The Diary of Alonzo Typer

"The Diary of Alonzo Typer" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and William Lumley. It is Lovecraft's revision of Lumley's "The Diary of Alonzo Typer, Found After His Mysterious Disappearance". It first appeared in the February 1938 issue of Weird Tales.
==Publisher's Summary==
"Alonzo Hasbrouch Typer of Kingston, New York, was last seen and recognized on April 17, 1908, around noon, at the Hotel Richmond in Batavia. He was the only survivor of an ancient Ulster Country family, and was fifty-three years old at the time of his disappearance."
It features the Ancient One, as well as a passing reference to the city of Yian-Ho, seemingly referencing Robert W. Chambers' "The Maker of Moons," which references a mysterious city in China called Yian.
== Setting ==
"The Diary of Alonzo Typer" is set in the village of Chorazin, a six-hour walk from Batavia, New York. It's located in "a small, swampy valley of strange brown weed-stalks and dead fungi surrounded by scraggly, evilly twisted trees with bare boughs." Chorazin is the site of the Van der Heyl mansion, which "was very old, antedating the general white settlement of the region, and had formed the home of a strange and secretive family." Chorazin, a "straggling village", grew up around it, "populated by Indians and later by renegades from the surrounding country." 
Chorazin, like the settings of "Beyond the Wall of Sleep," "The Lurking Fear," and "The Man of Stone," is an Upstate New York genetic backwater: "Of the singular hereditary strains which afterward appeared in the mixed Chorazin villagers, several monographs have been written by ethnologists." The "decadent Chorazin villagers" are noted for their "stupidity and taciturnity," which "baffle all students of the region and its secrets." Typer's diary is found by John Eagle, a "swarthy, simian-faced, Indian-like villager."
Near Chorazin and the van der Heyl house is
a steep hill crowned with a peculiar ring of ancient standing stones which the Iroquois always regarded with fear and loathing. The origin and nature of the stones, whose date, according to archaeological and climatological evidence, must be fabulously early, is a problem still unsolved. 
== Characters ==
Alonzo Hasbrouch Typer: A student of the occult from Kingston, New York, born c. 1855 to an "ancient Ulster County family." He was educated at Columbia and Heidelberg universities, and was a member of the Society for Psychical Research until 1902. He has published privately on vampirism, ghouls, and poltergeist phenomena.
Claes van der Heyl: This first known progenitor of the van der Heyl line, though he's suspected of descent from "generations of evil heritage." He keeps a diary in "barbarous Latin" from 1560 to 1580, a commits a "nameless sin" in 1591 that his descendants may have to expiate.
Cornelis van der Heyl: Known as Cornelist of Leyden. The worst of the "accursed line," who "broke down the barrier after his father had found that other key"--his father from context apparently being Claes van der Heyl.
Hendrik van der Heyl: A descendant of Claes van der Heyl who came to New-Netherland in 1638 in search of the Forgotten One.
Dirck van der Heyl: The head of the van der Heyl family when it relocated to Chorazin.
Abaddon Corey: An "unmentionable" character from Salem, Massachusetts; Dirck van der Heyl marries one of his daughters.
Trintje van der Heyl Sleght: Dirck van der Heyl's daughter, Adriaen Sleght's husband. An ancestor of Alonzo Typer.
Adriaen Sleght: Dirck van der Heyl's son-in-law, and an ancestor of Alonzo Typer.
Joris van der Heyl: Born 1773, a "frightful hybrid." 
John Eagle: a "swarthy, simian-faced, Indian-like villager" who discovers the Typer diary.
== Timeline ==
1560: Claes van der Heyl begins keeping a diary, which continues until 1580.
1591: Claes van der Heyl commits a "nameless sin" that "could never have been done without generations of evil heritage, or some link with the outside."
1638: Hendrik van der Heyl comes to New-Netherlands in search of the Forgotten One.
1746: The van der Heyl family moves from Albany to near what is now Attica, New York, "under a curious cloud of witchcraft suspicion."
1760: The van der Heyl mansion built.
1773: Joris van der Heyl, a "frightful hybrid," born to Dirck van der Heyl's youngest daughter.
1795: Legends begin of "strange cries and chants proceeding at certain seasons from Chorazin and from the great house and hill of standing stones."
1855: Alonzo Typer born.
1872: The entire van der Heyl family, along with their servants, simultaneously disappears from their house. The key to the vault is later found in a newspaper dated October 31, 1872.
1890: After "three unexplained deaths, five disappearances, and four cases of sudden insanity," the property's owners--the Shields family of Buffalo--"have left the entire property in a state of absolute neglect, and have warned all inquirers not to visit the region."
1899: Alonzo Typer spends most of the year on "mysterious Easter Island."
1902: Typer resigns from the Society for Psychical Research "after a series of peculiarly bitter controversies."
1903: A "mysterious Eurasian, probably from Cochin-China," visits the house; his subsequent "blank mind and bizarre mutilations" attract widespread press notice.
April 17, 1907: Alonzo Typer seen for the last time in Batavia, New York. The same day, he arrives at the van der Heyl house and begins keeping his diary.
April 30, 1907: Alonzo Typer writes that he is being dragged into the cellar of the van der Heyl house.
November 12, 1935: The decrepit van der Heyl house in Chorazin, New York, collapses in a severe gale. 
November 16, 1935: Alonzo Typer's diary is found by a state police investigator in the possession of John Eagle.
== Publication History ==
Lovecraft reworked Lumley's story in October 1935, from a draft An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia characterizes as "nearly illiterate." Lovecraft took no fee for the revision, hoping to encourage Lumley's fiction writing. Lumley submitted the story to Weird Tales, and it was accepted in December 1935, though not published for more than two years. Lumley was paid $70.
After its initial appearance in Weird Tales, "Alonzo Typer" was first collected in book form in Arkham House's third collection of Lovecraft's writing, Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1943). It later was included in Arkham House's The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions (1970).
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:William Lumley works
Category:H. P. Lovecraft works