Titus Crow
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Titus Crow is the main character in the eponymous series of
horror fiction Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defin ...
books by Brian Lumley. The books are based on
H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...
's
Cthulhu Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American Horror fiction, horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, t ...
.


Description

In a departure from many Cthulhu Mythos stories, Lumley's characters are not helpless victims of unimaginable forces which can drive humans mad by merely manifesting themselves. Instead, Titus Crow, his friend Henri-Laurent de Marigny, and other Lumley characters confront
Cthulhu Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon ...
's minions in a series of increasingly large-scale encounters, in which humans, although outmatched, try to fight back. In a letter to the journal '' Crypt of Cthulhu'', Lumley wrote: :I have trouble relating to people who faint at the hint of a bad smell. A meep or glibber doesn't cut it with me. (I love meeps and glibbers, don't get me wrong, but ''I'' go looking for what made them!) That's the main difference between my stories...and HPL's. My guys fight back. Also, they like to have a laugh along the way. Crow has been known to survive any number of encounters with
monster A monster is a type of imaginary or fictional creature found in literature, folklore, mythology, fiction and religion. They are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive, with a strange or grotesque appearance that causes Anxiety, terror ...
s, although he may not always be able to defeat the creatures. For instance, he may fall unconscious upon running into a monster that kills anything that moves. In '' The Transition of Titus Crow'', Crow is almost totally destroyed when the Clock crashes while fleeing from the Hounds of Tindalos. (Pt.4 -Fragments). He is slowly recreated from surviving cells & his memories stored in the Clock, as a cyborg over many decades, by a robot who theorized that robots were originally created by organic beings. As a cyborg he now has powers that can better deal with the monsters of the mythos. He is described as a man who spends most of his money on
commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. Th ...
and keeps the rest of it in the bank. Crow owns several Cthulhu Mythos objects, including the Clock of Dreams. The Clock is a time-space machine in the form of a
coffin A coffin or casket is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, for burial, entombment or cremation. Coffins are sometimes referred to as caskets, particularly in American English. A distinction is commonly drawn between "coffins" a ...
-shaped
clock A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, a ...
. It was previously owned by Randolph Carter and by de Marigny's father, and is referred to as "de Marigny's clock" in many of the early short stories.


Inspiration

In an interview with Lumley,
Robert M. Price Robert McNair Price (born July 7, 1954) is an American New Testament scholar who argues in favor of the Christ myth theorythe claim that a historical Jesus did not exist. Price is the author of a number of books on biblical studies and the hi ...
suggests various possible models for Crow, including Miro Hetzel,
Jack Vance John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. He also wrote several mystery novels under pen names, including Ellery Queen. Vance won the World Fantasy Award for Life Ach ...
's futuristic detective,
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
,
Mervyn Peake Mervyn Laurence Peake (9 July 1911 – 17 November 1968) was a British writer, artist, poet, and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the '' Gormenghast'' books. The four works were part of what Peake conceived ...
's
Titus Groan ''Titus Groan'' is a Gothic novel by Mervyn Peake, first published in 1946. It is the first novel in the ''Gormenghast'' series. The other books in the series are the novels '' Gormenghast'' (1950) and '' Titus Alone'' (1959) and the novella ' ...
,
August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. He was the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. He made contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraftian horror, cosmi ...
's Dr. Laban Shrewsbury,
William Hope Hodgson William Hope Hodgson (15 November 1877 – 19 April 1918) was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror fiction, horror, fantasy, fan ...
's
Carnacki Thomas Carnacki is a fictional occult detective created by English fantasy writer William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki was the protagonist of a series of six short stories published between 1910 and 1912 in '' The Idler'' magazine and ''The New Maga ...
and
Seabury Quinn Seabury Grandin Quinn (also known as Jerome Burke; January 1, 1889 – December 24, 1969) was an American government lawyer, journalist, and pulp magazine author, most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published ...
's
Jules de Grandin Jules de Grandin is a fictional occult detective that, from 1925-1951, starred in 92 short stories and one novel by Seabury Quinn in the pulp magazine anthology series ''Weird Tales''. In the pages of ''Weird Tales'', Quinn also authored a serial ...
. Lumley doesn't acknowledge any of these as conscious inspirations, saying that Crow's time-clock (which derives from Lovecraft's "
Through the Gates of the Silver Key "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" is a short story co-written by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price between October 1932 and April 1933. A sequel to Lovecraft's "The Silver Key", and part of a sequence of stories focusing ...
") long predates Who; that he's never read Peake's ''
Gormenghast Gormenghast may refer to: * ''Gormenghast'' (series), a trilogy of novels by Mervyn Peake ** ''Gormenghast'' (novel), second in the series * ''Gormenghast'' (opera), an opera based on the books * ''Gormenghast'' (TV serial), a BBC adaptatio ...
'' and that the similarity of names is coincidental; and that he "was never too keen on" Derleth's Shrewsbury. He does admit, however, to having "always had a soft spot" for
Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912), better known by his pen name Bram Stoker, was an Irish novelist who wrote the 1897 Gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. The book is widely considered a milestone in Vampire fiction, and one of t ...
's
Abraham Van Helsing Professor Abraham Van Helsing () is a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel ''Dracula'' written by Bram Stoker. Van Helsing is a Dutch polymath doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the ...
. An Interview with Brian Lumley" by Robert M. Price, ''Nightscapes'' No. 5.


Bibliography


Novels

*''The Burrowers Beneath'' (1974, ) *''The Transition of Titus Crow'' (1975, ) *''The Clock of Dreams'' (1978, ) *''Spawn of the Winds'' (1978, ) *''In the Moons of Borea'' (1979, ) *''Elysia'' (1989, ), in which the characters of the Titus Crow series meet characters from Lumley's two other series, ''
Dreamlands The Dream Cycle is a series of short stories and novellas by author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). Written between 1918 and 1932, they are about the "Dreamlands", a vast alternate dimension that can only be entered via dreams. The Dreamlands are ...
'' and '' Primal Land'', for a grand confrontation with the Dark Forces.


Short stories

Collected in ''The Compleat Crow'' (1987 Hodder and Stoughton). () *"Inception" (1987) *"Lord of the Worms" (originally published in Weirdbook 17, 1983) *"The Caller of the Black" (originally published in '' The Caller of the Black'', 1971 Arkham House) *"The Viking's Stone" (originally published in '' The Horror at Oakdeene & Others'', 1977 Arkham House) *"The Mirror of Nitocris" (originally published in ''The Caller of the Black'', 1971 Arkham House) *"An Item of Supporting Evidence" (originally published in ''Arkham Collector'', Winter 1970) *"Billy's Oak" (originally published in ''Arkham Collector'', Winter 1970) *"Darghud's Doll" (originally published in ''The Horror at Oakdeene & Others'', 1977 Arkham House) *"De Marigny's Clock" (originally published in ''The Caller of the Black'', 1971 Arkham House) *"Name and Number" (originally published in ''Kadath'', July 1982) *"The Black Recalled" (1983, originally published in ''World Fantasy Convention 1983: Sixty Years of Weird Tales'')


References


External links


Brian Lumley's Cthulhu Mythos books
- Cthulhu Mythos page at Brian Lumley's official Web site.
Titus Crow, o el regreso a los Mitos de Cthulhu ...
- Spanish article about Titus Crow. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Crow, Titus Literary characters introduced in 1974 Fantasy books by series Fantasy novel series Fictional paranormal investigators Characters in fantasy literature Cthulhu Mythos characters Book series Occult detective fiction