18 Sunday Jul 2021
Posted in New books, REH, Scholarly works
Now available to order, The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1, the first of three planned volumes. This the collectable hardback. Due soon is a more affordable and perpetually in-print paperback edition with new cover-art.
While you’re waiting for a mighty-thewed delivery-man proffering your Vol. 1, this week DMR has a long consideration of the ‘decadent’ and ‘gothic’ traces to be seen in Howard’s “Spear and Fang”.
14 Monday Jun 2021
Posted in New books, Podcasts etc.
The journal Wormwoodiana No. 36 will ship shortly, and now has a table-of-contents. The same post has news that an estate-approved biography of acclaimed British supernatural/weird writer Robert Aickman is…
essentially finished, and we now need to explore the best way of seeing it published
Aickman was also a key leader in the post-war restoration of the extensive but neglected British system of inland canals. The restoration was a magnificent success, and now offers a vast network for off-road walking and cycling in leafy surroundings. The system also supports a thriving narrowboat hire industry, especially in the Midlands, bringing affluent tourists and their cash to all sorts of out-of-the-way rural places. Lovecraft the-conservationist-and-walker would be been very pleased that his beloved British Isles had seen such a remarkable and suitable transformation, and that it had been led by a weird author whom he would have deeply admired.
Portrait of Robert Aickman by Ida Kar, National Portrait Gallery. Here newly shadow-lifted and colourised. The painted step and can on the shelf above are traditional painted British canal-ware.
If you can’t wait for the biography, there are said to be two published auto-biographical books, The Attempted Rescue (1966) and the posthumous The River Runs Uphill: A Story of Success and Failure (1986). But how much they have to say about the writer rather than the conservationist, I don’t know.
For those who want a quicker overview and a clear focus on the weird writing, the recent 30-minute audio documentary / appreciation “The Unsettled Dust: The Strange Stories of Robert Aickman” (2017) is available at Archive.org.
Incidentally, perhaps some Aickman specialist can tell me this: what exactly was his connection with the English West Midlands? Certain small certain factors I’ve casually noticed in the past suggest he had some sort of connection with the Wolverhampton -to- Burton-on-Trent arc of Staffordshire, just above Birmingham on the map.
13 Sunday Jun 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
You’re likely to need a tongue like an eel, to do justice to reading aloud Lovecraft’s poetry translated into Swedish. But it’s good to know such a book exists.
Kosmofobi : Dikter om varldar bortom was new from Aleph Bokforlag in 2020, with 176 pages and 10 illustrations…
The book collects all the author’s surviving horror and fantasy poems. These are published in the original side-by-side with Swedish interpretations in free verse. There is also an essay by the prominent Lovecraft expert Robert M. Price, written especially for this Swedish edition.
Also from the same publisher, Jens Heimdahl’s illustrated “Dream Quest”, Soekandet efter det droemda Kadath (2020, 2nd edition). According to the publisher…
Something of an art book, solidly illustrated by Jens Heimdahl, who also has a section on the author and analyzes the story.
They’ve saddled it with a cover with poor ‘shovelware’ typography, but here are some samples of the art…
31 Monday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
The new book of Lovecraft’s letters, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price and Richard F. Searight, is now showing up on Amazon UK. Albeit currently with the notice “Usually dispatched within 1 to 3 weeks”.
“Ancillary material includes Price’s distinctive recipe for Indian curry.” Yum.
30 Sunday May 2021
Posted in Lovecraft as character, Lovecraftian arts, New books
New to me, Kadath, or, The dream quest of Randolph Carter from Sloth Comics of London, 2014. Creator Charles Cutting is an illustrator from Oxford, in the UK. I like the style, and it’s probably even better on paper. There’s lots of it too, with over 100 pages of detailed art.
The first quarter of the adaptation was a webcomic originally on The Illustrated Ape website, then the first issue appeared in 2012 — but a crowd-funder for the rest of the issues is said to have failed. Congratulations to Cutting for getting the book finished and published regardless, especially in the context of the difficult UK scene. One review lamented that…
work of this calibre seems to slip ‘under the radar’ in the comics community
It certainly slipped under my radar, and yet Lovecraft + comics is on the radar for me. But then it’s always been a problem finding out about entertaining completed-story graphic novels for over-18 readers, unless they’re mass-market superhero fare or the sort of angsty politically-correct wrist-slashers that the reviewers flock to.
Anyway, get Kadath for £11.99 (about $17 U.S.) as a new paperback via Sloth (appears to be still in print, delivered by Amazon) and help support Charles with royalties. Or get it used on Amazon for (currently) a little less inc. postage.
