06 Thursday Sep 2018
Posted in New books
David Brussat’s Lost Providence, August 2017. A deep and well-researched book on the tragic destruction of “buildings of architectural merit” in Providence, and their replacement with various types of hideous concrete carbuncle. H. P. Lovecraft pops up in the story here and there, as an early pioneer of preservation in the city.
05 Wednesday Sep 2018
Due for publication from Palgrave in about five days, Weird Fiction in Britain 1880–1939.
The book is pitched as a wide-ranging study of how and where ‘the weird’ emerged from the Victorian supernatural tale, in a British context. Some theory, but it’s Bourdieu which is fine by me. It looks promising, though the price is set at a regrettable £79 (£57 with the introductory discount) — it’s yet another of those high-priced books aiming for sales to university libraries.
It appears to be concerned with policing the genres/canon and as such seems to be fairly author-centric — judging by the Springer abstracts of each chapter. There doesn’t appear to be a sustained wider consideration of the impact on authors and readers of things like: the re-discovery of folklore and the popularisation of folk tales; the re-discovering of the strangeness of ancient history; and the inspirations taken from the fringe pseudo-religions and cranky spiritualisms of the time.
If Chapter 5 is a sound and deeply researched historical study of the impact of Weird Tales in Britain, on both readers and authors, then that would be of great interest. Yet the materials with which to undertake that have probably now slipped from history, and the Palgrave abstract for Chapter 5 makes it appear rather less promising than that…
Here Machin [the book’s author] turns to what is regarded as both the culmination of the ‘high phase’ of weird fiction, and one of its definitive iterations: the 1920s and 1930s run of Weird Tales magazine. He specifically looks at this period of Weird Tales through the lens of his previous investigation of fin-de-siècle British weird fiction. Machin argues that, contrary to some claims, Weird Tales was part of an existing tradition and a continuation of fin-de-siècle literary Decadence in the age of Modernism. Underlying this discussion, and concluding a structural theme of the entire thesis, is a consideration of canonicity, and of the polluting of neat boundaries between notions of high and low culture.
Still, the book like a good and welcome survey, if set within fairly narrow bounds.
05 Wednesday Sep 2018
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
There’s a call for an edited collection, titled Putting the Imaginative on the Map: Teaching Science Fiction and Fantasy in the EFL Classroom. EFL is teacher-speak for learning ‘English as a Foreign Language’. The deadline for proposals for papers is: 15th September 2018.
“teachers at all levels, from primary school to university, still seem to be reluctant to make use of science fiction and fantasy texts in the EFL classroom [despite the obvious potential]. All contributions should have a clear didactic focus, carving out the pedagogical potential of the genre[s]”.
One might carefully lay out the case that Lovecraft is suitable for young people, contrary to the widespread modern misapprehension that he’s too wordy and convoluted and uses an incomprehensible vocabulary and there’s no real action scenes, etc etc. I mean… a great many lovers of Lovecraft first read him when they were only 11-13 years old. We did fine. Therefore he certainly works for a niche of intelligent young people, though he’s obviously likely to stump the dullards in a mixed-ability class. But they would likely be stumped by most advanced literature.
One might start the paper by looking at the selection made by educationalists, such as Margaret Ronan in her 1971 ‘schools’ paperback of Lovecraft. That was The Shadow over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror, published by Scholastic Book Services of New York in December 1971.
04 Tuesday Sep 2018
There’s yet another new reprint of Lovecraft stories. But this time it’s the British Library which is cashing in, with its hardcover The Gothic Tales of H.P. Lovecraft (Aug 2018). This is now available in the British Library shop, and also on Amazon albeit under a different title than that of the cover, “The Gothic Stories of H. P. Lovecraft”.
Since it’s from such a prestigious publisher, presumably they used the definitive corrected Joshi texts — but the blurb doesn’t mention or credit him. A keyword search of stjoshi.org for “British Library” or “Gothic Tales” or “Gothic Stories” shows no results. And you might have thought he would have mentioned it on his regular blog, if the British Library were about to use his texts.
There’s no “Look Inside” for the book on Amazon, so I can’t even tell what stories have been selected. Judging by the book’s blurb, the selection is of ‘the Gothic tales’ and seems intended to make Lovecraft slightly more palatable to those in Gothic Studies classrooms — a field of study which has previously been very sniffy about his work.
