Scott 250

14 Tuesday Sep 2021

Posted by in Odd scratchings

≈ Leave a comment

A website for the many exhibitions and events to celebrate the seminal writer and historian Sir Walter Scott at 250. It seems the publicity did not extend far enough outside Scotland to reach me, and I find that many are now past. Yet the roster still includes choice items such as “Haunted Scott”, an online talk and event on 29th October 2021. There is also a London exhibition opening this Autumn/Fall.

S.T. Joshi’s I Am Providence observed Scott’s influence on Lovecraft at a formative time…

One long weird poem […] is “Psychopompos: A Tale in Rhyme”. This 312-line poem was begun in the fall of 1917 but not completed until May or June of 1918. Unlike the bulk of Lovecraft’s weird verse written up to this time, the apparent influence on this poem […] is not Poe but the ballads of Sir Walter Scott.

At the other end of the nation, and also with a faint Lovecraft connection via his Devonshire/Cornish roots, an online lecture on 12th January 2022 on “The Cornish Gothic: Haunted Cornwall in Victorian Literature”.

Call for papers: Asian Gothic

14 Tuesday Sep 2021

Posted by in Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

Taiwan’s Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture (appears to be free online) invites contributions to a special issue on Asian Gothic, scheduled to appear in December 2022. They seek “essays of 6,000-10,000 words to broaden our understanding of the Gothic in Asia”. Deadline for abstracts: 15th October 2021.

Suggested themes that may especially interest Lovecraftians:

* Gothic and Asian popular culture (manga, comics, anime, games, fashion, subcultures etc).
* Asian adaptations of western Gothic texts.
* Asian Gothic as part of a “globalgothic”.
* Genealogy of Gothic in an Asian context.

Old World Footprints

12 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by in New books

≈ Leave a comment

Deep Cuts peruses the relatively new edition of Old World Footprints (1928) by Cassie Symmes, Belknap Long’s aunt. She had been very impressed by Cook’s printing and binding for her nephew’s slim volume of poetry. So much so that she commissioned Cook to publish 300 copies of her own account of a tour of Europe. I see the book can now be had as a budget Kindle ebook, Old World Footprints [Print Replica], in the new edited and annotated edition.

The attraction for (very dedicated) Lovecraftians is that Lovecraft was ghosting for Long on the Introduction…

actually ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft proofread the book for Cook, and may have edited it as well.

Cthulhu Libria #2

11 Saturday Sep 2021

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

Cthulhu Libria Nr. 2 is a ‘horror on the railways’ themed issue. Lovecraft, a long-time reader of rail-roader magazines in his youth, would surely have approved. Sadly the magazine is in German, but one review indicates a number of non-fiction articles among the stories. If you’re in need of a Lovecraft Mythos + railways article, I’m guessing there may be one here to be translated.

Appears to be a ‘new series’ for the title, which (judging by a quick search) had more of a newsletter appearance for its first series.

Friday ‘Picture Postals’ from Lovecraft: waiting for the night bus

10 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Night in Providence, Picture postals

≈ Leave a comment

Waiting for the night bus, Westminster Street, Providence. Probably the first 4.30am early-service, given what’s on the clock. Or perhaps a tram-car, as the road-rails and cables can still be seen.

Lovecraft often departed or arrived in Providence at odd hours, and not always by train. The ends of his local night-walks may also have entailed waiting at various types of transport stop. Night scenes such as this one in the city’s main Westminster Street seem likely to have been relatively familiar to him.

He also, briefly, worked as a ticket-booth man. Mostly likely at a cinema on Westminster Street, which may have entailed some late working hours.

New book: on Poe and science

10 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Historical context

≈ Leave a comment

The Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science is a new and well-regarded ‘full scientific biography’, in which the author works through Poe’s scientific ideas and his advancement of science. As such it seems of obvious relevance to his youthful devotee H.P. Lovecraft.

I guess “Forging” was chosen by the marketeers for the title because it reminds the shelf-browser of “Forgery”. Poe did sometimes run pranks and hoaxes, and certain things — phrenology, spiritualism, animal magnetism, the ether and the like — were then still open to debate. Though the title’s use of “Forging” might give young minds the unfortunate first-impression that all of early American science was somehow a “forgery”. But if they are intelligent enough to read the book, then I guess they would soon learn their error.

As I’ve suggested here before, one of his hoaxes may have had an unintended small-but-positive effect on global history. Poe was also likely leaning on what was then a relatively recent past for hoaxes. This history is surveyed by another new book The Century of Deception: The birth of the hoax in eighteenth-century England. Also relevant to Lovecraft, perhaps, due to his devotion to the wits and writers of the 18th century. Also because of his own liking for staging the occasional hoax. The book is said to ably document the range of hoaxers and hoaxes which emerged at that time. From canny amateurs out to trip up the growing class of ‘experts’ and puffed-up ‘celebrities’, down to moustache-twiddling cads and their complex hoax-based swindles.

Arcane #1

09 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

I recently interviewed Steele Filipek’s parter in 3D comics Andrew Buttigieg, for VisNews, and was pleased to learn that Steele has also just launched a Lovecraftian comic Arcane #1 (Sept 2021). It’s published and can be had in digital for a 20% discount on Gumroad. It should also be on Amazon soon in digital, although they’re closing down their Comixology store soon so I guess there may be a bit of delay there.

Arcane is a Young Adult take on Lovecraft, with very attractive artwork…

It’s finally here! First envisioned by ten-year-old me and set into motion four years ago, my ongoing, monthly series, Arcane, is finally here! If you like Lovecraftian horror, Saga of the Swamp Thing, and Young Adult media, check it out! Fourteen year-old Hogan Serrano accidentally touched the Oculus and gained the memories of the hundreds who bore that ancient artifact before him. Now, every wannabe cultist, esoteric magician, and maniac would kill for the secrets in Hogan’s brain to help them control reality… and beyond.

Forthcoming: Lovecraft in the 21st Century

08 Wednesday Sep 2021

Posted by in Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

A 2019 call for papers is set to result in a new book on Lovecraft and his relatively recent adaptations (the original call was for the “1990s to the present day”). The publisher’s blurb now makes it sound like a politically-correct dust-gatherer for university libraries only, and so it obviously is… in part. But I’ve seen the table-of-contents and at least the first third of Lovecraft in the 21st Century seems of some interest to Lovecraftians, with items such as…

Lovecraft and the Stage: A Recent (Re)Discovery.

An Uncanny Absence: Lovecraft in Brazilian cinema, 1975-2016.

The Masks of E’ch-Pi-El: Interpreting the Life and Work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Man or Cartoon: H.P. Lovecraft as a Comics Character.

“It Was the Vegetation”: Ecophobia and Monstrous Wilderness in The Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.

The book looks set to ship in early 2022 from the profit-sharing anti-capitalist ebook collective HappyClappi at a reasonable £30. Nope, just kidding. It’s actually from corporate publisher Routledge, at a list price of £140 ($195).