An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

Author of sixteen boys’ books and friend of HPL. He first met HPL in New York in September 1922; he was a member of the Kalem Club during 1924–26. McNeil was one of the first to urge HPL to contribute to the newly founded WT(see HPL to James F.Morton, March 29, 1923; AHT). He was the author of Dickon Bend the Bow and Other Wonder Tales(1903), The Lost Treasure Cave; or, Adventures with the Cowboys of Colorado(1905), In Texas with Davy Crockett: A Story of the Texas

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War of Independence(1908; rpt. 1937), The Cave of Gold: A Tale of California in ’49(1911), Tonty of the Iron Hand(1925), Daniel Du Luth; or, Adventuring on the Great Lakes(1926), The Shores of Adventure; or, Exploring in the New World with Jacques Cartier(1929), and others, many of them published by E.P.Dutton (HPL believed that Dutton’s stingy contracts contributed to McNeil’s poverty). He lived mostly in poor parts of New York City, notably Hell’s Kitchen; because of this, and because of a feud within the Kalem Club that caused separate “McNeil” and “Leeds” meetings, many members avoided coming to McNeil’s apartment, but HPL always came. He appreciated McNeil’s childlike naïveté; George Kirk described him as “an oldster—lovely purely white hair, writes books for boys and does not need to write down to them, he is quite equal mentally” (the comment was not meant derogatorily). Late in life, suffering from poor health, he moved to Tacoma, Washington, to live with his sister but died shortly after arriving there. HPL wrote an unaffected tribute to him in a letter to James F.Morton ( SL3.92–94; see also 3.112–15). “The Pigeon-Flyers” of Fungi from Yuggothwas inspired by McNeil’s death.

McNeill, Dr.

In “The Curse of Yig,” the curator of an insane asylum in Guthrie, Oklahoma. He informs the narrator of the story of the legend of Yig, the snake-god. His asylum houses the half-human, half-snake offspring of Audrey Davis and Yig.

McTighe,———.

In At the Mountains of Madness,a radio operator on the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition of 1930–31 who takes down shorthand accounts of the discoveries of Lake’s subexpedition and relays them to the operator on board the brig Arkham.

“Medusa’s Coil.”

Novelette (16,950 words); ghostwritten for Zealia Brown Reed Bishop, May–August 1930. First published in WT(January 1939); first collected in Marginalia;corrected text in HM A traveler in Missouri finds himself in a deserted region with night coming on. He then spots a decaying mansion set back from the road and approaches it, hoping to find shelter for the night. The place is occupied by an old man, Antoine de Russy, who expresses alarm at the prospect of the traveler spending the night at his place. He finally agrees to house the traveler, and in the course of the evening he tells his tale:

His son, Denis de Russy, had gone to Paris and had fallen in love with a mysterious Frenchwoman, Marceline Bedard. Without his father’s permission or knowledge, Denis marries Marceline and brings her back to Missouri to live. In Paris, Marceline had practiced what seemed to be relatively innocuous occultist rituals for the apparent purpose of increasing her tantalizing allure, but when she comes to Missouri she is looked upon with awe and terror by the black servants, especially one “very old Zulu woman” named Sophonisba.

Then, in the summer of 1916, Denis’s longtime friend Frank Marsh, a painter, comes to visit the de Russys. He wishes to paint Marceline, thinking that her exoticism will revive him from the aesthetic rut in which he finds himself.

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He begins the portrait, but tensions rise as Denis believes that Marsh and Marceline are having an affair behind his back. To relieve the situation, Antoine contrives to send Denis to New York to attend his business affairs; but he is disturbed when he overhears Marceline clearly trying to seduce Marsh, who resists her advances.