Haydon Atwood Prescott was without a doubt a remarkable man who certainly had a colourful career as poet, scholar, explorer, artist, novelist, and, some would say, raving lunatic! It's true that he died in strange circumstances in the Roundway Mental Institution, at Devizes, Wiltshire, apparently driven to madness by his experiences during his Cambodian Expedition of 1943, but he left behind a body of work which, despite it's bizarre subject matter, is compelling reading for connoisseurs of the weird and macabre
His two slim volumes of verse were published in the late 1920's by Charnel House of London. Whispers From the Void (1926) and Strange Songs From the Stars (1927) were the culmination of a three month period of fevered writing undertaken by the nineteen year old Prescott in 1925. He accredited the sudden and intense burst of inspiration which produced this outré and uncanny verse to a vivid dream he experienced on March 23rd of that year. In this dream, he said, a cyclopean underwater city rose from the waves of the Pacific. The frothy waters teemed with weird aquatic, humanoid life, which he named as 'Deep Ones' and he said these creatures were the minions of mighty Cthulhu who had "seeped down from the stars" and for "strange aeons" would dream, imprisoned in the sunken city of R'lyeh. But there would come a time when the stars were right and Cthulhu would rise from the ocean's depths to rule the Earth once more! This dream was a turning point in Haydon Atwood Prescott's life (and it's this incident, say sceptics, that marks the first manifestation of his unstable mental condition). He developed an interest in archaeology, anthropology and the occult and began to build what would become an extensive library of rare and esoteric books (now in the collection of the British Museum). Many of these books concerned the ocean's depths, particularly the Pacific, while others were suppressed volumes of arcane and supernatural lore. He also developed an interest in fantasy and horror fiction and subscribed to the pulp magazine Weird Tales, which featured stories by his favourite writer Howard Philips Lovecraft. He avowed that Lovecraft's tales of the 'Cthulhu Mythos' were not in fiction at all, but hard fact thinly guised as pulp tales!
For the remaining years of his life, Prescott immersed himself in the world of the weird. He corresponded with many like minded individuals, including the author and artist Robert Blake, the explorer Frederic Seddon Plowright and the poets Edward Pickman Derby and Ariel Prescott (no relation). He began to make a name for himself in the field of Pacific archaeology and in March 1936 he undertook the first of his two fateful expeditions to the Pacific.On his return from his expedition to the Pacific islands in August 1937 he immediately began work on his anthropological volume Down Amongst The Deep Ones: The Cthulhu Legend Cycle in the Pacific (Williams & Wilson, London 1939) which effectively destroyed any burgeoning career he might have had in the field of anthropology. Following this Prescott turned to fiction to get his views across and penned his epic novel The Behemoth From Below which remained unpublished at his death but which saw print in 1952. Disillusioned by his failure to get this work published Prescott embarked on another expedition, this time into the depths of unexplored Malaysia and Borneo. He was the only survivor of this ill fated venture. What happened to his companions will never be known as Prescott returned to civilisation with his mind shattered, mumbling almost incoherently about "eyes that suck and scream".Haydon Atwood Prescott died on November 16th in his security cell at Roundway Mental Institution. The manner of his death baffled both doctors and police. Strange sounds were heard emanating from his room in the small hours of the night, followed by frenzied screams and cries for assistance. When the locked and bolted door was finally thrown open they found Prescott dead on his mattress. His body was pallid and damp, his hair wet and his face, strangely contorted in death, bore strange circular marks like splayed fingerprints. Autopsy showed that Prescott's death was by drowning and that his lungs were filled with salt water!
