Currently on AbeBooks, a volume claimed to be Lovecraft’s library copy of the early gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, under the listing title “THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO. A Romance. With an Introduction by D. Murray Rose. H.P. LOVECRAFT’S COPY.”
The inscription from Kirk looks authentic enough, but before you part with your $5,000 you’ll have to make up your own mind about Lovecraft’s name and bookplate. I’m not certain from the description if the bookplate can be determined by marks to have once been attached to the book in question. There seems to be a faded square, but does it match the bookplate?
The seller notes…
It is unclear at which date Kirk gave Lovecraft this copy of UDOLPHO, but in a letter written to Clark Ashton Smith on Dec 12, 1925 (on George W. Kirk’s letterhead) Lovecraft writes: “W. Paul Cook’s request for an article on weird literature from me – a request which he won’t withdraw despite my emphatic disclaimers of all possible qualification – has imposed upon me the very pleasant task of reading up some of the matter I had long ago scheduled for perusal. I waded through the whole of “Udolpho” last week, & am now on the hunt for Maturin’s “Melmoth”.” Lovecraft also made a list of his weird fiction collection in a letter he sent to CAS on August 27, 1932; Radcliffe’s “Udolpho” is on that list.
The edition of Joshi’s Lovecraft’s Library that I have access to is uncertain of the edition. If this is indeed the edition Lovecraft owned, then, we can now be relatively certain he read the introduction by Rose.
