A Voyage to Sfanomoë

Clark Ashton Smith’s “A Voyage to Sfanomoë” (Weird Tales, August 1931) popped up in a new audio reading on YouTube. Not great audio quality, it has to be said. But it sent me in search of the full text for text-to-speech (TTS) with the Balabolka software.

The full text for “Voyage” is to be found at Eldritch Dark and the Weird Tales scans at Archive.org. The R’lyeh Tribune has a Poseidonis page which outlines how it fits alongside similar tales from Smith.

The finding of the audio reading also made me aware of the Ocean Star page Clark Ashton Smith: connections to the Cthulhu Mythos, in which the connections with Lovecraft’s Mythos are named and tabulated by story.


Update: There’s now a French translation audiobook reading on YouTube, “Voyage De Sfanomoë”.

Ray Bradbury Now and Forever

“Ray Bradbury fan donates lifelong collection to University of South Carolina” and this is now accessible…

The Anne Farr Hardin Collection of Ray Bradbury Books, Fanzines, Pulps, Magazines, Correspondence, Photographs, Memorabilia, and Ephemera is now accessible to UofSC students, faculty, staff and visiting researchers by appointment with the Irvin Department.

There’s also an online exhibition version of the collection highlights, Ray Bradbury Now and Forever.

The “Ray Bradbury fan donates…” link is more than a press release, and is a good read in its own right.

Kuttner’s letters to Weird Tales

Dark Worlds Quarterly has a fine new illustrated timeline of Henry Kuttner’s Fan Letters to Weird Tales.

Talking of Weird Tales, S.T. Joshi’s Blog has updated. Among other items he brings news of a forthcoming collected stories of Robert Barbour Johnson, an author best known for his Lovecraftian ‘in the subways’ Weird Tales story “Far Below” (1939). I recall there’s already been at least one such collection, though perhaps not complete? The new book will also collect some of Johnson’s essays.

Quinn’s day-job

A Lovecraft letter reveals an item I don’t think I’ve ever noted elsewhere. Lovecraft states that his Weird Tales rival, Seabury Quinn, held a day-job as the Editor of The Casket. This being the twice-monthly trade journal for undertakers. Bacon’s Publicity Manual states of the title in 1933… “Goes to funeral directors and embalmers; circulation 8,900.”

‘Picture postals’ from Lovecraft: the entrance to the Brooklyn Public Library

In 1941 Brooklyn unveiled a new Public Library, complete with an immense and somewhat Lovecraftian front door.

Psycho-geographers might imagine it as a ‘trace’ left by Lovecraft’s intensity in Brooklyn, become manifest in the ever-changing architecture of the city. Sadly there appear to be no pictures of it on a misty night in the early 1940s. But I imagine that there could have been a ‘shiver of the eerie’, if one had to pass through this portal on a sepulchral evening when no-one else was around.

I also wonder if it might have featured as a location in the imaginative fiction of the 1960s? It seems the sort of thing which might have been woven into a story set in Brooklyn.

Did Lovecraft ever see the designs for this doorway, as published in the weekend papers, shortly before his death? Perhaps to chuckle knowingly and lightly tap the page? We can’t know unless someone can point to a comment made in a late letter, but the timing seems right and we know he was an avid newspaper reader.

NY Urbanism‘s short article on the early history of this Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch usefully gives the basic year-dates, stating that…

In 1935 the library scrapped Almirall’s project [which had become a hopeless ‘political football’] and brought in new architects, Githens and Keally, who stripped the partially completed structure of its ornament, instead proposing to build a more modern building. The new design was completed in 1941 and featured an enormous central entrance glittered with gold surrounded by a blank, unadorned limestone facade.

High Caliber

Found, another series of H.P. Lovecraft comics adaptations of which I was previously unaware. Previews reports it has now been mostly reprinted in paper by Caliber, and that “The Statement of Randolph Carter” is being added to the series soon. The latter is said to be re-set in the modern age.

I had of course been aware of Caliber’s two volume Lovecraft’s Worlds anthology collection, seen below. It’s been out ages and I’m fairly sure I’ve even interviewed one of the artists.

But despite my occasional perusing of Previews I was not aware that they’d been adding to the series. For instance, a third volume of Lovecraft’s Worlds in 2018.

Then there’s H.P. Lovecraft: The Early Stories. Not a comic but a heavily illustrated edition using Joshi’s texts and with an introduction by him.

And a The Shadow Over Innsmouth adaptation in 80 pages.

There are other interesting looking indie titles at Caliber, of the sort you’ll never hear about via the corporate press. Such as a 165-page Arthur: King of Britain.

This focuses on how Arthur was originally understood in the 12th century…

From veteran comic writer/artist Michael Fraley comes this history of the famous and legendary character known as King Arthur. This fully illustrated comic series and collected graphic novel is faithfully based on the original adventure of Arthur as it was written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century. Geoffrey’s work is considered one of the most important books of the medieval period, and served as the skeletal framework from which all Arthurian tales have since been based.

Arthur: King of Britain is available as a five-book £10 Kindle series on Amazon.

Talking of comics, I’m pleased to see one of my Digital Art Live colleagues on the cover of the latest ICC Magazine #16, and with an interview inside.

Tolkien and Lovecraft

I get the vague impression, wafted to me over the luminiferous aether, that at least one Lovecraftian may be in the process of writing a comparative book about the approaches taken by Tolkien and Lovecraft. And perhaps also the ‘response to the times’. If that’s the case, knowing a bit about both authors, I’d be happy to read through a pre-publication near-final draft and provide a set of comments for the author’s use.

The 1921 British census

The 1921 British census is to be released after Christmas, a potentially useful source for researching the exact whereabouts of interesting people in British science-fiction / fantasy and amateurdom…

From 6th January 2022, anyone will be able to view the census online on Findmypast, allowing them to find out about their ancestors and discover the history of their home or local area.

It will also include the British armed forces stationed overseas.

The census is kept secret for 100 years. The 1931 census was destroyed by fire during the war, and the taking of the 1941 census was skipped because Britain was then in the darkest days of the war. All of which means that the next British census won’t be released to researchers until 2052.