early Oct., 1929
Dear C A S:—
By the way—if you want to see a new story which is practically mine, read The Curse of Yig in the new Weird Tales, next your verses. The "authoress", Mrs. Reed, is a client for whom Long & I have done lots of work, & this specimen is well-nigh a piece of original composition on my part, since all I had to go by was a synopsis of notes describing a pioneer couple, the attack on the husband by snakes, the bursting of his corpse in the dark, & the subsequent madness of the wife. All the plot & motivation in the present tale are my own—I invented the snake-god, the Curse, the prologue & epilogue, the point about the identity of the corpse, & the monstrously suggestive aftermath. To all intents & purposes it's my story—though not my latest, for I wrote The Dunwich Horror afterward.
Yr most obt Servt
H P L
Selected Letters (Arkham House) 373