Invisible ink no 261: The enigma of Richard Shaver

How Shaver's story about the secret prehistoric landscape of the 'Cavern World' took off in a big way

There are authors whose imaginations run away with their wits; it’s virtually an occupational hazard.

In some cases, writing becomes increasingly erratic, peculiar, and unreadably dense, and finally the writer loses even his most avid fans. Occasionally, though, the writer is matched by someone who is determined to bring his words to public attention. Richard Sharpe Shaver was one such writer, born in Pennsylvania in 1910. When he was seven an accident damaged his spine and stunted his growth. He became an avid SF reader, then a welder and a paranoid schizophrenic who believed his welding guns allowed him to hear the thoughts of his fellow workers “by some freak of its coil’s field attunements”. He also picked up telepathic torture sessions conducted by malevolent aliens deep inside the earth.

Shaver left his job, became a tramp and was hospitalised. For the next eight years he was in a mental institution and not, as he insisted, “in the Cavern World”. This was the secret prehistoric landscape within our planet whose inhabitants, the Deros, sometimes popped out to kidnap surface-dwellers to sado-masochistically torture and devour them.

Wait, come back! From here the story gets stranger. In 1943 Shaver wrote a letter to Amazing Stories magazine, explaining that he had learned “Mantong”, the Deros language. The magazine’s editor, Ray Palmer, tried translating phrases. He was no fool; he’d bought Isaac Asimov’s first stories and knew a mad thing when he saw it. Palmer replied with a request: “What else have you got?” Shaver sent back the whole story of his capture and torture, which Palmer tidied up and published in 1945 as “I Remember Lemuria”.

The resulting publication caught both of them by surprise. Sales of the magazine went through the roof and thousands wrote in wanting more, which Shaver happily supplied. The Hollow Earth theory took off around the world; in other countries readers claimed to be able to access the caves from tunnels and elevators. “Shaver Mystery Clubs” were formed. Amazing Stories became devoted almost exclusively to Shaver tales. Inevitably, the stories were mixed with UFO sightings.

Shaver stayed in the limelight with accounts of “rock books” – stones that contained alien recordings. He even mailed readers slices of agate from his alien rock “lending library”. His influence was enormous and long-lasting, from concert posters to toy lines, and stunning artwork produced for Amazing Stories. So, was Shaver exploited, or simply allowed to flourish?