During his lifetime Irvin S. Cobb was one of the most celebrated writers
in American literature, though nowadays he is almost forgotten, apart
perhaps from his Lovecraft connection. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was born in
Paducah, Kentucky on the 23rd June, 1876. His father, unable to cope
with the death of his own father, succumbed to alcoholism when Cobb was
only sixteen. As a result, Cobb’s education came to an end and he
started work, first on the Paducah Daily News, then the Louisville
Evening Post. By 1904 Cobb’s career in journalism was doing so well that
he moved to New York, where he would go on to spend the rest of his
life, starting work at the Evening Sun, though it wasn’t long before an
assignment to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire so impressed Joseph Pulitzer that he offered Cobb a job
at the New York World, where he became the highest-paid staff reporter
in the United States. In 1911 Cobb moved to the Saturday Evening Post.
Three years later he was asked to cover the Great War. Amongst the many
stories he wrote while there were the exploits of the Harlem
Hellfighters, a unit of black American soldiers who had gone on to earn
distinction for their courage and discipline, which Cobb celebrated in
his book The Glory of the Coming. Besides his prolific work as a
journalist, Cobb’s fame largely came from his humorous stories, which
were published in the leading magazines of his day, and collected in
numerous books during his lifetime. But, though he was best known as a
humourist, he did have a darker side, exemplified by the tales collected
in this volume. Two of the most famous succeeded in catching the
attention of H. P. Lovecraft. It is claimed that Fishhead influenced
Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. And there is certainly no doubt
that Lovecraft was favourably impressed with this tale. In his
groundbreaking essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft
wrote: “Fishhead, an early achievement, is banefully effective in its
portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange
fish of an isolated lake…” The Unbroken Chain gave Lovecraft the key
idea behind The Rats in the Walls, though in all other respects the two
tales are totally different. Besides writing and journalism, Cobb’s
career extended to Hollywood, where legendary director, John Ford, made
two films based on his books: Judge Priest (1934) and The Sun Shines
Bright (1953). Other films included Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), starring
Jackie Coogan, and The Woman Accused (1933), with a young Cary Grant.
Cobb also did a stint at acting himself, appearing in ten movies
altogether, including Pepper, Everybody’s Old Man (1936), Steamboat
Round the Bend (1935) and Hawaii Calls (1938). It’s a sign of the
prominence he had achieved that in 1935 he was invited to host the 7th
Academy Awards. Other than the tales that inspired Lovecraft, Cobb also
wrote some brilliantly dark stories that culminate in a kind of sadistic
irony. They are some of the finest conte cruel ever written. Amongst
the best of these is the final story in this collection: Faith, Hope,
and Charity, whose protagonists, as is often the case in Cobb’s stories,
struggle against fates that are not only pre-ordained but are
horrendously appropriate! It must be added his hapless victims are far
from blameless. What fates await them under Cobb’s pen have most
definitely been brought upon them by themselves! Through most of the
tales there is a wry sense of humour, so wry, in fact, that it never
detracts from the impact at the end; indeed, it often adds to and
embellishes it! I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did
and share with me the conviction that it is high time they were
revived.
The book includes a frontispiece drawn by Jim Pitts and an Introduction by Linden Riley.
Contents are:
Fishhead
The Escape of Mr. Trimm
The Gallowsmith
Mr. Lobel's Apoplexy
The Unbroken Chain
The Second Coming of the First Husband
Masterpiece
January Thaw
Cabbages and Kings
We Can't All Be Thoroughbreds
Queer Creek
Ace, Deuce, Ten Spot, Joker
Balm of Gilead
Faith, Hope, and Charity
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