  august william derleth (february 24, 1909 â july 4, 1971) was an american writer and anthologist. though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of h. p. lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the cthulhu mythos genre of horror, as well as his founding of the publisher arkham house (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the us that had only been readily available in the uk), derleth was a leading american regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography. a 1938 guggenheim fellow, derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious sac prairie saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the wisconsin he knew. derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing. ==life== the son of william julius derleth and rose louise volk, derleth grew up in sauk city, wisconsin."august derleth services wednesday in sauk city," capital times, july 6, 1971, p. 24, col. 2. he was educated in local parochial and public high school. derleth wrote his first fiction at age 13. he was interested most in reading, and he made three trips to the library a week. he would save his money to buy books (his personal library exceeded 12,000 later on in life). some of his biggest influences were ralph waldo emerson's essays, walt whitman, h. l. mencken's the american mercury, samuel johnson's the history of rasselas, prince of abissinia, alexandre dumas, edgar allan poe, walter scott, and henry david thoreau's walden. forty rejected stories and three years later, according to anthologist jim stephens, he sold his first story, "bat's belfry", to weird tales magazine. derleth wrote throughout his four years at the university of wisconsin, where he received a b.a. in 1930.{{cite news|title=author august derleth dies|date=july 5, 1971|publisher=capital times|page
1909_births 1971_deaths 20th-century_American_novelists American_Christians American_horror_writers American_mystery_writers American_short_story_writers Anthologists Cthulhu_Mythos_writers Deaths_from_myocardial_infarction Guggenheim_Fellows People_from_Sauk_County,_Wisconsin Science_fiction_editors Solar_Pons University_of_WisconsinaMadison_alumni Writers_from_Wisconsin