04 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Odd scratchings, Scholarly works
The Hungarian Lovecraft Society looks very efficiently organised and active, and their member Kiti Solymosi is currently well into translating Lord of a Visible World among other projects. Also underway in translation is one of Joshi’s shorter versions of his Lovecraft biography.
The Society has an English page on their website and a Facebook page. Their website is also publishing substantial translations of the Letters as long footnoted blog posts, focussing on clearly demarcated topics such as Sonia’s arrival in Providence, etc.
They have just announced that, from this week, they will be taking over the news functions formerly offered by the fine Hungarian Lovecraft blogmag The Black Aether. This means that “The Black Aether will be transformed into a [full] literary magazine” offering a venue for Hungarian weird writers. That’s the direction it seemed to me that it had long been headed in, looking back over its content.
I’m guessing that there may be space at the back of this new magazine for the occasional essay and reviews? So, if you can write in Hungarian or can pay to get an old classic essay translated, this may be a new outlet for some scholarship.
04 Tuesday Sep 2018
I spotted another new book surveying R. E. Howard and his work. As yet only in a May 2018 paperback, it’s simply titled The Robert E. Howard Guide (not to be confused with the similarly-titled Reader). One Amazon review gives the impression that it mainly surveys the history and state of Howard scholarship, while another makes it sound like it mostly surveys the must-read stories and has discussions of the various adaptations. The contents page gives a clearer idea of the wide sweep of the book…
The “Dear Mr Lovecraft” chapter only gives three pages to the letters, but it’s nice that they’re mentioned.
So it looks interesting and a useful introductory overview. But I think I’ll wait for the Kindle ebook. If it had indeed been 200 pages of just briskly surveying all the scholarship on Howard, as one of the reviews seemed to suggest, then it would have been far more enticing for me in paper.
04 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in New books, REH, Scholarly works
I see there’s a new award-winning book series from Fred Blosser, surveying all of Robert E. Howard’s fiction. The first was his collection of essays Savage Scrolls, which was the Winner of the 2018 Atlantean Award from the Robert E. Howard Foundation in June 2018. As well as surveying Conan and his ilk, Savage Scrolls has a chapter each on: Howard’s proto-Conan Crusader stories; the mostly posthumous Francis Xavier Gordon and Kirby O’Donnell desert adventure stories; and a final chapter surveying Howard’s ‘Jungle Horrors’.
This was followed by two new books on Howard’s fiction from Blosser.
1) Ar-I-E’ch and the Spell of Cthulhu: An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard’s Lovecraftian Fiction is obviously a must-buy for Lovecraftians, especially given his Atlantean Award for the first book. The Kindle 10% free-sample of around 38 pages reveals this is a “Revised Second Edition”, the first presumably being the paper edition of 2017.
2) The second book surveys the regional American weird-horror fiction, titled Western Weirdness and Voodoo Vengeance: An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard’s American Horrors.
For those less certain about getting Western Weirdness and Voodoo Vengeance, here are its contents:
Robert E. Howard: Lone Star Conjurer.
Wraiths of Ancient Memory: Texas of the Far Past.
Shadows Along the Cattle Trails: Frontier Texas.
Derricks and Devils: Modern Texas.
Home Is Where the Haunt Is: Robert E. Howard’s Corner of Texas.
Swamps of Voodoo Vengeance: Indigenous Horrors in the South.
Fear in the Piney Woods.
Howard’s American Haunts and Monsters… and Where to Find Them.
Selected Reading List.
Appendix: Conjure Men. Cimmerians, and the comics.
04 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Odd scratchings, Scholarly works
After my recent book discovering the identity and landscape of the Gawain-poet (aka The Pearl-poet), I’m interested in Sir Gawain as a classic English supernatural text. It seems that others are too…
The International Pearl-Poet Society is sponsoring six sessions at the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies (9th–12th May 2019) at Western Michigan University. Session Five is: “Fifty Shades of Green: Hagiography and Demonology in the Pearl-poet Corpus”.
