tales''. Haworth Press, 1983, p. 126</ref><ref>Sam Moskowitz, "I Remember Derleth", ''Starship'' (Winter 1981), pp. 10–11</ref> Keller visited Derleth's home, "The Place of Hawks" in the company of [[Sam Moskowitz]], the object of the visit being Derleth agreeing to publish a Keller book under the Arkham House imprint, Keller to advance Derleth a loan against the cost of the book. Derleth revealed to Keller and Moskowitz that he owed his printer $2500 and had exhausted every possible source of help. Upon Keller's return to his home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, he wrote a check for the needed sum and sent it to Derleth as a loan at 35% interest on Derleth's personal note. Reporting the transaction in ''Thirty Years of Arkham House'', Derleth adds: "I had not asked for it; he had offered it with the comment, 'I pride myself on my judgment of character.' No greater compliment could have been paid me or Arkham House.{{'"}}<ref>Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, ''Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era''. Philadelphia: Oswald Train, Publisher, 1983, pp. 158–159</ref>

In the late 1960s, Arkham House seemed again on the verge of going bankrupt, but suddenly found a whole new market for its books when the surge in interest in Robert E. Howard (capitalized upon by [[Donald M. Grant]]) coincided with a surge in interest in the work of [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. All of Lovecraft's works were reprinted in three newly edited omnibus volumes, which were kept continually in print.

In addition to volumes of H. P. Lovecraft's fiction, Arkham House began to publish a five volume edition of Lovecraft's ''Selected Letters'' which had been planned from the very start of the company, and which gives an overview of Lovecraft's correspondence to peers, friends and family. Among his correspondents were Arkham House founders, Derleth and Wandrei. (Arkham House's volumes of Lovecraft's letters are highly abridged; unabridged volumes of Lovecraft's letters to individual correspondents have been issued progressively by [[Hippocampus Press]]). After a long slow period, Arkham House entered the 1970s with ambitious publishing plans.

Arkham House also published fiction by many of Lovecraft's contemporaries, including [[Ray Bradbury]], [[Robert E. Howard]], [[Frank Belknap Long]], [[Clark Ashton Smith]], [[Robert Bloch]], and Derleth himself; classic [[genre fiction]] by authors such as [[William Hope Hodgson]] (under the prompting of [[Herman Charles Koenig]]), [[Algernon Blackwood]], [[H. Russell Wakefield]], [[Seabury Quinn]], and [[Sheridan Le Fanu]]; and later writers in the Lovecraft school, such as [[Ramsey Campbell]] and [[Brian Lumley]] to whom Derleth gave their earliest publication in hardcover.

Despite the wealth of talented writers who appeared under the Arkham House imprint, it was not a financial success. Derleth wrote in 1970, "[T]he fact is that in no single year since its founding have the earnings of Arkham House met the expenses, so that it has been necessary for my personal earnings to shore up Arkham House finances." Robert Weinberg has stated "Arkham House's greatest flop was ''[[Witch House]]'', an excellent novel that took nearly two decades to go out of print."<ref>Robert Weinberg, "Science Fiction Specialty Publishers" in Hall, Hal W. (ed). ''Science Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural and Weird Tales''. Haworth Press, 1983, p. 129</ref>

After Derleth's death in 1971 Donald Wandrei briefly acted as editorial director but declined to resume his interest in the firm permanently.

Prior to the 1980s Arkham House did not reprint its books (with some exceptions such as ''[[Someone in the Dark]]'' and ''[[Night's Yawning Peal: A Ghostly Company]]'' and four of the core Lovecraft collections issued in the 1960s—''[[Dagon and Other Macabre Tales]]'', ''[[At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels]]'', ''[[The Horror in the Museum]]'' and ''[[The Dunwich Horror and Others]]''). Rights were occasionally sold during the 1960s and 1970s to other publishers who issued paperback editions of Arkham House titles. However, this changed in the 1980s.{{how|date=November 2021}} There are now multiple printings and/or alternate editions of over 20 individual Arkham House titles.