While neither Lovecraft or Howard pursued the idea, long after their death others acted on the idea. Say, why dont you write it yourself? If some exclusive house would publish it in an expensive edition, and give it the proper advertising, I’ll bet you’d realize some money from it. Until you enlightened me, I thought perhaps there was some such book or manuscript sufficiently fantastic to form the basis of fictionized allusions. You invest it with so much realism, that it fooled me among others. I dont wonder that you recieve letters inquiring about the Necronomicon. The interest generation in such works did, however, present an interesting possibility: Lovecraft, as an ardent materialist, always disabused those who wrote to him asking for the reality of the Necronomicon or for occult lore while he was happy to play the game of terrible incantations and rites in fiction and in his letters, he did not wish to actually misinform or mislead anyone.

Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith,, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 449 So that he can tell me more about ‘em that I know myself. Indeed-Bill tells me that he has fully identified my Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep ……. We may think we’re writing fiction, and may even (absurd thought!) disbelieve what we write, but at bottom we are telling the truth in spite of ourselves-serving unwittingly as mouthpieces of Tsathoggua, Crom, Cthulhu, and other pleasant Outside gentry. is firmly convinced that all our gang-you, Two-Gun Bob, Sonny Belknap, Grandpa E’ch-Pi-El, and the rest-are genuine agents of unseen Powers in distributing hints too dark and profound for human conception or comprehension. Occult readings of Lovecraft’s fiction began while he was still alive, with correspondents like William Lumley and the unnamed Salem witch descendent and “Maine wizard” expressing interest or belief in the reality of the artificial mythology and lore that Lovecraft and his contemporaries concocted.

Necronomicon moore