“Between the celestial city and the shady Green Chapel, the miracles of a London bishop and the Leviathan-underworld in the belly of a sea beast, the works of the Pearl-poet [aka the Gawain-poet] explore the full range of the divine and the infernal. The papers in this session will interrogate the poet’s use of hagiographic tropes [trans: the extraordinary aspects expected to be possessed by saints and related supernatural beings] as well as material from folk traditions as he crafts his supernatural narratives.”
Deadline: 15th September 2018. Looks like it’s one of those where you have to be there in person to give the paper, rather than delivering by video-feed.
In a more fannish vein there’s also a call for submissions for The Realm of British Folklore anthology. Deadline is Halloween 2018. Wanted is poetry, fiction and art, all of the non-twee variety and relating to aspects of British folklore.
03 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in New books, REH, Scholarly works
Here’s my listing of items of scholarly interest, as noted in the newly available PDF digital downloads for Crypt of Cthulhu, based on the essay titles. I omit texts from Joshi, Mariconda and Burleson, since those are now available in their recent and affordable paperback book collections of their work.
So I need 32 issues to get a near-complete set of the desired scholarship in Crypt, assuming some fills from the free issues currently hosted on Archive.org. Also, I find I already have copies of: 23; 8; and 7. At $3 a time for the remaining PDF issues that’s $87.
There is some sort of Guest option at the Checkout, but unfortunately one still has to effectively register with an email address in in order to pay and download. One wonders how many casual sales are lost by online vendors, by demanding a sign-up registration rather than allowing a simple registration-less Paypal/download system.
As yet, we don’t yet have, in PDF download, the following issues: 110 (2018); 109 (2018); 108 (2017); 100; 99; 97; 95; 94; 92-88; 82-81; 78; and 77. Though these can be had in print by mail-order.
Of these, there’s interesting sounding scholarship in: 110, 109, 108, 100; 97; 91; and 81.
Here are the current $3 PDF issues in reverse date order, with interesting essays and letters noted:
Crypt of Cthulhu 103, Hallowmas 1999.
“The Unknown Lovecraft I: Political Operative” by Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.
“The Whole Wide World: An HPL Biopic?” by Darrell Schweitzer.
Crypt of Cthulhu 98, Eastertide 1998
“Poe and HPL” by Ross F. Bagby.
“You Fool! Loveman is Dead!” by Robert M. Price.
Crypt of Cthulhu 97, Hallowmas 1997.
“The Sign of the Magna Mater” [Apparently an essay on “The Rats in The Walls”]
Crypt of Cthulhu 85, Hallowmas 1993.
“H.P. Lovecraft and the Feast of Saturnalia” by Peter Smith.
Crypt of Cthulhu 83, Eastertide 1993.
“A Surprisingly Sexual Interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft; or “The Id Howard Hid”” by Forrest Jackson.
“Not in the Spaces We Know but Between Them: “The Dunwich Horror” as an Allegory of Reading” by Robert M. Price.
“Lucian’s True Story and Lovecraft’s Dream-Quest” by Robert M. Price.
Crypt of Cthulhu 76, Hallowmas 1990.
“Dunsanian Influence on Lovecraft Outside his “Dunsanian” Tales” by Robert M. Price.
“Where Lovecraft Died” by M. Eileen McNamara, M.D.
“Dead Ringers: The Leiber-Lovecraft Connection” by Stefan Dziemianowicz.
“Julius Schwartz on Lovecraft” by Will Murray.
Crypt of Cthulhu 75, Michaelmas 1990.
“C. Hall Thompson: The First Neo-Lovecraftian?” by Stefan Dziemianowicz.
“H.P. Lovecraft and the Century of Violence” by Colin Wilson.
Crypt of Cthulhu 74, Lammas 1990).
“Lovecraft and Strange Tales” by Will Murray.
“Who the Heck was Moses Brown Jenkins?” by Will Murray.
Crypt of Cthulhu 72, Roodmas 1990. (“Rats in the Walls” issue)
“Magna Mater! The Religion of Atys and Cybele” by Robert M. Price.
“On “The Rats in the Walls”” by Robert M. Price.
“Exham Priory: From the Papers of Sir William Brinton” by Robert M. Price. (Fiction, but said to be a terrific sequel to “Rats”, and one of his best tales).
Crypt of Cthulhu 69, Yuletide 1989.
