A Cthulhu Loyalist: The Late, Great Henry Kuttner

The Arbo Files

Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) may be a name that means nothing to you. There is no shame in not recognizing it—few today remember or venerate this genius from the heyday of the pulps. However, you should know that Kuttner’s work was read and loved by such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, and even William S. Burroughs. Kuttner was a dynamo and fixture in Weird Tales during the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s, he reached even greater heights during the Golden Age of Science Fiction where, alongside his wife and writing partner C.L. Moore, he co-authored some of the genre’s earliest masterpieces. Let this article—this small, insignificant post—be your education on the greatness of Henry Kuttner.

Kuttner was born on April 7, 1915 in Los Angeles to an accomplished Jewish family that could claim a famous Orthodox scholar among its members. Young Henry apparently grew up in relative poverty, even despite his family’s connections to the publishing industry. Kuttner found a way to supplement his income by writing for the pulps. One of his first publications, a short story entitled “The Graveyard Rats,” appeared in Weird Tales in 1936.

“The Graveyard Rats” is set in the appropriately spooky location of Salem, Massachusetts and concerns an a wizened caretaker named Old Masson. Masson is the overseeing of the town’s oldest and most neglected cemetery. But, rather than be attentive to the 17th century headstones entrusted to his care, Masson conducts a one-man-war against a rat infestation. The problem is that these graveyard rats are not garden-variety rodents: they are big, they are strong, and they are hungry. Masson takes his spade and shovel to an eldritch fight for survival. The results go as well as you would expect.

Henry Kuttner. Image courtesy of centipedepress.com

Around this time, Kuttner began corresponding with H.P. Lovecraft. The pair exchanged enough letters back and forth that S.T. Joshi, the grandmaster of Lovecraftiana, compiled their correspondence into a slim volume. This is especially surprising given that Kuttner’s foray into fiction came just a little over a year before Lovecraft’s untimely demise in 1937. Kuttner and Lovecraft had quite a bit in common despite their obvious differences. More specifically, Lovecraft and Kuttner both were dedicated fans of the pulp magazines before ever publishing in them. Even more specifically, both men were consistent in penning letters to the editor, with Lovecraft making a name for himself in the pages of Argosy with his criticisms of the popular scribbler, Fred Jackson. As for Kuttner, he spent eight years writing to Weird Tales before working up the courage to submit one of his tales. Kuttner’s letters revealed that he was influenced by Edmond Hamilton, Seabury Quinn, and Paul Ernst (the latter became famous for creating The Avenger). Of course, Kuttner was a massive fan of Lovecraft, and, even despite critiquing “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” as a “boring muddle,” Kuttner remained a Lovecraft loyalist until the man’s death.

Kuttner’s appreciation for Lovecraft found its way into his earliest stories. Many take place in what would later be term the Cthulhu Mythos. Published in Weird Tales in October 1936, “The Secret of Kralitz” is told from the perspective of German nobleman who is initiated into his family’s secret cult. Said cult involves invocations to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. One of Kuttner’s best tales, “The Salem Horror,” was published just two months after Lovecraft’s death in the May 1937 issue of Weird Tales. “The Salem Horror” is not a direct copy of Lovecraft’s “Dreams in the Witch House” (1933), but the two stories do rhyme. “The Salem Horror” concerns an author named Carson who rents an infamous house in Salem in order to complete a novel. The town’s Polish mill workers and a San Francisco occultist named Michael Leigh warn Carson about his rental, which once belonged to a witch named Abigail Prinn. Prinn placed a curse on the entire town, and said curse was born in her “Witch Room.” Once Carson begins spending time in the Witch Room, and once he begins sleeping and dreaming, bad things start happening in Salem.

Kuttner kept up a fairly regular pace in Weird Tales throughout the 1930s, publishing such solid work as “I, the Vampire” (1937) and “The Shadow on the Screen” (1938). He tried his hand at sword & sorcery as well, penning the Elak of Atlantis stories that ran from 1938 to 1940. Kuttner also kept up a frenetic writing pace by publishing in different pulps under multiple pseudonyms. At one point, Kuttner had over ten pen names, thus making it hard to keep track of all of his work. Some would later suggest that so many pen names weakened Kuttner’s unique voice, as the author used his multiple identities to mimic certain pulp styles and stylists.

Kuttner’s weird fiction slowed down by the 1940s (although he did publish the comical “Chameleon Man” in the November/December 1941 installment of Weird Tales) and was replaced by a greater emphasis on science fiction. It was at this time that he began writing alongside his wife, a veteran of Weird Tales in her own right. It is said that Kuttner and Moore worked so seamlessly together that they often found it impossible to tell who wrote what upon a story’s publication. The pair specialized in novels and novellas that saw print during Kuttner’s lifetime and after his early death. Speaking of which, Kuttner passed away at the young age of forty-two on February 3, 1958.

Kuttner and Moore working together. Image courtesy of Adventures Fantastic

Prior to his death from an apparent stroke, Kuttner was particularly active. At the same time as he and Moore wrote sci-fi and mystery novels together, Kutter attended the University of Southern California as a graduate student and began teaching writing at that illustrious university. Kuttner also continued to work for his uncle’s literary agency. It was here that he found future talents like Bradbury, Matheson, and Leigh Brackett. Kuttner did his best to help these young writers, and some repaid his kindness with dedications like the one that Matheson wrote for Kuttner in I am Legend (1954). It is a travesty then that Kuttner is so often ignored. It also troubles many to this day that Kuttner’s sudden death effectively ended Moore’s writing. Grief, her later marriage to a wealthy businessman, or something else caused the talented writer to retire her pen for good after a brief run as a screenwriter. Thus, that fateful February 1958 saw the end of two generational talents.

Fortunately for everyone reading this, Kuttner’s solo work and his novels co-authored with Moore are readily available online, sometimes for free. Kuttner was the important bridge between weird fiction and science fiction, thus helping the fans of Weird Tales to later become adherents of stories of saucer men and other sci-fi pulp traditions. For that, we owe Kuttner’s memory a huzzah or two. So, with that in mind:

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huz..hu…Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!