Divers Hands and The Cthulhu Mythos
The most common modern day usage of divers hands is found in the stories of the Cthulhu Mythos, created by H. P. Lovecraft and expanded by other authors. How the term originated and why it regularly came to be used to refer to Cthulhu Mythos stories is unknown. It was originated either by Lovecraft himself or by his protégé August Derleth, who first published many of Lovecraft's works.
Derleth's publishing company, Arkham House, was the first to codify this usage with their publication of The Shuttered House and Other Rooms (1959), and later The Dark Brotherhood and Other Pieces (1966). Each was bylined "H. P. Lovecraft and Divers Hands", and each included original stories and poems by H. P. Lovecraft as well as derivative works and essays by other notables, including Fritz Leiber and Jack L. Chalker.
The phrase can be found in reference to many of the original weird fiction writers, including not just Lovecraft but also Clark Ashton Smith. It has also been used in many modern collections, such as the Call of Cthulhu books.
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Famous quotes containing the words divers and/or hands:
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 24:6-7.
“The world,—this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next to me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct, that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)