“Nameless Gods and Entities: Robert E. Howard’s Contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos” by Lin Carter.
Crypt of Cthulhu 66, Lammas 1989
“H.P. Lovecraft and the Cabala” by David F. Godwin.
“A Conversation With E. Hoffmann Price” transcribed by Gregorio Montejo; interview of E. Hoffmann Price.
Crypt of Cthulhu 65, St. John’s Eve 1989.
“Surrealism and H.P. Lovecraft” by John Brower.
Crypt of Cthulhu 62, Candlemas 1989. (Lowndes issue)
“Two Letters from Lovecraft” by H.P. Lovecraft. Copious advice from a sunset Lovecraft to a young writer, on… “which authors were hacks, which were great, which stories of M.R. James weren’t worth bothering with and which Poe was transcendent.”
“Lowndes, Lovecraft, and the Health Knowledge Years” by Mike Ashley.
“On Forbidden Knowledge” by Robert A.W. Lowndes.
“On H.P. Lovecraft’s Views of Weird Fiction” by Robert A.W. Lowndes.
Crypt of Cthulhu 60, Hallowmas 1988. (Robert Barlow issue)
“Robert H. Barlow as H.P. Lovecraft’s Literary Executor: An Appreciation” by Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.
Crypt of Cthulhu 57, St. John’s Eve 1988.
“The Cosmic Connection” by Mike Ashley.
“I Found Innsmouth!” by Will Murray.
“Lovecraft’s Ancestors” by Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.
“In a Sequester’d Churchyard” by David E. Schultz.
Crypt of Cthulhu 55, Eastertide 1988.
“The Cryptophile: An Index to the first fifty issues of The Crypt of Cthulhu (1981–1987)” compiled by Mike Ashley.
Crypt of Cthulhu 53, Candlemas 1988. (Also on Archive.org)
On “Azathoth” by Will Murray.
““The Thing in the Moonlight”: A Hoax Revealed” by David E. Schultz.
“Where was the Place of Dagon?” by Will Murray.
“Faulty Memories and “Evill Sorceries”” by Robert M. Price.
“Did Lovecraft Have Syphilis?” by Robert M. Price.
“Who the Hell was Winfield Scott Phillips?” by Will Murray.
Crypt of Cthulhu 52, Yuletide 1987. (Also on Archive.org)
“Lovecraft as a Character in Lovecraftian Fiction” by Robert M. Price.
Crypt of Cthulhu 51, Hallowmas 1987. (Also on Archive.org)
“Lovecraft and Blackwood: A Surveillance” by Mike Ashley.
“Did Lovecraft Revise “The Curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza”?” by Will Murray.
“Henry Kuttner’s Cthulhu Mythos Tales: An Overview” by Shawn Ramsey.
Crypt of Cthulhu 49, Lammas 1987. (Also on Archive.org)
“Thematic Links in Arthur Gordon Pym, At the Mountains of Madness, and Moby Dick” by Marc A. Cerasini.
“The Blind Idiot God: Miltonic Echoes in the Cthulhu Mythos” by Thomas Quale.
Postcard to Charles D. Hornig by H.P. Lovecraft.
““The Pool”: Recommendations for Revision — Synopsis” by H.P. Lovecraft. (See also #47)
“At the Home of Poe” by Frank Belknap Long.
Crypt of Cthulhu 48, St. John’s Eve 1987
“The Origin of Lovecraft’s “Black Magic” Quote” by David E. Schultz.
Crypt of Cthulhu 47, Roodmas 1987).
“The Pool” by Donald R. Burleson (fiction, but a re-assemblage based on the Lovecraft revision notes in #49).
“Ethel M. Phillips Morrish: May 15, 1888 – January 17, 1987” by Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.
Crypt of Cthulhu 46, Eastertide 1987.
“Three Quotations and a Fabrication” by William Fulwiler.
“Imaginative Allusions in Lovecraft’s Letters” by Will Murray.
“The First Lewis Theobald” by R. Boerem. (On the historical figure whose name Lovecraft used as his main pseudonym).
Lovecraft’s Letters to Vincent Starrett by H.P. Lovecraft.
Lovecraft’s Letters to Adolphe de Castro by H.P. Lovecraft.
Crypt of Cthulhu 45, Candlemas 1987.
