“The Shambler from the Stars” (Weird Tales, September 1935)

Bloch, Robert. “The Shambler from the Stars.” Weird Tales, September, 1935. https://archive.org/details/WeirdTalesV26N03193509/page/n97/mode/2up
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​The unnamed narrator struggles to find financial security during the depression, and he turns to writing for the magazines he sees everywhere. He knows he is not a great writer, but he, at least in past, blames the subject matter of fantasy and horror for limiting him. He yearns to write about something true and real, “to learn the songs the demons sing as they swoop between the stars, or hear the voices of the olden gods as they whisper their secrets to the echoing void. I yearned to know the terrors of the grave; the kiss of maggots on my tongue, the cold caress of a rotting shroud upon my body. I thirsted for the knowledge that lies in the pits of mummied eyes, and burned for wisdom known only to the worm. Then I could really write, and my hopes be truly realized” (370). To discover deeper truths he searches for and finds an ancient, eldritch book titled De Vermis Mysteriis by Ludvig Prinn. The narrator relates biographical details about Prinn before admitting that he cannot read a word of the Latin text. He writes to his friend in Providence who agrees to look at the book. 

Upon arrival, his friend looked at the book and ushed it away saying that it was not wise to invite such horrors into one’s life. The narrator persisted, and soon any objections were dropped. His Providence friend grew increasingly agitated as he read passages aloud. Soon the wind outside began to howl, and all manner of unearthly noises invaded the room. They had unwittingly summoned a creature from beyond, an “unseen shambler from the stars. It was red and dripping; an immensity of pulsing, moving jelly; a scarlet blob with myriad tentacular trunks that waved and waved. There were suckers on the tips of the appendages, and these were opening and closing with ghoulish lust” (374). The shambler proceeded to annihilate the Providence scholar, flinging what remained of the corpse onto the floor, and disappeared. The narrator was left in stunned silence before he decided to set fire to the house and flee into the night. So committed is he to acquiring knowledge, the narrator ends the tale possibly hoping to see the shambler once again.

This is a big one, of course. The story was dedicated to HP Lovecraft and featured in that Providence character a depiction Lovecraft, although, sadly, the two would never meet except through correspondence. The story goes that Bloch sought Lovecraft’s permission to use a likeness of him in this story, and Lovecraft responded that Bloch was free to “portray, murder, annihilate, disintegrate, transfigure, metamorphose, or otherwise manhandle” the scholar from Providence.

Of this story, Bloch said:

​“Shambler” was written as a homage to HPL and dedicated to him—though I confess an element of tongue-in-cheek, which he recognized and relished. Such was his sense of humor that he turned the tables on me: if I used him as a character and killed him off, he’d do the same for me in “The Haunter of the Dark” as a sequel—and, in so doing, lend me his actual study and residence for use in his story… HPL and I were having a bit of fun with the genre. (Bloch qtd. in Larson The Robert 39)

The story “assists in the fostering of the Lovecraft legend—the legend of the reclusive, gaunt delver into occult mysteries” (Joshi “A Literary” 27). It also feels in some ways like personal writing for Bloch. The protagonist is a writer of horror who illuminates his interests and frustrations with his chosen field. This is an essential moment of Bloch reading, for sure. If you read only one story by Bloch from the 1930s, it should be this one.