Eltdown Shards

The Eltdown Shards was a book in the Library of St John the Beheaded's collection. When Anne Travers was researching the Great Intelligence, she added this document on her way to finding books on her father's list. (PROSE: Millennial Rites)

Behind the scenes

• The fictional Eltdown Shards were first referenced in Richard F. Searight's "The Sealed Casket". His correspondent, H. P. Lovecraft, later included a history of the Shards in "The Challenge from Beyond" contradicting the details Searight was then writing in his story "The Warder of Knowledge". In both stories they are prehistoric clay fragments unearthed in English soil.
• The book in the Library of St John would have to be a translation. Searight's history indicates the fragments are from the Triassic Period and written in a half-decipherable Semitic language. Lovecraft's history indicates they are from the Permian Period and written in pre-human hieroglyphs which were allegedly decipherable to occultists.