Category Archives: Scholarly works

A Dictionary of Fairies

02 Sunday May 2021

Posted by in Historical context, Scholarly works

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Now on Archive.org in open PDF, the pre-PC A Dictionary of Fairies. It has a hideous American cover and a different title as An Encyclopedia of Fairies, but it is the same as the British A Dictionary of Fairies — which in paperback had this excellent 1979 cover from Tony Meeuwissen, immediately serving to reassure uncertain readers that the book is not about the Tinkerbell type of fairy.

The book is still highly regarded, and commands high prices even in tatty paperback form. Incidentally Lovecraft also wrote on fairies, on which see his “Some Backgrounds of Fairyland”.

The Dark Man at Christmas

26 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by in New books, REH, Scholarly works

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Well, well… an issue of The Dark Man, journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, snuck-out the door at Christmas 2020 (Vol. 11, No. 2). It’s news to me, and perhaps to you. Looking at the TOCs it seems like it’s worth my getting a copy this time around, as all items sound at least interesting. Though at present it’s not yet in ebook.

The Dark Man, Volume 11, Number 2, 102 pages.

Articles:

* “Harsh Sentences: H.P. Lovecraft vs. Ernest Hemingway” by Bobby Derie.
* “A Publication History of The Dark Man” by Luke E. Dodd.
* “Illustrated Auguries: Images Out of Time” by Phil Emery.
* “Deviations from Realism in High and Low Literature” by Jason Ray Carney.
* “Cosmic Horror: Lost in Translation” by Jacob Lindner.
* “A Brief Analysis of the Aesthetic of Weird Tales” by Mara Tharp.

Reviews:

* Book: The Howard Companion, by Richard Toogood. Reviewed by Gary Romeo.
* Book: Fantastic Paintings of Frazetta, by J. David Spurlock. Reviewed by Dierk Gunther.

“In that cabin a printing-press was set up; & there we prepared…”

25 Sunday Apr 2021

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S. T. Joshi’s Blog has updated, and heralds a host of forthcoming books: a new third volume of Robert H. Waugh essays on Lovecraft; Ken Faig Jr.’s Lovecraftian People; a book of essays by Matt Cardin “on weird fiction and philosophy”; Joshi’s own The Recognition of H.P. Lovecraft; and Lovecraft’s Letters to E. Hoffmann Price and Richard F. Searight. For the latter Joshi adds that this will be the “first complete publication of the letters to Price”.

Rhode Island History, 1942-2011

25 Sunday Apr 2021

Posted by in Historical context, Scholarly works

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Now arriving on Archive.org from microfilm, the last of a run of the local history journal Rhode Island History 1942-2011 with indexes. They were previously only online to 2008, and only at the Historical Society website — for which the old Web link now yields only the bare warning “Forbidden”.

Lovecraft appears to be unmentionable in the journal after 1954, but one early and fair assessment is found in Randall Stewart’s survey article on “Rhode Island Literature” (January 1954)…

The journal has occasional pictures, but these have not been treated kindly by the microfilming process.

“… the gaunt showman was seldom to be deceived by such tactics”

25 Sunday Apr 2021

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There’s a new issue of The Fossil freely available online.

David Goudsward tugs on a jungle creeper and swings manfully over the early Tarzan movies filmed at Silver Springs, Florida. He finds them to be mere phantasms of the river-mists, and that Lovecraft was actually wrong in his letters. None of the Tarzan films made during Lovecraft’s life were filmed along the river, though Goudsward posits that some ‘splicing in’ of old newsreel clips of underwater swimming in the pools. This would have allowed the Silver Springs promoters to make the claim and technically be correct. The article gives a taster of his new book Adventurous Liberation: H.P. Lovecraft in Florida, now said elsewhere in The Fossil to be set for a release late in 2021.

There is also an article and several reviews of recent academic work on the changing age profiles of amateur journalism, in the years before Lovecraft’s birth.

Circulo de Lovecraft / Ulthar

17 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works

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A new edition of the magazine Circulo de Lovecraft, No. 15. Mostly fiction but also the occasional article such as “La Reina del Horror Eldritch: W. H. Pugmire” by Bobby Derie, and a translation by Miguel Fliguer of Pugmire’s story “In Dark of Providence”. Both of these are in the latest issue, No. 15.

This led me to notice the very similar but rather more historically-minded magazine Ulthar, also from South America and with a nice line in cover-art, all by the same artist Sergio Bleda.

Ulthar runs about three substantial single-author essay or survey-essays in each issue. Including some regional surveys, such as fiction featuring “Doctors of the Occult in Spanish”.

Whisked off your Wishlist?

13 Tuesday Apr 2021

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Here’s how to find the details of a book that has been abruptly removed from your Amazon Wishlist.

Utterly gone, no indication of what it was.

1. Delete.

2. The deletion will give you a narrow bar with a few linked options. One of these is “Review”, and the URL for that has in it the ASIN number for the book. ASIN = Amazon Standard Identification Number.

3. Copy the URL to Notepad++, trim it back to the ASIN, and then Google that number. Not DuckDuckGo, as their index is a lot smaller than Google Search and you’re likely looking for an obscure title.

4. Return to the WishList, “Restore” the deleted item, and add the title of the missing book as a comment.

5. Optionally, use the title to find a replacement version and add that to the WishList.

Letters for £590

13 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by in Odd scratchings, Scholarly works

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The recent eBay listing for Selected Letters topped out at £552.93 with 24 bidders, with $60 postage to the UK. Setting a benchmark price of about £590 in total, for what is obviously a nice clean and fresh set destined for a collector. Scholars likely to extensively thumb and mark their copies will probably be able to get cheaper well-worn copies of the books.

Although within a year or two all the letters will be in affordable paperback anyway. Which again reminds me that we could do with a unified index that runs across all these. Possibly that might be issued in ebook as a fundraiser for Joshi’s Endowed Research Fellowship in Lovecraft.

Born under Saturn

12 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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Hippocampus is now listing, on the “New Books” page, H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to E. Hoffmann Price and Richard F. Searight. Seemingly shipping soon.

Also, my copy of the Lovecraft Annual 2020 had arrived, and a filler paragraph informs me of a new book of letters. I was aware of Eccentric, Impractical Devils: The Letters of August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith, which appeared for Halloween 2020. I was not aware of its planned companion volume, Born under Saturn: The Letters of Clark Ashton Smith and Samuel Loveman. This is possibly because the book has not yet appeared, though the Annual anticipated it appearing in 2020.