New to me, I’m pleased to see that Wildside Press republished Frank Belknap Long’s memoir Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside as an affordable paperback in September 2016. Not only that, but there’s an ebook and a German translation.

Important though the book is, I’ve clearly shown in Lovecraft in Historical Context that Long’s memory over that long distance of time is not to be entirely trusted. His recall needs to be checked against good primary evidence from the period.

Amazon have used paperback copies at around £10 inc. shipping. As usual the new paperback is about 70% more expensive from eBay than from Amazon. Still, even then it’s cheaper than the 1975 Arkham hardback.

No ebook listing on Amazon, but Wildside’s ‘up again, down again, broken images’ website reveals an ebook there priced at a “can’t-afford-it but got-to-have-it” $4.99. Checkout works but regrettably there’s no Paypal, and also uncertainty about if one will have to sign up to the site in order to download one’s purchased book.

I’d never heard of, seen or used, Amazon Pay before. I assume it’s a very lagging competitor to PayPal. But apparently it comes pre-loaded with your Amazon account…

Yet Amazon logged me in with my US rather than UK account, so… fail. Just get the ebook onto the regular Amazon USA and UK, please, guys.

Due in spring 2019, Phantom Islands in 180 pages…

“Phantom Islands tells the story of 30 such islands. Beginning with the alleged discovery of each, Dirk Liesemer recreates their fabled landscapes, the voyages attempted to verify their existence and, ultimately, the moments when that existence was at last disproved. Spanning oceans and centuries, these curious tales are a chronicle of the human lust for discovery and wealth. Beautifully illustrated with coloured maps and charts, Phantom Islands shows the cunning of imposters and frauds, the earnestness of explorers searching for knowledge, and the pleasure that can be found in our willingness to deceive and to be deceived.”

I’m pleased to hear about what amounts to a new pulp magazine, published today. The Cirsova Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense, Issue #1 / Spring 2019, apparently takes an old-school approach to pulp. Or perhaps we should now call it the New Pulp. The story descriptions certainly sound alluring…

Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She, by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Michael Tierney. Based on a fragment from 1930, this previously “Lost” Tarzan adventure takes place in the Jungle Tales period.

Atop the Cleft of Ral-Gri, by Jeff Stoner – The Nazis’ never-ending quest for powerful and sorcerous relics to aid the Father-land’s conquests brings the SS to the mountains of Tibet, where a deadly and mysterious weapon is rumored to lay dormant and waiting for a new master!

The Idol in the Sewer, by Kenneth R. Gower – A reverse of fortune sends Kral Mazan fleeing through the labyrinthine sewers of Vasaros empty-handed from his audacious heist! His life may be forfeit to the rat-men who lurk in the tunnels—unless he accepts a job to retrieve their idol for them!

Born to Storm the Citadel of Mettathok, by D. M. Ritzlin – For aeons, Verrockiel the Warlord has struggled vainly to seize the stronghold of Mettathok! With infinite time and resources at Verrockiel’s disposal, what of those fated to claw, tooth and nail, inch-by-inch, progress towards their master’s goals?!

The Book Hunter’s Apprentice, by Barbara Doran – An ancient and powerfully magic book has laid a curse of death upon a sage who had spitefully defiled it! Can Zhi, a book hunter, and Qing, her apprentice with the power to “fall” into nearby closets, retrieve the volume from a haunted manse?!

How Thaddeus Quimby the Third and I Almost Took Over the World, by Gary K. Shepherd – A strange object has fallen from the sky and into the hands of one Thaddeus Quimby III! The alien artifact creates life-like facsimiles of anything imaginable, so it’s only a matter of time before everyone’s wildest dreams may be fulfilled, right?!

Deemed Unsuitable, by W. L. Emery – A beautiful young woman is at the center of a high-speed chase and shoot-out right where Morgan, a crack-shot Construct, was about to grab some lunch! Against his better judgement, Morgan enters the fray, but who is after this woman and why?!

Warrior Soul, by J. Manfred Weichsel – A strange man with a mysterious camera claims that he can capture the truth and inner beauty of a subject’s soul! Lured in by the photographer and his entrancing prints, a pair of young women find themselves imprisoned and in dire peril!

Seeds of the Dreaming Tree, by Harold R. Thompson – Its fruit are the subject of myth and legend—some hope to exploit it for knowledge and medicinal purpose while others are prepared to kill to keep its secrets! Can the bookish adventurer Anchor Brown survive the trials of the Dreaming Tree?!

The Valley of Terzol, by Jim Breyfogle – Kat and Mangos have been hired to accompany the adventurer Andorholm Wallenoop to the ruins of Terzol in search of an ancient lost delivery! A thousand-year-old receipt offers a clue to fabulous reward or certain death in the Valley of Terzol!

The Elephant Idol, by Xavier Lastra – The blind thief Auger sneaks into the opera house to steal a trinket that the lovely Trannen von Fitzburg received from a lovestruck foreigner! The gift-box’s riddle and its giver’s suicide engulf Augur — and the opera house — in a world of darkness!

Moonshot, by Michael Wiesenberg – The Government wants to put a barn on the Moon — why?! To prove that the United States is capable of landing a barn on the Moon, of course! But the question is, whose barn are they going to send and can they send it to the moon on budget?!

Dali worked with Harpo Marx. That is quite enough to enlarge one’s mind with endless surrealist possibilities. But there’s more. They became friends and devised a screenplay for a movie in which man of mundane reality falls in love with a dream-woman from the realm of comical absurdity. A notebook and treatment was presented to the MGM movie studio, but the studio declined the project. These materials have now been tracked down, and much research undertaken. The resulting ‘graphic novel re-creation’ of the planned movie will be published, sans the Marx Bros. distinctive physical comedy and syncopated wisecrackery, on 19th March 2019 as Giraffes on Horseback Salad.

So far as I know Lovecraft never saw the Marx Bros. movies, though from 1930 to 1935 he could have seen all the classics newly-released at one of the Providence movie-houses: Animal Crackers; Monkey Business; Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, and A Day at the Races.

What would a Dali / Lovecraft collaboration have sired? We can only dream…