“Digging Up Irem” by Lin Carter.
“Roots of the Miskatonic” by Will Murray.
“The Birth of Ubbo-Sathla: Smith, Wandrei, Alfred Kramer, and the Begotten Source” by Steve Behrends.
“Lovecraft on Radio & Record” by Will Murray.
“The Lurking Beans: A Real-Life Martense Family” by Jim Cort.
“A Pre-Lovecraft Cthulhu Dreamer” by Leon L. Gammell.
Crypt of Cthulhu 38, Eastertide 1986. (Also on Archive.org)
“The Tomb” & “Dagon”: A Double Dissection by William Fulwiler.
“Spawn of the Moon-Bog” by Will Murray.
“Exploring “The Temple”” by David E. Schultz.
“On “Beyond the Wall of Sleep”” by M. Eileen McNamara, M.D.
“The Little Tow-Head Fiend: Or the Problem of “Herbert West”” by Will Murray.
“HPL’s Style” by Ralph E. Vaughan.
Crypt of Cthulhu 37, Candlemas 1986.
“Lovecraft’s Cosmic History” by Robert M. Price.
“Real World Links in The Dream-Quest” by Ralph E. Vaughan.
“Do Shoggoths Lurk ? In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward?” by Will Murray.
“A Note on Nicholas Roerich” by Ben P. Indick.
Crypt of Cthulhu 33, Lammas 1985. (Also on Archive.org, albeit in a grubby low-res scan)
“The Prophet from Providence” by Dirk W. Mosig.
“Lovecraft: The Dissonance Factor in Imaginative Literature” by Dirk W. Mosig.
“Poe, Hawthorne, and Lovecraft: Variations on a Theme of Panic” by Dirk W. Mosig.
Crypt of Cthulhu 30, Eastertide 1985.
“Lovecraft’s New York Exile: Its Influence on His Life and Writings” by David E. Schultz.
“On the Revision of “Dreams of Yith”” by Edward P. Berglund.
“Some Ancestors of Vathek: The “Eastern Stories” of John Hawksworth in The Adventurer, 1752–54″ by Darrell Schweitzer.
“Lovecraft in the Comics” by Will Murray.
“Lovecraft in Rock Music” by John Stanton.
Crypt of Cthulhu 28, Yuletide 1984.
“Sources for “The Colour out of Space”” by Will Murray.
“The Humor at Red Hook” by Robert M. Price.
“Abnormal Longevity in “The Picture in the House”” by Darrell Schweitzer.
“A Note on “Cool Air”” by Will Murray.
Crypt of Cthulhu 23, St. John’s Eve 1984. (Also on Archive.org)
“Prehuman Language in Lovecraft” by Will Murray.
Crypt of Cthulhu 20, Eastertide 1984.
“H.P. Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth” by David E. Schultz.
“The Story in Fungi from Yuggoth” by Ralph E. Vaughan.
“The Lack of Continuity in Fungi from Yuggoth” by David E. Schultz.
“Illuminating “The Elder Pharos”” by Will Murray.
““St. Toad’s” Revisited” by Robert M. Price.
“Poet of the Unknown” by Dirk W. Mosig.
“Two Spurious Lovecraft Poems” by S.T. Joshi.
“The First Cthulhu Mythos Poem” by Will Murray.
Crypt of Cthulhu 18, Yuletide 1983.
“Locating Lovecraft” by Ralph E. Vaughan
“Mearle Prout and “The House of the Worm”” by Will Murray
Crypt of Cthulhu 17, Hallowmas 1983.
“Self-Parody in Lovecraft’s Revisions” by Will Murray.
“On “The Loved Dead”” by David E. Schultz.
“New Clues to Lovecraft’s Role in “Out of the Eons” and “The Crawling Chaos”” by Robert M. Price.
“Mysteries of the Hoggar Region” by Will Murray.
“Lost Revisions?” by Robert M. Price.
Crypt of Cthulhu 15, Lammas 1983.
“Tentacles in Dreamland: Cthulhu Mythos Elements in the Dunsanian Stories” by Will Murray.
““The Other Gods” and the Four Who Entered Paradise” by Robert M. Price.
“Pombo and “The Other Gods”” by Robert Schwartz.
