The Battle that Ended the Century

Publication and the fictional date

Written in June 1934 according to the composition catalog, the piece was issued by R. H. Barlow in De Land, Florida, in a publication dated approximately 1934 by the Archive's bibliography. Its future setting on the eve of 2001 belongs to the joke, not to its actual publication history.

The work is credited to Barlow with Lovecraft. The electronic text marks Barlow's contributions and provides an editorial glossary of the disguised names. That apparatus supports specific identifications while preserving uncertainty where a name remains unresolved.

Sources: H. P. Lovecraft Archive — fiction in composition order, The Battle that Ended the Century — publication data, The Battle that Ended the Century — original text

The fighters and the impossible match

The contest takes place in the ruins of a garage on the former site of New York. Two-Gun Bob represents Robert E. Howard; his opponent, Knockout Bernie, represents Bernard Austin Dwyer of West Shokan.

Their injuries rapidly exceed any plausible sporting contest. The fighters continue despite bodily damage that should make further action impossible. The point is exaggerated literary caricature rather than a realistic account of boxing or an allegation about either man's conduct.

The official decision declares Bernie effectively dead and Bob victorious. Bernie objects, then walks away to obtain food while his funeral arrangements proceed. The contradiction between bureaucratic verdict and visible life keeps the supposed conclusion unstable.

Sources: The Battle that Ended the Century — original text

The surrounding literary world

The spectators and officials turn the fight into an occasion for artistic production, self-promotion and opportunism. Margaret Brundage's caricature produces a cover-like image; the figure representing August Derleth gathers material for an enormous novel cycle; the representative of Forrest J. Ackerman sells photographs with himself prominently included.

Lovecraft appears as the reviser of a report written by the figure representing Wilfred Blanch Talman. Clark Ashton Smith's artistic counterpart renders the fighters as fungi. These transformations draw attention to competing ways of packaging the same event.

The glossary identifies many allusions but labels the minister D. Vest Wind as unknown. A reference entry should retain that uncertainty instead of completing the key by guesswork.

Sources: The Battle that Ended the Century — original text

Funeral, publication and reversal

The funeral procession continues despite the supposed corpse's independent movement. The burial is disrupted when the gatekeeper absconds with the receipts. The spectacle's commercial arrangements prove as vulnerable to absurdity as its medical and sporting judgments.

The subsequent report passes through rejection, small-scale publication, bookselling and sensational republication. Demand is comically slight, while the language surrounding it makes the enterprise sound grand.

Finally a libel action reaches an international court, and Bernie is declared both alive and the winner. The story overturns its own official result through another official result, rather than restoring a stable factual account of the match.

Sources: The Battle that Ended the Century — original text

Allusion is not biography or a universal canon

The piece records a network of shared names and jokes, but its impossible injuries, judgments and publishing adventures are fictional. They cannot be used as evidence that the real writers fought this match or performed the actions assigned to their caricatures.

Mythic names and references appear within the satire, including the serpent-god of Valusia. Their presence is an allusion within a comic literary gathering, not evidence that the entire scene belongs to a single consistent supernatural history.

Read alongside Collapsing Cosmoses, the tale shows collaboration as social play: both works puncture inflated language, grand institutions and assertions of authority through stubbornly ridiculous particulars.

Sources: The Battle that Ended the Century — original text