The Place Called Dagon

by Herbert Sherman Gorman

Daniel Dreeme has come to the small Massachusetts town of Marlborough to pursue his medical practice; but he quickly discovers that there is more beneath the surface of this placid-seeming farming community than meets the eye. The mystery seems to center upon Jeffrey Westcott, a sardonic figure who has filled his house with strange books and speaks ominously of summoning up "old gods" at some region he terms "the place called Dagon." What role does his wife, the dark beauty Martha Westcott, play in this scenario? And is the saturnine preacher George Burroughs really as pious as he seems? When the Westcotts’ hired man is killed in a particularly brutal fashion, Dreeme knows that he has become ineluctably enmeshed in a horror that may engulf both his body and his soul.

H. P. Lovecraft spoke highly of this novel in "Supernatural Horror in Literature," and for good reason. The Place Called Dagon (1927) uncannily reflects many of the themes in Lovecraft's own fiction, and probably influenced his tales "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Dreams in the Witch House." This novel, whose very title is Lovecraftian, has waited too long to find a new generation of readers. As the latest in the the Lovecraft's Library series, it is now reprinted uncut and unabridged, with original artwork by Allen Koszowski, and contributions by noted Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi and Gorman expert Larry Creasy.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Lovecraftian, Literature, Gothic, Halloween, Classics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1927

Reviews

[Heidi Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

This great little weird novel was recently rescued from obscurity by publishing house Lovecraft's Library. According to Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, HPL mentions having read The Place Called Dagon in his letters (1928) and also in Supernatural Horror in Literature. Though he called it "purile" at the time, there is much academic speculation that TPCD may have influenced classics such as "The Dunwich Horror" and "Dreams in the Witch House," and perhaps fear of comparison even played a part in HPL's reluctance to release "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." Conversely, it is almost certain Gorman had never heard of Lovecraft -- the name "Dagon" wasn't original to HPL's 1917 short story -- and just happened to stray into the weird for this one novel. (Gorman wrote several, though he is now mostly forgotten).

Despite its anomalous state, TPCD actually sits quite proudly in the weird tradition, somewhere between Blackwood and Lovecraft: in some ways it recalls Blackwood's classic tale "Ancient Sorceries," but instead of time-haunted Europe, is set instead in HPL's eldritch and inbred New England.

(Mild spoilers follow.)

Gorman's hero, a young doctor who has assumed a practice in an out-of-the-way Massachusetts valley, soon begins to suspect ancient and evil secrets persist beneath the hard, practical veneer of the town of Marlborough. Lo and behold, it seems the locals are in fact descended from survivors of the Salem witch-cult, and strange rites are being resurrected in the dark woods. The cast contains some pretty stock weird figures, including an arrogant arcane scholar, his disturbingly alluring wife, and a dour and malevolent preacher. Sometimes assisting the determined doctor in his search for the truth: Marlborough's now housebound former doctor -- a reticent (and mildly alcoholic) adviser on town matters; a beautiful and friendless orphan ingenue; and a stolid local farmer who is both kinder and cannier than he appears.

It's Gorman's rather modern writing which prevents TPCD from being "just" another forgettable pulp horror novel -- certainly, he's less long-winded than Blackwood and less purple than Lovecraft. His lyrical descriptions of atmosphere and landscape and keen insights into human motivation keep the tale interesting, and his candid take on female sexuality seems quite progressive for 1927. TPCD is a quick and enjoyable read, and deserving of being resurrected into the pantheon of the good weird. Four solid stars.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read The Place Called Dagon because it is featured in The Literature of Lovecraft, Vol. 1 . This is a collection of strange stories that were admired by H.P. Lovecraft. In his literary essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, HPL wrote:

A less subtle and well-balanced but nevertheless highly effective creation is Herbert S. Gorman’s novel, The Place Called Dagon, which relates the dark history of a western Massachusetts backwater where the descendants of refugees from the Salem witchcraft still keep alive the morbid and degenerate horrors of the Black Sabbat.

I was impressed by The Place Called Dagon. Gorman takes his time setting up the sense of the small town of Marlborough and it’s unusual denizens before putting the plot into high gear. The New England region of the United States is filled with folklore, dark history, and taciturn people, and Gorman does an excellent job of building this into the atmosphere of the story.

Title: The Place Called Dagon
Author: Herbert S. Gorman
Dates: 1927
Genre: Fiction - Novel, Horror
Page count: 188 pages
Date(s) read: 10/8/22-10/9/22
Reading journal entry #278 in 2022

Link to the story: https://www.hippocampuspress.com/love...
Link to Lovecraft’s essay: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/...

