A new episode of Voluminous, reading and discussing one of Lovecraft’s letters. Oddly enough I’ve just started properly reading (rather than occasionally dipping into at random) the Donald Wandrei letters, and this is one of those letters.

The Voluminous presenters appear have have discovered an unpublished essay lurking at Brown…

The Brown Digital Repository has another typescript which is [incorrectly, by Barlow] labeled as “The Materialist Today”, but it is a different essay also called “Remarks on Materialism”. This longer essay does not appear to have been published, but if you’re interested in more of HPL’s thoughts on cosmic matters it’s worth taking a look at.

It seems to have been pieced together by Brown archivists or others, having appeared in very scattered form on the backs of letters sent to various correspondents “between 1927 and 1932”. The general practice of the Lovecraft circle’s letters seem to be that one re-used paper by writing letters on the reverse of failed manuscripts, or texts superseded by a good printed version, or on old carbons.

Update: It actually appears to be a late typing of “In Defence of Dagon”, an essay already known. My thanks for the commenters (see below) for pointing this out.


Also in audio. New on Archive.org, R.E. Howard’s “Wolfshead” in a new 58 minute public domain reading. Also “He” and “The Shunned House” by Lovecraft.