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Tentaclii

~ News and scholarship on H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937)

Tentaclii

Monthly Archives: April 2023

Intellectual Vagabondage (1925)

30 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context

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New on Archive.org, a useful layman’s survey of the intellectual landscape in which Lovecraft has steeped himself and was living through until the mid 1920s, with particular focus on American reception (or not) of such ideas and trends. Intellectual Vagabondage: an apology for the intelligentsia (1925) has an off-putting title, sounding now like some dour treatise against Marxism. But instead we find a crisp and accessible survey, written by one with ‘boots on the ground’ at the time, as can be seen here by the contents list…

“The Teeth of Gwahlur at last!”

29 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in REH

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The French crowd-funder for La correspondance de Robert E. Howard et Howard P. Lovecraft is over 500%+ funded, and has topped 100,000 of those Euro things-which-have-no-symbol-on-my-keyboard. In American, $110,000.

Lovecraft was right, part 583

29 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context, Odd scratchings

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“Mystery prehistoric fossil verified as giant fungus”. 18 to 26 foot high, possibly higher when ‘flowering’ to shed spores. So far as we know Prototaxites did not have the ‘mushroom caps’ that they have today. Just the ‘stalks’.

Picture: “Pioneers of the land” by Plioart on DeviantArt.

I also note… “A new Palaeozoic plant closely allied to Prototaxites”, identified in Nature Geoscience in 2012… “It differs from Prototaxites only in its possession of internally differentially thickened tubes.” One must now assume that these were also fungi.

Therefore, Lovecraft’s depiction of towering and gigantic fungi in the “Palaeozoic” period of Earth’s prehistory now seems somewhat prescient…

The omnipresent gardens were almost terrifying in their strangeness, with bizarre and unfamiliar forms of vegetation nodding over broad paths lined with curiously carven monoliths. Abnormally vast fern-like growths predominated; some green, and some of a ghastly, fungoid pallor. […] Fungi of inconceivable size, outlines, and colours speckled the scene in patterns bespeaking some unknown but well-established horticultural tradition.” (“The Shadow out of Time”)

He doesn’t pin down what these inconceivably giant fungi looked like and, in his focus on giant fern forests later in the tale, he stays within the then-consensus of science until 1906. After 1906 the consensus rapidly breaks down as seed-bearing fossil plants are discovered. There were still giant fern forests, but they are no longer thought to have dominated the land.

But we do get the clear idea, early on in Lovecraft’s tale, that this is a Palaeozoic world where there are also gigantic fungi. Also that some of what he thinks of as distant ferns (“fern-like”) may in fact be fungi (“some of a ghastly, fungoid pallor”).

Gigantic fungi were sometimes known in 1930s science fiction, though also known far earlier in time by the Lovecraft Circle. A remark by Lovecraft shows that many in the Circle knew the illustrated fantasy book Etidorhpa (1895) by John Uri Lloyd…

that strange old novel “Etidorhpa” once pass’d around our Kleicomolo circle and perus’d with such varying reactions

Illustrations for ‘Etidorhpa’ (1895).

They would also have known Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), in which the shores of the Central Sea harbour a forest of giant mushrooms. Also the fungi landscapes of the H.G. Wells novel The First Men in the Moon (1901).

But was Lovecraft ahead of science on placing giant fungi both in the distant prehistoric past and living above-ground? It seems so. The 1911 Britannica passage on Palaeozoic | Fungi give the strong impression they were small or microscopic, and elsewhere has… “The few and incomplete data which we at present possess as to Palaeozoic Fungi do not as yet justify any inferences as to the evolution of these plants”. So far as I can tell from some searches, nothing much changes in the science for many decades thereafter.

John Carter Brown Library

28 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in New discoveries, Picture postals

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This week on ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’, a very fine glass-plate view of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown. This is an “other gate” on the university, the better known one being the Van Wickle Gates near Lovecraft’s last home at No. 66 and at which Lovecraft posed for photos.

No, it’s not a Library of Congress picture. This one came from spotting a stray eBay listing of a discarded print from some picture library. There was no watermark and it was a good scan at 1600px. I’ve here colourised, cleaned and enlarged x2.

I’d previously spotted that an ironwork Cthulhu-a-like was recorded in a 1965 book of b&w art-photographs of the Brown campus. This was located outside the John Carter Brown Library, but is not clearly seen on the above picture.

