The snow lies crisp around Tentaclii Towers. But, wrapped up in warm layers, I’ve still managed to keep up with the daily blogging. In my weekly ‘Picture Postals’ posts at Tentaclii I looked into De Leon Springs, the local attraction near the Barlow’s Florida homestead; at Lovecraft and soda-fountains; at the Providence Woolworth’s store where the low prices of genial Mr. Woolworth helped Lovecraft out in depths of the Great Depression: and finally I considered if prehistoric flying pterodactyls might have been one of the origins of Lovecraft’s childhood ‘night-gaunts’. They were mostly likely not, but it was worth looking into the possibility.
I also looked into the likely pre-America whereabouts of Helen Allgood (1820–1881), Lovecraft’s paternal grandmother (married 1839). It was she and her husband who gave him the (apparently now-unproveable) Northumberland connection in the north of England. As I’ve shown in one of my earlier essays, this connection strongly influenced the topography and details of “The Rats in the Walls”. I made a quick survey of Lovecraft and his Epicurean enjoyment of Thanksgiving. I was spurred (by The Living Age journal coming onto Archive.org) to look briefly at Lovecraft’s curious non-reading of Haggard in 1920, at a time when several correspondents were strongly urging it.
November brought a surprisingly good crop of books, when you might have expected most to have been out by Halloween. S.T. Joshi released the new The Recognition of H. P. Lovecraft; the scholarly booklet Copyright Questions and the Stories of H.P. Lovecraft appeared; there was news of a new uniform set called the Robert H. Waugh Library of Lovecraftian Criticism, including a wholly new third book of essays by Waugh; two substantial new non-fiction items on R. E. Howard; a festschrift of essays in Italian for the major Italian scholar and Lovecraftian anthologist Gianfranco de Turris, and the apparent arrival of the long-awaited book Tour de Lovecraft: The Destinations.
There was nothing in academic journals this month, as the academic year is now in full pelt. Thankfully I’m no longer a part of all that, except remotely via JURN. But there was news of the forthcoming scholarly journal Wormwood #37. The ‘Gothic’ edition of the free Digital Art Live magazine was also circulating this month, in which I paid suitable attention to Lovecraft. The Christmas issue of Digital Art Live will be a bumper tribute to the comics artist ‘Moebius’.
November saw Sonia’s amateur journalism The Rainbow, Vol. 2 No. II (1922) arrive on Archive.org, an important Lovecraft document in an excellent scan. Also the stencil-duplicated book-a-zine Henry Kuttner: A Memorial Symposium.
I linked the call for the work for the book Felis Futura: An Anthology of Future Cats, and noted the forthcoming symposium ‘The Inklings and Horror: Fantasy’s Dark Corners’ which may interest some and eventually result in a publication. I even found some sparse details of an academic mapping project titled ‘Visualizing Lovecraft’s Providence’.
It was a good month for open scholarly archives, I noticed that the Hevelin Fanzines collection scans are now 100% transcribed, including a number of key early Lovecraft ‘zines. I saw that the Keith-Albee Collection of Lovecraft-era Providence vaudeville theatre is now fully transcribed and publicly searchable online. Also newly freed from microfilm are Munsey’s Magazine, 1891-1929 and the Illustrated London News 1842-2003. These Archive.org runs may be of use to researchers on Lovecraft and his Circle.
Not much in podcasts this month, but I noted a one-hour one with S.T. Joshi on Arthur Machen. With the release of the new AIMP 5.0 software audio player, I also puzzled out its new audiobook bookmarking arrangements. And at last worked out how to make the BBC’s 1973 adaptation of Asimov’s Foundation series listenable on headphones, without being deafened by the music.
In the arts I noted there is a video-essay survey of “Weird Swords and Sandals” lurking on a new DVD, with a focus on obscure European cinema in the 1950-70s. Various bits of Lovecraftian visual art were of course noted here, as well as eBay sale pictures of the 1980 Necronomicon Press “Lovecraft Paper Cut-Outs” packet.
Various ‘Black Friday’ sales of likely use to scholars were noted and linked. At Chaosium I spotted deep discounts on three warehouse-clearance Robert E. Price anthologies of various cycles in the Mythos.
I’m still hoping that someone may be able to supply a zipped local folder of the missing Tentaclii images, which they may have acquired by spidering the blog to create a local archive. I’m fairly sure I had one, but the ill-timed hard-disk crash some months back likely took it.
My thanks to my patrons who have stuck with me during the abrupt Web address swop-over, and/or who have been able to increase or to begin their Patreon support this month. I’ve also for the first time ever made the same direct appeal to people who read my various other projects. I have not yet looked at the resulting current total (due in on the 5th), but I still have hopes of Patreon building to an increasingly-vital $100 or more a month. Tentaclii readers who want to help me out can also buy my books or the poster set, or just send a one-off PayPal donation. Many thanks.