Sources:
Lovecraft, H. P., & Joshi, S. T. (2012). The annotated supernatural horror in literature (second edition). Hippocampus Press. https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/... (Original work published 1927)

Gorman, H.S. (2021). The place called Dagon In H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (Ed.), The literature of Lovecraft, vol. 1.. (S. Branney, Narr.; A. Leman, Narr.) [Audiobook]. HPLHS. https://www.hplhs.org/lol.php (Original work published 1927)

Link to the image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...

The contents of The Literature of Lovecraft, Vol. 1 are:
"The Adventure of the German Student" by Washington Irving
"The Avenger of Perdóndaris" by Lord Dunsany
"The Bad Lands" by John Metcalfe
"The Black Stone" by Robert E. Howard
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hope Hodgson
"Count Magnus" by M.R. James
"The Dead Valley" by Ralph Adams Cram
"The Death Mask" by Henrietta Everett
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Ghost of Fear" by H.G. Wells (also called “The Red Room”)
"The Ghostly Kiss" by Lafcadio Hearn
"The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant
"The House and the Brain" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"The House of Sounds" by Matthew Phipps Shiel
"Idle Days on the Yann" by Lord Dunsany
"Lot #249" by Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Man-Wolf" by Erckmann-Chatrian
"The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs
"One of Cleopatra's Nights" by Théophile Gautier
"The Phantom Rickshaw" by Rudyard Kipling
The Place Called Dagon by Herbert Gorman
"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare
"The Shadows on the Wall" by Mary E. Wilkins
"A Shop in Go-By Street" by Lord Dunsany
"The Signal-Man" by Charles Dickens
"Skule Skerry" by John Buchan
"The Spider" by Hanns Heinz Ewers
"The Story of a Panic" by E.M. Forster
"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" by Clark Ashton Smith
"The Tapestried Chamber" by Sir Walter Scott
"The Upper Berth" by F. Marion Crawford
"The Vampyre" by John Polidori
"The Venus of Ille" by Prosper Mérimée
"The Were Wolf" by Clemence Housman
"What Was It?" by Fitz-James O'Brien
"The White People" by Arthur Machen
"The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" by Frederick Marryat
"The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood
"The Yellow Sign" by Robert W. Chambers
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Here is a list of the stories in the order in which they were written, with links to my reviews of them:
The Vampyre (1819) by John William Polidori
The Adventure of the German Student (1824) by Washington Irving
The Tapestried Chamber (1828) by Walter Scott
The Minister's Black Veil (1836) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Venus of Ille (1837) by by Prosper Mérimée
The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains (1839) by Frederick Marryat
The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) by Edgar Allan Poe
What Was It? (1859) by by Fitz-James O'Brien
The House and the Brain (1859) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The Signal-Man (1866) by Charles Dickens
The Man-Wolf by Erckmann-Chatrian
The Ghostly Kiss (1880) by Lafcadio Hearn
One of Cleopatra's Nights (1882) by by Théophile Gautier
The Upper Berth (1886) by F. Marion Crawford
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Horla (1887) by Guy de Maupassant
The Phantom Rickshaw (1888) by Rudyard Kipling
”The Middle Toe of the Right Foot” (1891) by Ambrose Bierce
Lot #249 (1892) by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Ghost of Fear (1894) by H.G. Wells- also called The Red Room
The Yellow Sign (1895) by Robert W. Chambers
The Dead Valley (1895) by Ralph Adams Cram
The Were-Wolf (1896) by Clemence Housman
The Monkey's Paw (1902) by W.W. Jacobs
The Shadows on the Wall (1903) by Mary E. Wilkins
Count Magnus (1904) by M.R. James
The White People (1904) by Arthur Machen
The Willows (1907) by Algernon Blackwood
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907) by William Hope Hodgson
Idle Days on the Yann (1910) by Lord Dunsany
The Story of a Panic (1911) by E.M. Forster
The House of Sounds (1911) by Matthew Phipps Shiel
A Shop in Go-By Street (1912) by Lord Dunsany
The Avenger of Perdóndaris (1912) by Lord Dunsany
sThe Spider (1915) by Hanns Heinz Ewer
The Death Mask (1920) by H.D. Everett
The Bad Lands (1920) by John Metcalfe
Seaton's Aunt (1922) by Walter de la Mare
The Place Called Dagon (1927)
Skule Skerry (1928)
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros (1929)
The Black Stone (1931)

