New on Archive.org, Anthology Of Empire (1932). The book is a rich and comprehensive historical survey of the literature, with its pages serving as an unwitting swansong for Lovecraft’s beloved British Empire as Imperial responsibilities began to be divested. To a lesser extent the book is also a hymn to dear old Blighty.

Advert from early spring 1932. At 512 pages the above advert states a longer length than the 480-page edition on Archive.org.

The ardent Anglophile H.P Lovecraft must surely have noted the book among the reviews, and almost certainly asked for it at the local library. At this time he was listening regularly to the Empire radio service from Britain, which sent the signal from London toward Canada from 1932 onward. He also had access to the conservative British weekly The Spectator, offering pithy opinion and book reviews, via the Providence Public Library. The Spectator would surely have reviewed Anthology Of Empire in glowing terms.

“Dawn came at North-Scituate, in His Majesty’s Colony of Rhode-Island and Providence-Plantations; and at six-forty-five a.m. I was deposited at the terminal in my native town. God Save the King!” — H.P. Lovecraft to Morton, January 1933, informing Morton his his safe return from New York City by overnight bus.

“To me, Tipperary or Rule Britannia has infinitely more emotional appeal than any creation of Liszt, Beethoven, or Wagner.” — H.P. Lovecraft to Derleth, November 1930.