9/3/26

Women In Horror Year: Day 117

The Curse of Yig by Zealia Bishop

Out of Print (see below)

Zealia Bishop (1897–1968) was primarily a journalist and romance writer, whose work included a one well-recieved historical romance series about Clay County, Missouri. Sadly, she would have fallen into obscurity had it not been for three early collaborations she undertook with H. P. Lovecraft. After divorcing her first husband in 1920, Bishop lived in Cleveland, Ohio working as a court reporter and studying journalism at Columbia. To supplement her income, she wrote stories, articles, and essays at night. Feeling the need to improve her writing, she began seeking mentorship and editorial help. Through their mutual friend Samuel Loveman, she was put into contact with Lovecraft, who was mainly subsisting on income from ghostwriting, revisions, and copyediting at the time. Although Lovecraft only helped Bishop revise three of her short stories — giving them a distinct horror bent not found in the rest of her work — the two corresponded frequently for years after.

Those three stories — “The Curse of Yig”, “The Mound” and “Medusa’s Coil” make up the bulk of her only Arkham House collection, The Curse of Yig, published in 1953. The volume also contained two excellent biographical essays by Bishop, concerning Lovecraft and Arkham House founder August Derleth. Of the three tales, it is the title story — a story about a snake god who curses a farmer (or perhaps the farmer just went mad) — that feels most like Bishop herself, including its gruesome ending involving mariticide and human-serpent hybrid babies).

The Curse of Yig is long out of print, and while there are a plethora of audiobooks, eBooks, and paperback public domain reprintings of the various stories contained therein, they vary greatly in quality and historical context. The two essays are much more difficult to find. If you have the means, I recommend tracking down a copy of the original Arkham House paperback — a slim volume, but worth it.