[Ευθυμία Δεσποτάκη · Rating 3 out of 5]

~ Ένα βιβλίο με τίτλο που τραβάει το βλέμμα του μέσου εραστή της μυθολογίας Κθούλου

~ Αναφέρεται από τον ίδιο τον H.P. Lovecraft στον Υπερφυσικός τρόμος στη λογοτεχνία σαν μια καλοφτιαγμένη ιστορία τρόμου. Λογικά τον επηρέασε σε βαθμό που αν έχεις διαβάσει H.P.L. μια-δυο-τρεις-δεκατέσσερις φορές όπως εγώ, ξέρεις να πεις και πού φαίνεται η επιρροή αυτή (πχ, στην δημιουργία του Όμπεντ Μαρς ή του Γουίλμπουρ Γουέιτλι)

~ Πλοτ τουίστ, μπορεί να γράφτηκε το 1927 αλλά η σεξουαλική ένταση κόβεται με το μαχαίρι - κάτι μου λέει πως ο H.P.L. κάποιες σελίδες τις διάβασε πιο βιαστικά από τις υπόλοιπ��ς... :P

~ Αργό, ναι, μπαρόκ, ναι, φλύαρο, ναι, κάπου διάβασα μια κριτική που έλεγε πως θα μπορούσε να πει τα ίδια πράγματα ακριβώς με το ένα τρίτο των λέξεων... κι ωστόσο η ατμόσφαιρα που χτίζουν όλες αυτές οι φλυαρίες είναι ό,τι πρέπει για τον λάτρη του κοσμικού τρόμου.

~ Unsettling fan fact: ο συγγραφέας, ο οποίος είναι γνωστός βιογράφος του James Joyce δεν έχει καν σελίδα στην αγγλόφωνη wikipedia. Μόνο στη σουηδική. Γύρευε γιατί. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert...

~ Όποιος ενδιαφέρεται για το κείμενο, είναι ελεύθερο δικαιωμάτων και υπάρχει σε audiobook στο κανάλι Gates of Imagination στο youtube. Η αφήγηση είναι ένα τσικ πιο αργή απ' ό,τι θα 'θελα αλλά αξίζει τον κόπο (not AI generated, φυσικά).

~ Η απόλυτη αλήθεια είναι πως δεν θα το πρότεινα σε όλους, μόνο σε καλοψημένους κθουλιανούς (ου μην αλλά και εντελώς καμένους) γιατί, ε, κάτι η ηλικία, κάτι η αμερικανίλα, κάτι η λογοδιάρροια, κάτι που το μέρος το λένε Μάρλμπορο (τύπου "εσένα και το Μάρλμπορο να κόψω δεν μπορώ"), κάπου γίνεται γραφικό.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull and spiritless. It's a poorly written novel that would have worked better in a much thinner form as short story. There is no action, suspense or thrill. The quick events are so un-realistic and not believable that you need to read them again just to have an idea of what, how and why they happened.
The longer passages are just too pointless and serve no purpose.
The most interesting characters are dead on paper without any scope for rising up on the surface.
Herbert might have had something to tell about the witch hunting tradition in the region but it would have benefited the story to be narrated as a docu-essay rather than fiction.
Boring at the first degree.

[Zoltán Szabó · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading without knowing exactly what to expect from it, and found it to be a rather excellent early horror novel, the effects of which could be felt from Lovecraft's prose to basically any horror stories/movies which centerns on a small, isolated community full of dark, malevolent secrets.

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Nem igazán tudtam, hogy mit várhatok tőle, de összességében egy egészen kiváló korai rémtörténetnek bizonyult, melynek hatása azóta is érezhető Lovecraften túl minden olyan horrortörténeten, amely kisebb, zárkózott közösségek köré építi a borzalmat.

[MH · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, but I don't want recommendations for pulp. A bit slow moving, and has a lot of "protagonist listens while someone explaisn family history to him". Its mostly interesting as one of Lovecraft's influences - you can definitely see it echoed in stories like The Dreams in the Witch House, and others which refer to New England witches.

[Sol]

"A less subtle and well-balanced but nevertheless highly effective creation is Herbert S. Gorman's novel, The Place Called Dagon, which relates the dark history of a western Massachusetts backwater where the descendants of refugees from the Salem witchcraft still keep alive the morbid and degenerate horrors of the Black Sabbat." -HPL, Supernatural Horror in Literature

[Dylan Rock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A excellent lost gem of cosmic horror with some occult leaning. A definite influence on the works of H.P Lovecraft such as The Dunwich Horror, The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Dreams in the Witch House just to name a few.