It formed part of the moulding at the foot of the lamp-posts outside the Library, and above we see one of what appears to have been three faces surrounding the base. The new colour picture now adds further context to this discovery. The lamp-posts can be seen, and these face(s) were not right down on the sidewalk/floor where they might be overlooked. Rather, they terminated in the elevated marble stair-posts and would thus have been visible to all who ascended the steps and then passed by. Including one Mr. H.P. Lovecraft.

Their elevation and original situation can also be seen here. That they were topped with ‘Moon’ globes might also have tickled Lovecraft’s fancy…

Book: Science Fiction And Fantasy Artists Of The Twentieth Century

27 Thursday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Scholarly works

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New on Archive.org, with a public PDF download, McFarland’s Science Fiction And Fantasy Artists Of The Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary (2009). This is no longer discoverable on the McFarland catalogue site, and Amazon UK and USA both have it as “out of print, unavailable”. There are no used copies or copies on eBay either. Thus, I think it can justifiably be linked here without harming anyone’s wallet in these difficult times.

It’s a scholarly two-column reference work that was aimed at academic libraries, judging by the original retail price of $135 (probably about $220 in today’s money). There are two introductory survey essays, one to 1975 and another from the 1970s through to the year 2000. The author then crisply details the biographies of nearly 400 selected artists in 500 or so pages, nearly all North American but with some 70 British artists manning the tail-guns. The book doesn’t cover the field of children’s science-fiction, work for the screen, or comics work (Corben is in, Moebius isn’t), and as far as I can tell it has little to say about the art of books native to Russia, Germany or Japan.

The book will also serve as a handy reference guide to collectors of the various artbooks issued by these artists, though there are surely more to be discovered. One hopes that somewhere in the world is a collector with the whole 20th century caboodle of these artbooks in mint condition, and that he’ll leave them all to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum or suchlike.

I wonder if this PDF freebie book has been released on Archive.org in order to drum up interest for a new updated edition circa 2025? One imagines there would be a market for a greatly expanded two-volume $500 set.

Various new books

26 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in New books, Scholarly works

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Newly listed at the Hippocampus website, the forthcoming books Implications of Infinity: Collected Essays by George Sterling and A Splendid Poison: The Letters of Ambrose Bierce and George Sterling. Both edited by S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, and at a pre-publication discount via the publisher.

This reminds me that it’s about the time of year when thoughts might be turning to the key Lovecraft journal, The Lovecraft Annual. In terms of potential contributors starting to polish their submissions, ready to send off to S.T. Joshi.

In other forthcoming books, I see that The Spirit of Revision: Lovecraft’s Letters to Zealia Brown Reed Bishop is being newly listed in hardcover on Amazon UK. This will be an “enhanced second edition” from Helios House Press, having previously been available from the HPLHS (and, at a much higher price, from Amazon). The new edition is set for release on 31st May 2023.

Note that these letters are apparently also in the new Letters to Woodburn Harris and Others volume from Hippocampus.

French translation of the letters of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft

25 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in New books, REH, Scholarly works

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In France, the translator of their new Lovecraft editions is interviewed in interview with La Petit Journal. This is free and in HTML, so can be easily translated. The chat brings news of the next project…

Q: Today, a subscription is launched, until 4th May 2023, for the French translation of the correspondence between Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. How important is this exchange between the two authors, in terms of a better understand Lovecraft’s work?

A: We see the man at work, and in his exchanges with a friend and fellow author. They talk about literature, publishing, history and politics. It is, in a way, the “behind the scenes” of Lovecraft at work.

Q: What will this new French translation of the letters offer, compared to the original?

A: We have some original documents, but above all we intend to enrich this correspondence with our own critical apparatus. Along with several iconic documents: photos of the authors, of their friends, of the places where they lived, reproductions of their letters, covers of the magazines where they published, etc.

The crowdfunder is at a site I’d not known about, fr.ulule.com, as La correspondance de Robert E. Howard et Howard P. Lovecraft. It’s already been nearly 400%+ funded.

“Lovecraft, mon amour” – three shows for 2023

24 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraft as character, Lovecraftian arts

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Three performances of the stage play “Lovecraft, mon amour”, in the French city of Lyon. 28th – 29th April 2023.

A fantastic theatrical and musical biopic, which immerses us musically in America from the 1920s to 1947. The play begins in 1947, Sonia has just learned of the death of Lovecraft, ten years after his death. This news upsets her and provokes a torrent of memories. But she begins to have the strange impression that Howard is actually there with her. As they move from confidence to confidence, these two characters reconstruct the course of their thwarted, extraordinary, overwhelming love… Will Sonia recognise Howard? Is love stronger than death?

