A newly discovered manuscript written by otherworldly horror writer H.P. Lovecraft has been found in a collection of magic memorabilia in Chicago. The 31-page piece, titled “The Cancer of Superstition,” is said to have been originally commissioned by Harry Houdini in 1926. Houdini died that year and the project fell by the wayside, but the typewritten pages were conserved by Houdini’s widow Bess, and her manager, Edward Saint. The sheaf of pages will be auctioned April 9th, with bids starting at $13,000 and a final price estimated to reach $25,000 to $40,000—a pittance considering Lovecraft’s fans will probably pay plenty to buy anything published bearing the icon’s name.
This story dusted off some nice memories for us and brought a smile to our faces because—as any Call of Cthulhu geek knows—the real-life pairing of Lovecraft and Houdini is like ice cream paired with caramel sauce, or a census-taker’s liver with a fine Chianti. We’d go so far as to say that any Call of Cthulhu keeper worth the title incorporates Houdini into the game eventually. In our long-running 
C of C campaign—years before we had girlfriends and an inkling that there were equally sticky but much more enjoyable ways to spend a Saturday night—Houdini appeared in a session only to promptly have his head melted by an interdimensional horror.
There’s some small question whether “The Cancer of Superstition” was written by Lovecraft, or if it was actually penned by fellow author C.M. Eddy and merely polished by Lovecraft, but we suspect doubts on that score will always remain. After years of doing this site and trying to track the original authors of numerous obscure novels we know some questions about the provenance of literature are destined never to be answered.
So get your bidding hats on. Since anyone out who’s seriously into Lovecraft and Call of Cthulhu is a supernerd (we mean that affectionately, as former nerds ourselves), you’ve probably squirrelled away plenty of cash from your career in computer sciences or botany or something. Don’t let the manuscript fall into the hands of some empty suit hedge fund manager from upper Manhattan. And for those of you who haven’t read Lovecraft and have no idea what we’re talking about, we highly recommend you give him a try if you feel like a little literary horror. Just don’t read too much about Lovecraft as a person. Some of his views were even more terrifying than his stories.
