Monthly Archives: July 2012

Antarctica in Fiction

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in New books

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Just published in hardback from Cambridge University Press: Antarctica in Fiction: Imaginative Narratives of the Far South…

“This comprehensive and engaging analysis of a wide range of Antarctic fiction – from lost-race romances to espionage thrillers to travellers’ tales to horror fantasies – is essential reading for anyone interested in the history, literature and culture of Antarctica”

The Introduction is available free online, with footnotes missing.

And interesting find is George Clarke Simpson’s 1914 story “Fragments of a Manuscript Found by the People of Sirius When They Visited the Earth During the Exploration of the Solar System” (South Polar Times. Vol. 3), which uses the term “climate change” to imagine a dramatically warmed earth, so much so that it causes all the Antarctic ice to melt. The author is not obscure, since he was a famous polar expeditionary of the time and went on to head the Met Office. But the story is so obscure that it seems rather unlikely Lovecraft knew of it.

Richard Corben, Haunt of Horror: Lovecraft

06 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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I wasn’t aware that Heavy Metal comics veteran Richard Corben has tackled seven Lovecraft adaptations, in Haunt of Horror: Lovecraft (2008)…

Dagon – by Lovecraft
The Music of Erich Zann – by Lovecraft
The Canal (from “Fungi from Yuggoth”) – by Lovecraft
The Lamp (from “Fungi from Yuggoth”) – by Lovecraft
A Memory (from “Fungi from Yuggoth”) – by Lovecraft
The Scar (after ‘Recognition’ from “Fungi from Yuggoth”) – by Lovecraft
The Well – by Lovecraft
The Window – by Lovecraft

I was never a fan of his gaudy airbrushed colour artwork in the 1980s Heavy Metal, but his b&w style looks quite pleasing…

Lovecraft letters bundle for sale at L.W. Currey

06 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in Odd scratchings

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Interesting bundle of items for sale at L.W. Currey…

* LETTERS FROM H. P. LOVECRAFT TO EMIL PETAJA, 1934-1937. 28 letters, totaling 104 pages, of which approximately 95% is unpublished. 23 of the letters are entirely unpublished.

* TYPED MANUSCRIPT. Six leaves (of 10) of an unidentified short story by Petaja with holograph corrections throughout by Lovecraft.

* TYPED MANUSCRIPT. “Alphabetical List of Fantasy Authors.” typed by Petaja, with extensive handwritten notes by Lovecraft.

* AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT. Lovecraft’s handwritten untitled addendum to Petaja’s list of fantasy authors.

Lovecraft Dossier

05 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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The Institute of Design (IED) in Milan, Italy, recently invited student work. Fermomag reports that among those chosen to be shown — at the Frankfurt Book Fair next October, no less — will be a…

Lovecraft Dossier by Mattia Raimi, revisiting the story of ‘the loneliness of Providence’, in police dossier style

Yuggoth?

02 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Astronomy, Historical context, Unnamable

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Over on the Urania blog, a new scholarly/scientific essay in Italian by Albino Carbognani, on Lovecraft’s first publication in a national journal. This was the letter to Scientific American, advising on a method of detecting the presence of possible planets beyond Neptune…

From the conclusion of Carbognani’s essay (my approximate translation), in which he suggests naming any beyond-Pluto planet ‘Yuggoth’…

“In 1999 two groups of researchers claimed to have proof of the presence of an unknown planet at the edges of the solar system, due to the alignment of [the paths of] long-period comets [but today, to prove such a theory] there is [still] the need to have a [wider] sample of long-period comets that is free from selection effects. Full details of this kind may be provided by the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite, to be launched in the spring of 2013. Gaia should allow the discovery of about 1,000 long-period comets during its five year mission. Will an analysis of the distribution of [their] cometary aphelia [paths] give us details about the existence of a true ‘Yuggoth’ planet? It would be very symbolic to call any [new outer] planet by that name, the name summoned from the fervid imagination of Lovecraft to designate the hypothetical trans-Neptunian planetary body that he anticipated astronomers should find the edge of the Solar System.”

Incidentally that very same edition of Scientific American carried an ad for the Remington, the same typewriter Lovecraft had used to type his letter…