The Mould Shade Speaks

23 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works

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Deep Cuts has dug up the horror poem “The Mould Shade Speaks” (1919) by early Lovecraft collaborator Winifred Virginia Jackson.

… very little of Jackson’s poetry has been reprinted, and much of it is uncollected or largely inaccessible for those without access to newspaper archives and obscure and expensive amateur journals, although a selection of poems have been republished in the appendix to Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner and Others.

H.P. Lovecraft Motion Comic

22 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts

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Saturday-morning cartoons? Tentaclii has ’em! Newly uploaded to Archive.org, but made some years ago, a H.P. Lovecraft Motion Comic: The Rats In The Walls (2017). Excellent, even if we don’t get to see comic-book frames. 30 minutes, good narration. Also, it has Spanish subtitles here. Well worth watching.

The same maker also made H.P. Lovecraft Motion Comic: The Call Of Cthulhu (2015), which is on YouTube only.

Motion comics? They were partially animated comic-book-like animations made on the desktop PC with Adobe After Effects (not ideal) or (if you do a bit more research on software) with dedicated motion-comics software such as MotionArtist. Sadly they died off, despite portable HTML5 output, partly due to the additional labour needed to make them and partly due to the intensely conventional stance of the bulk of comic-book buyers. Maybe they’ll be revived, now that AI will be able to do some of the heavy lifting re: artwork, and now that comics buyers (different than readers) are a little less averse to ‘digital’.

MotionArtist 1.3, on which development stopped 2017. But it still works and can still be had if you look hard enough. It’s also well-documented and has abundant video tutorials.

A ‘postal’ snap of Lovecraft himself

21 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Picture postals

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Many thanks to Martin A. for letting me know that Tuesday’s ‘mystery picture’ of Lovecraft was printed in a higher-res form in the anthology Eternal Lovecraft (1998). I’ve here combined this with the thumbnail of the 1975 MiniCon flyer version that was up for sale, to show what was cropped. Mostly the eerie footprints on the rock. It may also indicate that highlights were blown out on later cropped prints. If you view at 100% and look closely at the face, on the left side there may be indication of the facial scarring caused by his ingrowing facial hairs and ‘tweezers trouble’.

H.P. Lovecraft in August 1922, standing on a promontory rock ledge in an ocean cleft at Magnolia, Mass. Most likely to be in “Rafe’s Chasm”.

A ‘picture postal’ that Lovecraft sent, 1927.

“explored the cliffs of Magnolia, overlooking Norman’s Woe, and containing the celebrated Rafe’s Chasm.”

“the striking sea-cliffs of Magnolia — with the yawning abyss of Rafe’s Chasm”

He later compares it very favourably with “The chasm on M’head Neck”, near Marblehead, which might give Mythos fiction writer an interesting lead on a suitable setting for a tale. If it hasn’t been used already.

Here is the back of a postcard from Lovecraft, dated 29th June 1922 and postmarked “Magnolia Station” for the 30th.

Spent this morning on the rocks while pearl-grey mists surged out of the sky to mix with the sea. Over the cliffs one might see only the abyss of milky vapour, as if it were the void beyond the Edge of the World. Will not return …

Notes on The Conservative – October 1915

20 Thursday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context

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Notes on The Conservative, the amateur journalism paper issued by H.P. Lovecraft from 1915-1923.

Part Three: the October 1915 issue.

Lovecraft has now issued his third issue of his own amateur paper The Conservative. Is it a Halloween ‘horror’ issue? Let’s find out.

He opens with his poem on “The State of Poetry”, headed by a line from Ovid which translates for sense as “Ill-mated things have discordant offspring”. This might seem to some to hint at key themes in his future fiction. The poem ushers forward a series of would-be bards to perform for a king, each bard offering his own form of poetic ineptitude or gross error of topic. One suspects the readers of The Conservative would have been well be able to identify each amateur journalist thus given their turn on the stage. These are sometimes well masked, with names such as “Mundanus”, or even left un-named as mere Whitman-esque “degen’rate swine”.

Note the line of poetry “Ablest is he who in rhyming can reach / The Lofty coarseness of a Cockney speech”, something that Lovecraft had experienced in his own city of Providence at the astronomical Ladd Observatory, in the company of the “affable little cockney from England” John Edwards. Lovecraft ends his verse by suggesting the true poet will do best in chaste seclusion (such as his own, hem hem), restoring ancient times with his imaginative ‘fancy’ and learning much from the lost Golden Ages of creativity such as the England of Shakespeare or Johnson.

