Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE: Morryster's _Marvells of Science_

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 04:47:11 +0000

Ten months ago, Adam Stephanides wrote:

>I was looking over the section where this book appears (211-12, Harper hc)
>and I have an observation and a question.
>
>First, the observation: the book is introduced with the sentences "There
>were several books on his table, and I picked one up.  It was Morryster's
>_Marvells of Science_..." (211)  Now, this way of phrasing it strongly
>suggests that Weer is already familiar with the author and title; otherwise,
>he would say something like "It was entitled _Marvells of Science_," by a
>man named Morryster.  However, the book does not exist: it was invented by
>Ambrose Bierce in _The Devil's Dictionary_, and the author and title were
>borrowed by Lovecraft.  The copy Weer picks up is one of Gold's forgeries
>(and since he finds it in Gold's office, we can dismiss the possibility that
>_Peace_ takes place in a universe in which _Marvells of Science_ does
>exist.)

Does THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY (1911) have some reference to that title? In
any event, it shows up, with a little quote, in Bierce's short story "The
Man and the Snake" (1891).  See here
http://www.online-literature.com/bierce/174/
Yes, then Lovecraft used it later, but I've misplaced the note on which
story that was.

<snipping a bit>

>Next, my question: where does the stuff on Heaven and Hell that Weer
>ostensibly reads in _Marvells of Science_ come from?  It doesn't sound like
>anything from either of the book's sources (and afaik, Lovecraft only
>mentions the title without describing the contents).  And it doesn't sound
>like one of Wolfe's own inventions to me.  It sounds like the sort of thing
>that might come from Swedenborg, though I'm no expert, and we know that
>Swedenborg was at least indirectly an influence on _Peace_.  Can anybody
>verify or refute this?

The quote included in "The Man and the Snake" does not match the direct
quote that A. D. Weer reads in the bookstore.  (But the quote in the story
does sound rather familiar--maybe it is somewhere else inside PEACE?)
Further research would be to check if Lovecraft created a quote that was
used--this would be a nice "double-decker" forgery.

The indirect quote that Adam refers to is not included in the Bierce story,
nor is it germane to that story, yet the story itself is rather germane
toward PEACE as a whole, or so it seems to me, and it also seems like the
sort of story that Gene Wolfe loves to the point of emmulation.

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
PEACE: a timeline WITH dates! Come see!
http://www.siriusfiction.com/

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 15:25:03 +0000

> Yes, then Lovecraft used it later, but I've misplaced the note on which

"The Festival", according to the Invisible Library (which doesn't
mention the Bierce story, though--I'll tell the Librarian about it).
How certain is it that the _Marvells of Science_ in _Peace_, which
I'll get around to someday, is another of Gold's forgeries?

Jerry Friedman

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 22:56:29 +0000

>I'll get around to someday, is another of Gold's forgeries?

Well hmmm.  It seems as certain as his forgery of THE NECRONOMICON and his
forgery of Kate's diary.  As Adam Stephanides noted before, it is a big
pointer to the nature of Gold's bookstore as a place of books so rare as to
be impossible: the rising music which crescendos a few pages later around
the more famous and unspoken NECRONOMICON.

(Still hunting for another source to that wonderful "Venus di Milo" story!
So haunting, since I all-but-swore that I'd seen it before, somewhere, just
before reading PEACE . . . )

=mantis=

SIRIUS FICTION
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
Lexicon Urthus out of print!
http://www.siriusfiction.com/

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 13:46:03 +0000

> mention the Bierce story, though--I'll tell the Librarian about it).

Oops--I hadn't noticed this.  Sorry, didn't mean to be redundant.

> I'll get around to someday, is another of Gold's forgeries?

Given that:

1) neither the National Union Catalog (hundreds of thick volumes compiling
the card catalogs of the Library of Congress and many other libraries), the
British Library Catalog, nor Google show any trace of the book's existence;

2) all the other books named in connection with Gold are forgeries (I
think); and

3) all the authors Bierce "cites" in the Devil's Dictionary seem to be his
inventions,

it's a pretty safe bet that it's a forgery.  And there's no reason to think
that it isn't Gold's.

--Adam

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 19:58:40 +0000

> British Library Catalog, nor Google show any trace of the book's

This wasn't the part I was worried about.  I'm sorry if I put you
to trouble I could have gone to myself.

> 2) all the other books named in connection with Gold are forgeries (I

That's a better clue.

> it's a pretty safe bet that it's a forgery.  And there's no reason to

Thanks!  So it's in the category of "presumably", not as certain as
that Blaithmaic wrote _Lives of the Seventeen Megatherians_, but
overwhelmingly more likely than any other possibility.  As you've
probably guessed, I'm going to let the Invisible Librarian know.

-- 
Jerry Friedman

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