27 Thursday May 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Scholarly works
A new essay-book from Carlos Gomez Gurpegui of Seville, Spain, examining H.P. Lovecraft et le jeu video (H.P. Lovecraft and the video game). Available now from Ynnis Editions, and marked “2021”. It appears to be in Spanish. (Update: I’m told it can also be had in a French edition).
26 Wednesday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
S.T. Joshi’s blog has updated with news of his 350th(!) book. He is currently working on his The Recognition of H. P. Lovecraft book and also the forthcoming Lovecraft Annual #15. Also news that “Ken Faig Jr.’s Lovecraftian People and Places” is due soon from Hippocampus.
10 Monday May 2021
Posted in New books, REH, Scholarly works
A new (to me) issue of Zothique: Rivista di Cultura Fantastica e Weird, from Dagon Press. This is No. 7 (Summer 2021), and an R.E. Howard special. Here are the contents translated…
The World of Robert E. Howard, by Giuseppe Lippi.
“Autobiography” by Robert E. Howard.
“A Confession” by Robert E. Howard.
“An Analysis of the Howardian Vampire”, by Wade Wellman.
“The Song of Vampires” by Robert E. Howard.
“A Dream” by Robert E. Howard.
THE LETTERS OF ROBERT E. HOWARD.
“The day I met Robert E. Howard”, by E. Hoffmann Price.
“Wolfsdung” [Wolfshead?] by Robert E. Howard.
“The Tower of the Elephant: a Lovecraftian tale”, by Robert M. Price.
“The Appearance on the Moor”, by R.E. Howard.
“The Shadow of the Condemned”, by R.E. Howard.
“Almuric, the wild and mysterious planet”, by Giovanni Valenzanol.
“Steve Harrison: iron fist against degradation in River Street”, by Matteo Mancini.
THREE STORIES OF SCIENCE FICTION by Robert E. Howard:
The Gondarlano. [?]
The Supreme Moment.
The Land of Ashish.
“The romantic roots of the poetry of Robert E. Howard”, by Mariano D’Anza.
“A portrait of the marauder Cormac Mac Art”, by Michele Tetro.
“Lo latromante” [?], by Andrea Guido Silvi.
Also new to me, Zothique #6 (spring 2021) which was a Gustav Meyrink / The Golem special.
Previously on Tentaclii: Zothique #2 and Zothique #3 – #5.
09 Sunday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
The latest Studi Lovecraftiani #19, the Italian Lovecraft studies journal, now available from Dagon Press.
* The volume opens with two essays on Lovecraft and racism/censorship, one by S.T. Joshi.
* A long special “The Cats of Ulthar” section, including “a new complete and annotated translation [to Italian]” of “Ulthar” and related artwork.
* An essay on “Lovecraftian archetypes of ‘the alien invasion'”, though it seems to survey uses of his ideas by later authors.
* A survey of “curious parallels with Dante, present in the story “In the Vault”.”
* What appears to be an account of a personal falling-out or disagreement among Italian Lovecraft scholars?
* A comic by Teodorani and Farinelli.
* An essay on “Lovecraft and witchcraft”, with the author apparently drawing on real letters from a (modern) witch?
* “A Lovecraftian story” by Pietro Rotelli.
* Some reviews and reports.
For those who read Italian, here is a screenshot of the TOC…
08 Saturday May 2021
Posted in Historical context, New books, REH, Scholarly works
A new ebook from Fred Blosser, Exploring the Worlds of REH #3. The survey essay “Home, Hearth, Heroes, and Hauntings: Howard’s Texas Weird Tales” introduces four chapters each discussing one of R.E. Howard’s ‘Weird Texas’ tales. As a Kindle ebook for a very small sum.
Related is the earlier Exploring the Worlds of REH#1: A Study of Two Texas Terror Tales (Dec 2020), which examines “Graveyard Rats” and “Black Wind Blowing”.
Readers of both may also want to have on their Kindle Mark Finn’s “Texas as Character in Robert E. Howard’s Fiction” which is free online.
03 Monday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
Donald R. Burleson’s Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe is set to be a Kindle ebook from 11th May 2021, from the University Press of Kentucky.
27 Tuesday Apr 2021
Posted in Historical context, New books
I’ve found a new source for the colour in “The Colour out of Space”, on which more in my forthcoming review of Lovecraft Annual 2020. In the meanwhile, those fascinated with the histories of colour may be interested in the latest shelf-trembler from Bloomsbury. The mammoth A Cultural History of Color runs to six handsome volumes, and costs £395. Which I think is roughly about $500.
A pity, perhaps, that there wasn’t also a pre-history volume surveying and summarising what we now know about colour in the deep past. Although, admittedly, the emphasis might have been largely on the various shades of ochre and umber.