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ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
O THE MASK OF CTHULHU
THE NARRATIVES IN this book are, manifestly, on Lovecraftian themes. Indeed, one of them—The Return of Hastur—was begun before the death of H. P. Lovecraft, who saw its opening pages and the outline of my proposed development, and in consequence made several suggestions which were enthusiastically incorporated into the story. The remaining stories also stem directly from the Cthulhu Mythos created by Lovecraft, who was in the habit of urging his writer friends to add to and expand the Mythos.
These tales were written over a period of roughly two decades, beginning with The Return of Hastur in 1936, and ending with The Seal of R'lyeh, which was conceived and written in Los Angeles in the summer of 1953. While all the stories owe their existence to the myth-pattern created by Lovecraft, one, The House in the Valley>} had its inception in a sketch of the setting taken from an actual scene by the well-known artist-cartoonist Richard Taylor.
The stories in these pages represent, as it were, a postscript in tribute to the creative imagination of the late H. P. Lovecraft.
–– AUGUST DERLETH