New books: Kosmofobi & Kadath

13 Sunday Jun 2021

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You’re likely to need a tongue like an eel, to do justice to reading aloud Lovecraft’s poetry translated into Swedish. But it’s good to know such a book exists.

Kosmofobi : Dikter om varldar bortom was new from Aleph Bokforlag in 2020, with 176 pages and 10 illustrations…

The book collects all the author’s surviving horror and fantasy poems. These are published in the original side-by-side with Swedish interpretations in free verse. There is also an essay by the prominent Lovecraft expert Robert M. Price, written especially for this Swedish edition.

Also from the same publisher, Jens Heimdahl’s illustrated “Dream Quest”, Soekandet efter det droemda Kadath (2020, 2nd edition). According to the publisher…

Something of an art book, solidly illustrated by Jens Heimdahl, who also has a section on the author and analyzes the story.

They’ve saddled it with a cover with poor ‘shovelware’ typography, but here are some samples of the art…

Speaking of Science Fiction

12 Saturday Jun 2021

Posted by in Historical context, Scholarly works

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Speaking of Science Fiction is a chunky collection of 31 interviews with primarily science fiction authors, and some interviewees were also known as editors and anthologists. The interviews were done by Paul Walker via letter and took place 1969-74, first appearing in print in the New Jersey journal Luna between 1972 and 1976 (or between 1970 and 1976, depending on source). The book was published in paperback by Luna in 1978 with illustrations of each author by Dave Ludwig, and there was also a hardback edition with dust-jacket.

For the sake of future searchers, here are the TOCs for the 425 pages, via a sales listing …

I looked into the book because a long-ago zine had mentioned a Frank Belknap Long interview and, as it also had portrait illustrations depicting each author, there was the double-promise of interesting Long/Lovecraft content. But the TOCs show no Long, only Bloch. And since there was never a reprint, additional interviews cannot have been added later.

The book is not currently on Archive.org and there are only a few Luna Monthly titles there. In which the only pulp-era writer interview is Edmond Hamilton, the resident rocketeer at Weird Tales. But there is also also “A Day with Ray Bradbury” by different interviewers, and the young Bradbury counts as a pulp writer. I assume that the interviews mostly appeared in the premium Luna Prime journal, of which Archive.org currently only has a 1970 edition with no interviews in it.

While looking for the title I found a similar title from the period, Speaking of the Fantastic, with interviews conducted by Darrell Schweitzer. This became a series of books, which can currently be had as affordable print-on-demand paperbacks via Amazon.

‘Picture postals’ from Lovecraft – Lovecraft

11 Friday Jun 2021

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This week on ‘picture postals’, the man himself. As seen on a series of postcards issued in France under the ‘Dessin Jullian’ imprint, by artist Bernard Jullian and presumably self-published. I’ve been unable to discover dates or any biographical data on Jullian, but the cards appear to be classed as vintage — so perhaps before 2000. These are part of a colour postcard series that included portraits-from-photos of Bram Stoker, Arthur C. Clarke, Poe and other famous writers of the imagination. I’m usually averse to portraits-from-photos, which are nearly always so obviously portraits-from-photos, but here the artist has evoked something of Lovecraft’s arch intelligence.

Also R.E. Howard, from the same series…

Long and Voluminous

10 Thursday Jun 2021

Posted by in Podcasts etc., Scholarly works

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The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s Voluminous podcast takes a peek into the cache of Frank Belknap Long letters recently acquired by Brown University. The letter being read and discussed had previously been published in abbreviated form in Selected Letters III. Their accompanying blog post tracks down some of the relevant art and allusions. Apparently creamed cottage cheese was disliked by the normally cheese-loving Lovecraft, on account of its “rude” appearance.

Vintage American promo button (badge).

The H.P. Lovecraft Book Club podcast has this week also taken a look at the Letters from March-July 1932, including Lovecraft’s reactions to the death of his aunt. There is also the earlier look at Letters, January-March 1932.

Lovecraft on the stage in 1983

09 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by in Lovecraft as character, Lovecraftian arts

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Hijos de Cthulhu digs up another entry for the hypothetical ‘Lovecraft as character’ encyclopedia.

In June 1983 a theatre show called ‘Lovecraft’ premiered at the University of Seville [in Spain]. The show was presented by the University Theater Group “Puppets”, founded in 1979 by various students and professors of the aforementioned University. It was described as…

“A deep and serene music announces that the show begins. Mad and tortured Lovecraft, mysterious and human Lovecraft appears on stage. “We do not intend to do a biographical work on Lovecraft, we have simply been impressed by some visual features of this character that appears to us full of contradictions.”

