Original autochrome (photocrom) postcards from the public-domain archives:

[ Hat-tips: io9 and the Library of Congress ]

Thanks to Jurvetson for the Creative Commons shell picture.

Lovecraftians might enjoy this one. A fictional “dew mine” in Sussex, England — rendered in a mix of 3D photorealistic rendered ‘photography’, maps, plans and sketches. Looks like an interesting place to set a new story…

A week ago I wrote of S.T. Joshi’s monumental Lovecraft biography I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft…

“Hopefully this new book won’t continue the tradition of dreadful cover-art, something that seems to plague Lovecraft books.”

Now, news of the jacket design, courtesy of W.H. Pugmire on the SFF Forum…

“S.T. shew’d me the jackets and they are wonderful. Each has the Shunned House on Benefit Street in the background. The photo of young HPL on Volume One is the same that Ellen used for Lovecraft Unbound, and then for [ Volume ] II there is an older HPL in a photo that is S. T.’s favourite image of the author. […] official release later this month.”

I must say that I’ve plundered my PayPal account to buy a copy (there go the profits on selling my self-published books for the last six months…) and am greatly looking forward to being able to start reading the two volumes. I’ve been able to read parts of the Life via Google Books, and they’re fascinating.

Yog-Blogsoth is currently going through the Lovecraft stories, and matching up one story-quote per day with a new monster illustration…

Looks like there’s some strong line-art talent here that someone could employ if they wanted a range of trading cards, a short comic, etc.

Dreaming Methods has as new Issuu-based magazine-journal, Impossible Journal, explaining the techniques and approaches behind his weird interactive fiction.

The H. P. Lovecraft Project: A Classic Horror Anthology call-for-stories makes a refreshing change from reading anthology-calls that say things like… “oh, and /yawn/ we’re so tired of New England and traditional Lovecraftian horror settings, so please don’t send any”…

“In this case, story style does matter. Your style must resemble the style of the classic horror stories of the 19th and early 20th century. Classic examples of this genre are H. P. Lovecraft, of course, but also Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H. G. Wells, etc. (Lesser known authors of this style would include Gertrude Atherton, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, etc.)”

Deadline: 1st March 2011. 5,000 word limit.

A grim vision of what might have happened had Lovecraft lived until the 1950s, with his estate then falling into the hands of commercialising distant relatives…

Full version at Flickr.

20 days to go to raise the $1,300 that Propnomicon needs to create a Creative Commons “Arkham Sanitarium Prop Package”…

The “Arkham Sanitarium Prop Package” is a collection of documents and items that place Lovecraft’s fictional creation in the real world, building on the foundation of his writing and historical references. At a minimum the package itself will consist of an embroidered uniform patch and lapel pin reproducing the Sanitarium’s logo, two vintage-style postcards, and a notebook. All the images and documents produced as part of the project will be released under a Creative Commons license to that anyone can reuse and remix it as they see fit.

Ghost towns of the Namib desert: a photo-set…

I’m wondering how much Lovecraft travelled vicariously like this, through publications such as National Geographic? What magazines and journals did he have access to on the journal shelves of the local public library in Providence? And later at the New York public libraries and at Brown University library?

FantasticFest has an interview with the designer of their beautiful Lovecraftian/1970s-retro poster, Mike Saputo…