His essay “The Allowable Line” naturally follows from the poem. It is headed by another untranslated line from the Roman poet Horace. A line which translates for sense as “On discovering dazzling brilliance, disregard the flaws”. In the essay he continues his debate with Kleiner, begun in the previous issues and continued in correspondence, on the “allowable rhyme”. He tracks this through history, giving a basic outline of its once-common use in English poetry, and then the later emergence of stricter rhyming. In this we also have the sense that Lovecraft has read the work of all those he names, and with due attention. Not that he liked all of them, and for instance he calls Erasmus Darwin’s poetry “pompous”. Though if all he recalled, and hazily so (“Darwin’s ‘Botanick Garden’ … my early reading”) was The Economy of Vegetation, then he may not have realised that the slump in the middle of this book is likely the result of Darwin’s collaborator slotting in her own unheralded verses.

His “Editorial” bites back against the “insulting insects” that have begun to infest his mail-box, and he threatens to publish their letters with “original style, spelling, grammar” in future. The short article “The Conservative and His Critics” naturally follows, headed by more lines from Horace, which can be translated as “It is better, I warn you, not to make me touchy”. Then some short poetic ripostes to politically pro-German lines of wartime verse which had attracted Lovecraft’s special ire.

We then come to the meat of the issue, with the long essay “The Renaissance of Manhood”. Here Lovecraft forensically identifies the types of pacifists who oppose a just and necessary war, and suggests their motivations. One feels he will have more to say on the topic in future. Though as S.T. Joshi has observed, his own attempts at patriotic poetry will fail to rise above mediocrity.

The essay “Liquor and its Friends” reveals that he broadly subscribes at this time to the ‘trickle-down theory’. Those at the top of society must first set an example, “which will then work downwards, as if through gravity”.

His thoughts on “The Youth of Today” follow. He welcomes the postal approach of “schoolboys of today [who] fear not to speak as they think”, and here we learn of how he first encountered his new young protege David H. Whittier.

“Symphony and Stress” appears at first sight to examine another side of amateurdom, in which amateur papers were “the product of a small circle of cultivated ladies”. Yet mid-way he compares this to Lockhart’s anti-rum paper Chain Lightning which vividly recounts “unspeakable evil” among the alcoholics and “horrors utterly beyond the realization” of the sheltered ladies. All drawn from Lockhart’s experiences in his own town. Lovecraft ends by asking the ladies to forbear in their mild criticism of negative-minded “buzzards” in amateurdom. Each has their place, and may do good in their own way.

He briefly lauds some improving amateur papers from youths, and especially notes Basinet’s paper The Rebel. Lovecraft states he knows Basinet personally, but what goes unsaid is that the lad was one of the largely Irish group of Providence amateurs — later to be so ably documented by Ken Faig Jr. Here Lovecraft notes that Basinet has recently switched his leftist beliefs from socialism to anarchism. Dunn, of the same local group, is also noted in the context of discussions of the ever-vexed Irish question. Lovecraft seems to be of the opinion that “Ireland is now an equal and integral part of the British Empire” and thus (presumably) nothing more need be said.

A back-page poem by John Russell titled “Socialism” marks the end of the issue. Russell was a long-distance Lovecraft correspondent (West Tampa, Florida) from 1913 through 1925, encountered via a vehement debate in the pages of The Argosy. This 1915 poem foresees the “stagnant pool” that society would become if a wise man and a fool were to receive the same treatment and income in a vain attempt to enforce a socialist economy. Also the way that socialist leaders, inevitably authoritarian, would start to find underhand ways to “grab the most they could” from the masses.

The Halloween horrors that some Lovecraftians might have been expecting of an October issue are thus… not here. Yet in a way, it is a horror issue of a sort. There are “insulting insects” in Lovecraft’s mail-box; he details some of the very real “unspeakable evil” which emerges from alcoholism; and finally anticipates the looming horrors of socialism — horrors which were to become manifest soon after Trotsky’s Moscow coup in 1917.

Overall one has a strange sense of familiarity with the present day. An ugly mix of high-flying philosophical debate and pro-enemy sympathies during wartime; a hazy vision of socialism which seduces a vocal minority among the young; a mass of hide-bound reactionaries unwilling to adapt to the new modernity; while lone grassroots voices battle for the truth about ruined lives and families in their own town. Also a tendency among creatives toward a complacent withdrawal from it all, into a rose-tinted myopia in which beautiful and well-formed poetry is everything.

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