I wonder if the script and staging directions are still available? They might make for an interesting translation in the Lovecraft Annual 2022, or one of Joshi’s other journals?

Literary Lamas of New York

08 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by in Historical context

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Here’s a view of Lovecraft from 1950 that escaped the A Weird Writer in our Midst collection of early Lovecraft criticism and commentary…

Erroneous in facts, but a valid example of what some in 1950 might have thought of Lovecraft. What was Literary Lamas of New York (1950)? Archive.org doesn’t have it, so I can’t tell if the author went on to more commentary on Lovecraft, or if it was an isolated remark. The book appears to have been a coruscation of the pre-war and wartime mistreatment of talented writers by New York City publishers.

Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!

07 Monday Jun 2021

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Arthur C. Clarke’s chunky book Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays, 1934-1998, now on Archive.org in open PDF. Not a great scan, but you can see what you would get if you were to pick up the hardback for $8 used on Amazon. It appears there is no ebook edition other than this Archive.org scan, at least in the UK.

The book opens with an essay on Dunsany, and also includes a “Tribute to Robert Bloch”, “Save the Giant Squid!”, and a short survey of fierce gay warlords and generals in history.

Call: ‘H.P. Lovecraft and Germany: Cultural Reflections’

06 Sunday Jun 2021

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The May 2021 report of The German Lovecraft Society (DLG) states they have nearly reached 300 paid-up members, and that the next two issues of The Lovecrafter journal are approaching publication. These are themed “Witches and Witchcraft” and “Crossover”. After these, #9 and #10 will be on “Lovecraft’s Geographies” and “The Dreamlands” respectively. The report also notes…

the DLG’s literary team has posted a call-for-papers for our essay book H.P. Lovecraft and Germany: Cultural Reflections.

Proposals for chapters are welcome in German, until 1st July 2021. Translated, some of the suggested themes:

* Influences of German-speaking intellectuals on Lovecraft (Freud, Einstein are suggested).

* Lovecraft’s responses to right-wing radicalism in early Nazi Germany. (“right-wing radicalism” is Google’s translation).

* Germany’s ideas about Lovecraft and his works.

* Cosmic horror and contemporary German literature.

* Lovecraft adaptations in German-language media.

To which I’d add that there could also be interesting historical survey-essays in the following…

* Lovecraft’s responses to the First World War and German militarism.

* Lovecraft’s early responses to Nietzsche, and his later understanding of Oswald Spengler. (Far more important to his intellectual development than Freud or Einstein, and equally important contributors to his cultural pessimism).

* Lovecraft’s responses to German-led world exploration, archaeology and ethnography.

* Lovecraft and German science, 1897-1937, perhaps with special focus on the Moon.

Added to Open Lovecraft

05 Saturday Jun 2021

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Added to my Open Lovecraft page…

* S.J. Burke, “Where the Sea Meets the Sky: A Fantasy-Theme Analysis of H.P. Lovecraft’s Celephais”, Quest: Collin College Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research Journal, Vol. 5, 2021.

* S. Minne, Arnaud Huftier, Jean Ray, L’Alchimie du mystere (2010), ReS Futurae, No. 2, 2013. (In French. Book review of a critical French biography of Jean Ray, the biography having been written by the author of the thesis titled ‘Jean Ray, Lovecraft, or the play of influences’).

* L.S. Correa, “Uma leitura espectrologica de Lovecraft: analise de a cor que caiu do ceu, O chamado de Cthulhu e Sussurros na escuridao” (“A Spectrological Reading of Lovecraft: analysis of ‘The Colour Out of Space’, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, and ‘The Whisperer in Darkness'”. In Brazilian Portuguese, 2020. Perhaps a Masters dissertation? Uses the ideas of the philosopher Romandini to explore “the constant fear of disjunction, the loss of identity and reference” in three tales by Lovecraft).

* O. Maikisch, “Existential Reactions to Modernity: An Analysis of Lovecraft’s Nihilism & Dostoevsky’s Christian Existentialism” (2021 Masters dissertation, in English. Considers Lovecraft within the wider “existing spectrum of existential thought” on anxiety).

‘Picture postals’ from Lovecraft: Night in Providence, 1933.

04 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by in Historical context, Night in Providence, Picture postals

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This week, my upscale and colourising of a picture of downtown Providence, as Lovecraft would have known it at dusk on an evening in 1933. This is after the building of the Industrial Trust building. A building whose “blazing” and “winking” tower lights Lovecraft fairly soon came to rather enjoy having on his horizon, though he felt it marred the view from one particular childhood spot.