[Harvey Dias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read, with a nail-biting climax.

[Jörg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sehr spannende Geschichte, für H. P. Lovecraft Fans ein Muss :-)

[Roger O · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have ranked this higher because the story itself is some proto-lovecraftian fun, but there's a lot of antiquated xenophobia and racist language in here.

[Sean O'Hara · Rating 3 out of 5]

H.P. Lovecraft's long essay "Supernatural Horror in Fiction" is a veritable treasure map for fans of 19th and early 20th Century tales of the macabre -- just about every author of significance, at least in English and French, with a few Germans tossed in, receives a cursory assessment from Lovecraft. As such, the essay makes a superb reading list for those interested in classic horror stories. There's just one problem -- many of the works are obscure and long out of print, leaving weird tale fans to hunt through used book stores and search through anthologies for stories that received just a single, intriguing sentence from Lovecraft. One such book is Herbert Gorman's A Place Called Dagon, which Lovecraft described as the story of an isolated, New England village populated by the descendents of escaped Salem witches. As S.T. Joshi comments in the afterword of the recent Hippocampus Press edition of the novel, "I am sure I am not the only person to have been intrigued when, many years ago, I first read H.P. Lovecrafts comments in Supernatural Horror in Fiction" about" it. No, indeed. With the title recalling Lovecraft's own story, "Dagon" and the plotline that seems straight out of several later tales, such as "The Dreams in the Witch House" and "The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward," no Lovecraft aficionado could resist seeking out the book.

But does the book live up to the expectations? Sadly, no. There is some Lovecraftian talk of Old Gods, but in the main the story is pure gothic, filled with familiar tropes -- the handsome young hero who is tempted by a femme fatale -- indeed, femme diabolique -- while his lady love (whom he's known less than two days) is held by an evil warlock who threatens to ravish her and sacrifice her to the devil (not necessarily in that order, of course). Anyone familiar with gothic fiction can easily point to a dozen similar plotlines, from the novels of Radcliff and "Monk" Lewis, all the way to the films of Bava and Corman, with a heavy dash of Nathaniel Hawthorne thrown in. Indeed, one can easily imagine how an American International Pictures version would be cast -- Boris Karloff, having difficulty moving about in his old age, would naturally get the part of the elderly Dr. Lathrop, while Vincent Price would, of course, play the evil Jeffrey Westcott, with Barbara Steel as his philosophically vampy wife. The hero and heroine, as per usual, wouldn't need to be played by anyone special -- probably Mark Damon as young Dr. Dreeme, and a beach-blanket bimbo from the AIP stable for the docile love-interest, who, after all, just needs to look hot but virginal while being menaced.

Yes, the novel is extremely formulaic and derivative, including one chapter where Gorman seems to've rewritten "Young Goodman Brown," changing just enough to fit it into his plot.

Then there's the insane repetition of the title in the last thirty pages.

"What is the place called Dagon?"

"The place called Dagon is where they perform their satanic rituals."

"Where is the place called Dagon?"

"The place called Dagon is in the swamp."

"Let us go to the place called Dagon."

"We shall go to the place called Dagon."

And they went to the place called Dagon. Then they reached the place called Dagon. And the satanists were at the place called Dagon, performing their satanic ceremonies in the place called Dagon.

Worse yet, the hero, Dr. Dreeme, is completely ineffectual -- and not like Indiana Jones, who, though Hitler could never've controlled the Ark, at least killed a bunch of Nazis on the way. No, Dreeme doesn't accomplish anything except winning the affections of the ridiculously insipid heroine. When the climax comes, his neighbor, who's had about five lines in the entire book, shows up with a gun and takes care of business all by himself, with Dreeme left to just drag his love from the satanic sacrifice. And once he carries her five feet, the neighbor takes her and carries her the rest of the way to safety.

The book does have some nice mood setting, but that's the best I can say of it -- and really, Lovecraft and King have done better at invoking the spookiness of New England woods. Sometimes, I suppose, these books sink into obscurity for a reason.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was better than I expected. Not by much, but readable. Huge liberties taken with the setting, beyond the lovecraftian monsters. But it included beautiful descriptions comparing Marlborough to a festering corpse.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked reading an obscure Lovecraftian novel before that was a thing. It might even have influenced HP. But Gorman uses twenty sentences where one would do and I started skimming paragraphs.