Sac Prairie Journal, 1939: Edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz Kindle Edition

The year 1939 was an epochal one in August Derleth’s life. At the age of thirty, he purchased a plot of land in his hometown of Sauk City, Wisconsin, where he constructed a house—later named Place of Hawks—that served as his residence for the remainder of his life. He also began a biography of the Wisconsin writer Zona Gale, interviewing many people who knew him; and he worked on the novel Restless Is the River, one of the most expansive volumes in his Sac Prairie saga. Finally, he and Donald Wandrei published H. P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others through their imprint, Arkham House—a volume that initiated Lovecraft’s emergence from obscurity to worldwide fame. Throughout all this literary activity, Derleth continued his appreciation of the natural world in and around his town, taking note of the change of seasons and regretting the destruction of trees and other landmarks to make way for development. In these journal entries Derleth reveals an integration between head and heart that he continued to exhibit for the duration of his life. Read more