The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

Honoring Lambshead: Stories Inspired by the Cabinet

Stories Inspired by the Cabinet

In early 2002, Ray Russell of prestigious specialty press Tartarus approached Lambshead about publishing a charity chapbook. It would celebrate Lambshead’s life from an unusual angle: by focusing on the objects in the doctor’s cabinet. Russell and Lambshead shared a fascination with supernatural literature that included a love for Arthur Machen, Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Thomas Ligotti. Several years earlier, Russell had even visited the cabinet for the express purpose of viewing some letters from Machen to Lambshead.

After some deliberation, Lambshead gave his blessing—“as long as all proceeds benefit the Museum of Intangible Arts and Objects and the Institute for Further Study,” both of which he thought were underfunded and “staffed by wraiths in ragged clothes; it might be good for morale if they could afford sandwiches at least.” Russell agreed and immediately embarked on the project, hoping to ride the coattails of the forthcoming Bantam/Pan Macmillan editions of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases.

Choosing from a list of items drawn up by Russell, several writers contributed, including the then-unknown Naomi Novik (who at the time wrote period ghost stories under the name N. N. Vasek). By January 2003, the chapbook was ready to be sent to the printer. It also included a somewhat overenthusiastic introduction titled “Virile Lambshead: Catch the Disease!,” written by an editor at the medical journal the Lancet.

The inspiration for the stories varies greatly. For example, the actual foot that sparked Jeffrey Ford’s “Relic” probably dates to the Crimean War’s legendary Charge of the Light Brigade. As Lambshead put it, “unless the family mythology is wrong, this foot of my saintly grandfather was mummified due to the chance confluence of devastating military technologies and a freak dismount caused by a faulty stirrup.” Similarly, Holly Black’s story is mostly conjured up from the imagination, the item in question being “an odd Paddington knockoff that I felt sorry for.”

However, Novik’s teapot did, according to a Sotheby’s auction catalog, belong to Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, a.k.a. Lord Dunsany. “Threads” by Carrie Vaughn gently mocks Lambshead’s all-too-real predilection for scheduling interviews and then either not showing up or “observing my interview from afar.” As for other allusions in the stories, Lambshead’s involvement with various British secret service organizations is still murky, and the Meistergarten was probably never used by Lambshead to curb the rambunctious children of visiting relatives.

Unfortunately for readers, Lambshead died before publication, and the chapbook became a casualty of the free-for-all of lawsuits surrounding his estate. This decision was made easier for the estate because of an unfinished letter from Lambshead that began: “Dear Ray: Cease, desist, herewith take it upon yourself to remove me from . . .” (Russell claims the letter would have continued along the lines of either “from your overblown introduction” or “your annoying mailing list.”)

Here, then, for the first time, in defiance of potential lawsuits, we are honored to publish those stories, along with all of the original art, sans Robert Mapplethorpe’s piece for Novik’s story. These tales do indeed form a bizarre tribute to Dr. Lambshead’s cabinet, if not the man himself.