Forgotten Book: Musrum by Eric Thacker and Anthony Earnshaw (1968)

The cover of the surreal 1968 book Musrum.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 196th in my series of Forgotten Books.

This week I have decided to share with you one of the oddest books in my library. Back in the late 70’s I was living in San Antonio and my friend, noted collector Willie Siros, showed me the oddest book from his library. That book was called Musrum. About a week later, I found a copy of it at the long gone and lamented Et Cetra Books near San Antonio College.

I read through it then and was fascinated. The authors, Eric Thacker and Anthony Earnshaw, did one other book, Wintersol, which I have hunted for ever since and have never even seen a copy for sale. ABE (Advanced Book Exchange) has a couple of copies, both of which are over $50.

How to describe Musrum? It’s not a novel; it is more a collection of odd ramblings about a lot of subjects with numerous bizarre illustrations and typography. They love to hide the name Musrum in the illustrations, sometimes pretty abstractly, other times in shadows.

A sample page from Musrum

I’ve included some photos to give you some idea. I have also excerpted the section titled “Columbus” below:

Columbus 

  • Christopher Columbus often related a singular childhood memory, in which he was stopped, in a Genoan street, by a man who asked the way to Chicago.
  • Columbus had a left eye of solid gold.
  • He had been credited with the invention of Faraway Places.
  • There is a religious reason for this.
  • On his voyage across the Atlantic, Columbus discovered several (some say six) mid-oceanic islands. The secret of their location died with him.
  • Included amongst his baggage as a generous bale of feathers – a gift for the birds of America.
  • On landing in the Bahamas, Columbus met a native chief with a left eye of chalcedony. They did a straight swap.
  • In the Bahamas, he frequently held converse with his kindred in Europe. They could hear each other quite clearly over this immense distance.

    Musrum a catalogue of banners

  • Similarly, being a historical figure of great stature, he was able to display to his waiting sponsors in Europe many native artifacts and treasures. He merely needed to hold the objects high above his head.
  • Columbus discovered a unique group of islands one hundred and thirty-two miles due south of New York. (See Fig. 1.)
  • His cartographer made a chart of this group, using invisible ink – whereupon the islands themselves vanished.
  • Fear dissuaded him from entering New York harbor. The place was infested with sponge-cats.
  • Musrum had fled the city some days previously,
  • Kneeling down by the waters of Lake Huron, Columbus kissed the clear reflection of the Queen of Heaven; then, scooping up a gobletful of her gentle visage, he dashed it against a rock. A small amethyst dropped to the ground. Picking this up he screwed it deftly into his right eye.
  • Gott strafe Isabelle!
  • Columbus dropped swiftly down to the sea and oblivion.
  • He kept a sponge-cat with no eyes at all. He was terribly afraid of it.
  • A page detail from Musrum

    A.D. 1505. God noticed the existence of America for the first time.

  • A,D. 1933. A carrier pigeon released by Columbus arrived in Lisbon; nobody recognized it for what it was.
  • For a keepsake, Columbus gave his flagship to a Native Chief. He remained marooned in America until 1502.
  • Any European rulers commissioned Columbus to discover new continents so as to enhance their prestige; but he was a monomaniac… He discovered America in fifty-seven slightly different versions.
  • It pleased him, in his old age, to converse with other mariners. A wide range of subjects included the sites of sea battles, undiscovered continents, and the repair of ancient islands.
  • Crabmeat; wishwater; hard sunshine; milkwet silvershard; Christobus smiling remotely.”

So, that’s three pages out of 160. Surreal and fascinating stuff. Enjoy the pictures. (The one with the flags reads “Musrum, A Catalogue of Banners.” If you stare at it long enough it makes sense.

I know Musrum will not be for everyone, but I find it a fascinating thing to dip into on odd occasions. Sort of like The Codex Seraphinianus. But you can read it and, in the right frame of mind, understand it.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.  

Forgotten Book: The Memoirs of Solar Pons by August Derleth (1951)

Mystery fans shouldn't ignore Derleth's Solar Pons books just because they're pastiches.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 170th in my series of Forgotten Books.

Not long ago I was in Half Price Books looking to see what might be malingering for me to find, when I ran across a stack of old Unicorn Mystery Book Club titles. If you are not familiar with the Unicorn Mystery Book Club, it was a club similar to the Mystery Book Club that published omnibus volumes with four titles in each volume. The Unicorn Mystery Book Club was generally edited by Hans Stefan Santesson (according to an article I read) and frequently they contained unusual entries. The volumes I picked up had Fredric Brown and Anthony Boucher in them, so I know I got some solid stuff.

This week’s book had The Beautiful Stranger by Bernice Carey, Fish Lane by Louis Corkill, Hangman’s Hat by Paul Ernst and The Memoirs of Solar Pons by August Derleth. I have had the Derleth Solar Pons books at various times in my collection, but they’d slipped from my fingers by the time I ran across this book. I picked it up and decided to read.

August Derleth is a puzzle to me. I love him as an editor and publisher of Arkham House and for preserving (with Donald Wandrei) the legacies of Lovecraft, Smith and Howard. As a horror writer, I find him pretty close to unreadable, particularly when he takes on the Lovecraft Mythos.

The Solar Pons books, however, I enjoy. Partly because they are somewhat formulaic. Solar Pons is Sherlock Holmes. No one even remotely tries to deny it. His assistant, Dr. Lyndon Hardy, is Dr. Watson (the Doyle Watson, not the movie one). Derleth’s pastiches are good, very relaxing and enjoyable. Not near the equivalent of the originals but better than many things which followed Doyle and Derleth.

Derleth wrote more Solar Pons stories than Doyle ever did for Holmes — eight volumes of short stories and one novel. The collection in question this week contains 12 stories and is chronologically the second volume published.

The stories included are all pretty clever, especially “The Adventure of the Broken Chessman,” which features Russian spies in London during the 1920s, and “The Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders,” which references some of the famous occult volumes such as The Necronomicon and Unausprechlican Kulten, which are familiar to Lovecraftian fans. I also really enjoyed “The Adventure of the Proper Comma,” which features Pons’ Praed Street Irregulars and “The Adventure of the Five Royal Coachmen,” which combines politics, spies and trout fishing.

Some stories were easy to figure out, such as “The Adventure of the Circular Room” and “The Adventure of the Paralytic Mendicant,” while others were not as easy. And how could you not love a title like “The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf”?

Each story ran about 20 pages for a quick and easy read. This was not my first encounter with Mr. Pons and Dr. Parker nor will it be my last. Paperback copies exist of most of the Derleth titles, since Pinnacle did a reprint series in the 1980s, as well as including the four volumes Basil Copper continued with the character after Derleth’s death. I have not read those, but I may have one or two hanging around. I’m not sure, but perhaps I will check around and see.

Online book marketplace AbeBooks has quite a few of the paperbacks for under $5, plus shipping. EBay has also has a large number for various prices, including some of the original hardcover published by Arkham House’s mystery imprint Mycroft and Moran.

There are never enough great detective short stories. These may be very good. I don’t know if I’d call them great, but I enjoyed the collection all the way through.

As usual, depending on your fanatical devotion to the canon, your mileage may vary. Don’t ignore them just because they are pastiches.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.