A Dartmouth Professor's Horror Story

In 1934, Alexander Laing (1903-1976), a former Dartmouth English professor and educational services director, co-authored and edited a Depression-era book of gothic horror titledThe Cadaver of Gideon Wyck. Incredibly, the book reimagines both the President and Head of the Medical School at a small rural New England college as corrupt practitioners of the occult who perform secret experiments on unsuspecting townspeople while attempting to convince the scientific community to accept their parapsychological delusions.

Set at the fictional "University of Maine," Laing makes no apologies about the book being inspired by his experiences as both a Dartmouth student and faculty member. Given Dartmouth's history, naturally there is also a subplot involving a state legislator threatening to defund the college. The January 21, 1934, New York Times book review called the work "gruesome," "shocking," "grisly," and an "enthralling mystery yarn told with the skill of a master." It reportedly sold 200,000 copies and was a bestseller. The late-stage-Art Deco frontispiece of The Cadaver of Gideon Wick is also remarkable. It is illustrated by Lynd Ward, who would go on to become well-known in his own right for The Biggest Bear, among other works. The details of the etching accurately depict events of the book.

In a March 1934 edition of The Plowshare, Laing described himself as a former poet whose "first post-college job, in Wall Street, lasted two weeks." "For four years… [he] has held a kind of roving commission on the Dartmouth faculty, teaching no classes, but working informally with undergraduates interested in the arts." He goes on to say "[p]oetry… is still his profession, despite the necessity for supporting his family by more remunerative avocations." Laing mentions nothing about the identity of his secretive co-author, and nothing more would be known for the next twenty-five years.

Upon the 1959 publication of an edited version of The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck the mystery author was revealed to be Dartmouth alum Dr. George Young McClure '25. He passed away December 18, 1960, in Fayetteville, N. C., where he was chief pathologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital. According to his obituary in the November 1961 issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, McClure felt that the nature of the books might hurt his medical career, which included researching polio with the New York Department of Public Health and cancer research at Memorial Hospital in New York City.

To see a first edition of The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck from 1934, come to Rauner and ask for Alumni L144c. We also have copies of the 1960 and 1962 editions as well as the Alexander Laing papers (ML-77). Box 43 in particular contains dust jackets and other ephemera related to Laing's writing career.