RICHARD SEARIGHT'S

THE ELTDOWN SHARDS

The Eltdown Shards, one of numerous fictional resource texts fabricated by pulp authors to embellish their macabre stories, was created in the 1930s by Richard F. Searight.

The Shards join such mythical volumes as the The Pnakotic Manuscripts, recovered some years ago from incredibly old ruins discovered in the depths of central Australia, Les Cultes des Goules, written by the Count d'Erlette in the 1600s, de Vermis Mysteries, aka Mysteries of the Worm, by Ludvig Primm, the R'lyeh Text, which shudderingly records the noxious activities of the Old One named Cthulhu, the Book of Eiban, which tells of ancient sorcerers, Die Unaussprechlichen Kulten by Von Junzt, and the most famous of all, created by Lovecraft himself, the Necronomicon by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.

These and more were created by Lovecraft and his associates who wrote for the pulps in the 1920s and 1930s and freely exchanged and used, at Lovecraft's enthusiastic urging, the titles to enhance their own tales of horror. In this manner, the pulp readers came to know the volumes which in turn seemed to provide a sense of consistency and reality about the scary yarns they so enjoyed reading. Yes, I said reality. Believing such volumes actually existed, readers sought these various titles throughout the used bookstores of the world. To this day, dealers are still seriously being asked if they happen to have any in stock.

A preamble from the Eltdown Shards accompanied Richard's submission of "The Sealed Casket" to Weird Tales ca1934. It reads as follows:

.....And it is recorded that in the Elder Time, Om Oris, mightiest of the wizards, laid crafty snare for the demon, Avaloth, and pitted dark magic against him; for Avaloth plagued the earth with a strange growth of ice and snow that crept as if alive, ever southward, and swallowed up the forests and the mountains. And the outcome of the contest with the demon is not known; but wizards of that day maintained that Avaloth, who was not easily discernible, could not be destroyed save by a great heat, the means whereof was not then known, although certain of the wizards foresaw that one day it should be. Yet, at this time the ice fields began to shrink and dwindle and finally vanished; and the earth bloomed forth afresh.
.....Fragment from the Eltdown Shards

Farnsworth Wright, intrepid editor of that esteemed Unique Magazine, decided, for some unknown reason, to not include it when publishing the tale in the August 1935 issue of his magazine. The Shards were not lost, however, for RFS had shown a copy of his tale to his pen pal, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who many believe to be the finest author of horror fiction of the 20th century...and 19th...and 18th...etc. Howard wrote 3/17/1934 in letter #8 to RFS: "Congratulations on the acceptance of "The Casket"! I knew it was a good story, & am glad to hear that Il Duce Farnsworth has seen the light at last! I'm sorry he has seen fit to demand changes [elimination of the prologue] but mangled publication is better than no publication when one is starting out." In letter #21, dated 3/6/1935, the fledgling writer was told: "Klarkash-Ton [Clark Ashton Smith] was greatly pleased at receiving the motto designed for "The Sealed Casket", & hopes to see other extracts from the monstrous & pre-human Eltdown Shards." Howard was thrilled with the name and the mythical history and allusions attached to the Shards and promised to use them in forthcoming stories of his own. This he did, notably in At the Mountains of Madness and the Shadow Out of Time. Since its first publication, the "Sealed Casket" has been reprinted numerous times, always with its prologue appended to it. It's latest appearance can be found in The Sealed Casket and Others, published by the Necronomicon Press in 1996.

The Shards, of various shapes and sizes, are described as being twenty-three slabs of clay, gray in color, and as adamantine as any known substance. They were discovered during a geological dig in Southern England and were determined to antedate humanity itself.

Other sources, somewhat credible in the estimation of many, tell us they were brought to earth by ancient beings from the star Celaeno in the Pleiades. And this might actually be the case. The composition of the clay is totally different from that found in nearby strata where the shards were found, so the conclusion can be tendered that they were created elsewhere and transported to the site where for so many eons they lay hidden and undisturbed.

Laborious effort and time was needed by scholars concerned with the occult to make a partial translation of these Shards which now reside, closely guarded, in the library at Miskatonic University, located in Arkham, Massachusetts.

The only other time RFS used the Shards in a story was when he wrote "The Warder of Knowledge", published in 1992 by Fedogan & Bremer in an anthology gathered by Robert Price entitled Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos. There was no prologue to introduce the story this time, but many details were woven into the tale itself.

There is more to be learned about the Eltdown Shards and their creator from the book H.P. Lovecraft Letters to Richard F. Searight, published July 1992 by Necronomicon Press