Letter from August Derleth, Sauk City, Wisconsin, to Edward Wagenknecht, 1958 May 16 : typescript signed.

Thanking Wagenknecht for his review of "The House on the Mound" and mentioning that if it meets its publication costs, Duel, Sloan and Pearce may pick up a few more of his titles; mentioning that in spite of Wagenknecht's praise, he cannot escape the conviction that this latest book is more biography and history disguised as fiction, mostly due to his decision to write about historical figures under their real names with no attempt at obfuscation; comparing how long it took him to finish this book to the 20 days it required to finish "The Moon Tenders"; writing that Arkham House is at an uncertain stage, and worrying it might be shut down by the spike in publishing costs; saying he knows any Solar Pons title will eventually turn a profit, but he cannot say the same for "The Mask of Cthulhu", Joseph Payne Brennan's "Nine Horrors", or their new Lovecraft collection "The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces"; noting how he would like to release the de la Mare and Bowen titles, but that he still worries whether English writers can make a dent in the American market; saying he is not sorry to have published the books that haven't sold well, but that he has a family to think of now which complicates those endeavors; narrating the reasons why he no longer reviews for the Tribune, which mostly concern their decision to pull his review of Bill Steuber's "The Landlooker"; describing that his review discussed the editorial failures of the book, and when the publishers of the book (Bobbs Merrill) heard that criticism, they requested the review be pulled; saying it reflects poorly on their integrity because they should know "I have never allowed my personal friendship for an author or my personal antipathy to him to color my reviews"; complimenting the timeliness of Wagenknecht's book on Theodore Roosevelt "The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt" and making some comments about how he has not been actively collecting comics these days.