Item #71978 Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence. ASTROLOGY, PSEUDOSCIENCE, Howard Phillips, C. M. Eddy Jr., THE CANCER OF SUPERSTITION, RECYCLED CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.
Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.

Original partial autograph manuscript draft for "The Cancer of Superstition" [twenty-three hand-numbered leaves present: 16, 18, 24–26, 26b, and 27–43] written across the versos of recycled incoming correspondence.

Providence, RI: H. P. Lovecraft, [circa September 1926]. Manuscript. Twenty-three letter-sized manuscript leaves (approx. 8.5" x 11"). Written in dark ink and hand-numbered by Lovecraft: page numbers 16, 18, 24, 25, 26, 26b, and 27–43. The manuscript pages feature heavy contemporary ink revisions, cancellations, interlinear additions, and a data table. Lovecraft concludes on page 43 in ink: "The End / Thank Gawd!" and the manuscript is signed “Houdini” by Harry Houdini in pencil at the conclusion.

The manuscript is written on the reverse sides of correspondence and constitutes a rich literary archive, preserving original incoming letters to H.P. Lovecraft. Professional and personal correspondence, typescript poetry submissions, and editorial rejections sent to Lovecraft between 1922 and 1926 by associates, editors, and other contemporaries are represented here. Some horizontal folding creases, sporadic edge wear and chipping, age-toning. Very Good. Item #71978

The Manuscript (Rectos): A major autograph working draft of The Cancer of Superstition, the ghostwritten treatise commissioned by Harry Houdini in 1926 to combat spiritualism and commercial fortune-telling. Writing entirely in his own hand, Lovecraft systematically deconstructs astrology using modern astronomical scientific knowledge—citing the precession of the equinoxes, light-speed delays, and extragalactic nebulae—while refuting astrological claims through logic, probability, and history.

Lovecraft mounts a rigorous scientific assault on astrology, treating pseudoscience not merely as an intellectual failing but as a cosmic absurdity. On page 39, he constructs a detailed planetary data table tracking diameters, solar distances, and revolution periods, arguing that when viewing these immense scales, "we can no longer entertain the astrological illusion that our earth is a considerable object for whose benefit the rest of the universe is arranged." Turning his venom toward the commercial occult trade, Lovecraft decries "how many dollars are snatched from the unwary by a device so ancient & so simple," warning that "many lives have been utterly wrecked through the random bombast & gibberish of some ignorant & unscrupulous soothsayer" (page 26). Elsewhere, he dismantles horoscopic predictions through celestial mechanics, noting that zodiac signs "sprang partly from apparent conditions no longer existing" (35), and questions the clockwork of the planets reckoning with light-speed delays crossing vast distances of the cosmos: "If the planets rule the earth, why are not the real times of their aspects calculated; instead of the apparent times as judged by their light as it reaches us?" (38). Driving his argument to its climax, Lovecraft brands astrology as "a legacy from primitive times; a sister of witchcraft, fetichism [...] a shame & a nuisance in the world of broadening thought," and brings his draft to an exhausted close: "The End / Thank Gawd!" (43).

The Correspondence (Versos): Lovecraft reused the blank backs of incoming correspondence received between 1922 and 1926 to draft the text—a lifelong habit born of extreme poverty and his frequent inability to afford fresh writing paper. These versos contain letters, poems, and notes from key associates including W. Paul Cook, James F. Morton Jr., Anne T. Renshaw, Horace L. Lawson, Leo Fritter, Edward L. Sechrist, and John Ravenor Bullen. Notably, Leaf 26b preserves a typed rejection letter from Macfadden Publications (Ghost Stories magazine) dated September 13, 1926, establishing the precise date of composition weeks prior to Houdini’s death on October 31, 1926.

Beyond serving as draft paper, these recycled letters capture vivid glimpses into Lovecraft’s inner circle and literary network. James F. Morton Jr. bemoans his paid ghostwriting work, lamenting "The more I work on this stuff, the more I realize the hopeless inadequacy of the profanity division of the English language" while praising mutual associate Samuel Loveman as "a greater genius than both of us together" (see letter on reverse of HPL’s corresponding manuscript page 41). A remarkably interesting and macabre letter from entomologist Edward L. Sechrist is present. Inspired by Lovecraft's horror fiction, Sechrist muses on having little "reverence for human meat than for any other kind of flesh and I believe I could contentedly pick a bone with the rest of a group of cannibals squatted beside a little fire. So I rather appreciate your Doctor’s experiments. I have no shivers for anything..." (28-29). Crucially anchoring the entire assembly is a formal rejection letter (26b) from Macfadden Publications’ Ghost Stories magazine ("I regret that I am unable to use it"), typed September 13, 1926—providing the definitive date of this manuscript composition just weeks before Houdini's untimely death.

Historical & Publication Context: Following their successful 1924 collaboration on "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," Harry Houdini retained Lovecraft to spearhead a book-length crusade against spiritualism and pseudoscience. Lovecraft devised the work's master outline and drafted its core scientific arguments, bringing in his Providence associate C. M. Eddy, Jr. to expand prose chapters under his editorial direction. The project came to a sudden halt when Houdini unexpectedly died on Halloween 1926, prompting his widow, Bess Houdini, to discontinue the work. Long regarded as a legendary lost collaboration—represented in print for decades only by Lovecraft's outline in Arkham House's The Dark Brotherhood (1966) and a partial typescript discovery in 2016—the text remained unpublished for nearly a century until its debut release in March 2025 by 1878 Press Co., titled The Cancer of Superstition and credited to "Harry Houdini & C.M. Eddy, Jr. Outline by H.P. Lovecraft." Here, preserving twenty-three pages written entirely in Lovecraft's own hand, this manuscript proves he penned far more than a mere outline for this famous lost work.

Price: $75,000.00

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