Herbert West – Reanimator (1922)

I am interested in the idea you originally formed from my stuff in HOME BREW---especially interested because I consider that stuff among my poorest. Ordinarily I refuse altogether to write to order, or to give my tales any mechanical limitations to suit other people. But Houtain is a personal friend of mine----he'd have to be, to get me to read his ribald rag—and when he started HOME BREW he was desperately anxious to get me to give him some of my stuff. I offered him his pick of all my MSS., but they didn't look quite flashy and lowbrow enough to suit him; so he began to entreat that I prepare him a series of six tales, each of 2000 words and complete in itself, which should go the limit for sensational morbidity. I might add that my taste does not run especially to the morbid asx such, that I love is the unreal and the fantastic in every form; though of course only such of my work as is terrible could ever please a popular audience. Finally I agreed, for friendship's sake, to give Houtain what he wanted, running over a list pf possible plots until he took a fancy to the notion of a grave­ robbing physician who restored life to bodies and was finally snatched himself by the bodies he had resuscitated, together with certain nameless companions of theirs. This I developed into the series "Herbert West--Reanimator", and I can assure you I was sick of the job before I was half done. The necessity for the completeness of each instalment spoiled the artistry of the whole thing----involving as it did the wearisome recapitulation of former matter in each instalment, and the eternal repetition of the description of Dr. Herbert West and his unaniable pursuits.