“The Horror of “Polaris”” by Ralph E. Vaughan.
“Something About the Cats of Ulthar” by Jason C. Eckhardt.
Crypt of Cthulhu 13, Roodmas 1983.
“Kadath and Mordor: The Quest in Lovecraft and Tolkien” by Ben P. Indick.
“The Dueling Cosmoses of H.P. Lovecraft and G.K. Chesterton” by Edward T. Babinski.
Crypt of Cthulhu 12, Eastertide 1983.
“My Debt to H.P. Lovecraft” by Robert Anton Wilson.
“Lovecraft and Antarctica” by Ralph E. Vaughan.
Crypt of Cthulhu 11, Candlemas 1983.
“A Factual Basis for “The Green Meadow”?” by Ralph E. Vaughan.
“Did Lovecraft Revise “Doom Around the Corner”?” by Will Murray.
“Doom Around the Corner” by Wilfred Blanch Talman (fiction).
“Who Were the Boupa Priests?” by Robert M. Price.
“Imprisoned with Hazel Heald” by Robert M. Price.
Crypt of Cthulhu 10, “Ashes and Others” (Yuletide 1982).
“The Diary of Alonzo Typer” is Lumley’s rough draft, which Lovecraft revised, not the story Weird Tales published.
Crypt of Cthulhu 8, Michaelmas 1982.
“H.P. Lovecraft” by Colin Wilson.
“Homosexual Panic in “The Outsider”” by Robert M. Price.
“Lovecraft and the Male Gender Role” by Morgana LaVine.
Crypt of Cthulhu 7, Lammas 1982.
“Was There a Real Brown Jenkin?” by Will Murray. (Possible influence of local folklore on Lovecraft)
“Is Abdul Alhazred Still Alive?” by Robert M. Price. (Examines the internal chronologies).
Crypt of Cthulhu 5, Roodmas 1982.
“HPL and HPB: Lovecraft’s Use of Theosophy” by Robert M. Price.
“Monsters of Mu: The Lost Continent in the Cthulhu Mythos” by Robert M. Price.
“Reincarnation in Lovecraft’s Fiction” by Robert M. Price.
“Chariots of the Old Ones?” by Charles Garofalo and Robert M. Price. (On the 1970s ‘ancient astronauts’ best-selling pseudo-history books, presumably?)
“The Pseudo-Intellectual in Weird Fiction” by Robert M. Price.
Crypt of Cthulhu 1, Hallowmas 1981.
“Lovecraft’s Concept of Blasphemy” by Robert M. Price.
02 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
The open access journal Brumal : Research Journal on the Fantastic plans a future “monographic issue, The Fantastic in Lovecraft’s Universe”. Deadline for abstracts: 10th December 2018. Must specifically relate to ‘the fantastic’, which perhaps offers a rare opportunity for scholars of Lovecraft’s more neglected stories.
01 Saturday Sep 2018
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
The NecronomiCon 2019 convention Memento Book theme will be “Lost in Time: Newly Discovered Cosmic Horror”. The call for this is now open, and the submission email is: necronomiconsubmissions@gmail.com
Seems likely to be mostly new fiction on the topic (they want stories of “lost gods, unearthed histories, new myths, and freshly exhumed horrors”). But note that they also have space for “essays and non-fiction … on authors or fiction/film that have been mostly lost to time”.
Submissions open today, 1st September 2018. There’s mention of token payment for the 2,000-5,000 word stories, but no mention of payment for scholarly essays (which, arguably, involve a lot more work and expense to produce).
01 Saturday Sep 2018
Posted in New books
Newly-available for the Amazon Kindle in the UK is the respected Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia. Amazon notes it as “3rd Revised edition edition (1st July 2018)”. Looks like a £10 digital version of the 3rd Revised edition paperback of September 2008, though I’m uncertain if it’s a digital facsimile or a new layout. It covers the entire mythos, the original work from Lovecraft and also the voluminous lore produced by those who followed.
I’ve always balked at wrangling a slab that big through the postal service, as I have a stupidly tiny modern letter-box and can’t change it. But now I have a 10″ Amazon HD Fire tablet (some software royalties finally paid out) the book is looking enticing. And it would be keyword-searchable, albeit only via Amazon.