I’m pleased to say that my new book is now shipping. It contains revised, expanded, and footnoted versions of my recent Tentaclii essays. Some of the new discoveries include a macabre Lovecraft revision poem not included in the new edition of The Ancient Track; a probable new photo of Lovecraft at age 9; a major new source for Suydam in “Red Hook”; a disproving of the claim that the Necronomicon was inspired by Hawthorne’s Notebooks; and a new previously unknown but obvious source for the name Cthulhu.

Lovecraft in Historical Context: fifth collection.

80,000 words of new scholarly essays on the author H.P. Lovecraft. 340 pages, as a perfect bound 6″ x 9″ paperback with colour covers. $20. Paypal accepted.

CONTENTS:

PART ONE: Topographies

1. The Catskill Mountains

   “A mighty woodcutter”: on the trail of Bernard Austin Dwyer.
   Two poems by Bernard Austin Dwyer, newly discovered.
   The annotated “The Lurking Fear”.

2. New York City

   Suydam revealed: a major new source for “The Horror at Red Hook”.
   Reds in New York: an aspect of Lovecraft’s New York circle in the 1930s.
   A note on the interior layout of 169 Clinton Street, Brooklyn.

3. Providence

   H.P. Lovecraft and his local Public Library.
   Found: a new photograph of the young H.P. Lovecraft?
   The Ward of 100 Prospect St.
   ‘Ancients and Horribles’: the grotesque parade tradition in Rhode Island.
   H.P. Lovecraft and the RISD Museum of Art, Providence
   H.P. Lovecraft among the Jews: a snapshot in time.
   Electro-quacks of Providence 1: Orville Livingston Leach.
   Electro-quacks of Providence 2: Dr. William F. Channing.
   H.P. Lovecraft’s star-charts.

4. Travels and places

   The location of “Juan Romero”: Area 52.
   The Isles of Shoals as a possible inspiration for Devil Reef.
   Locating the Sentinel Elm at Athol.
   A note on H.P. Lovecraft and Bolton, Mass.
   The Boston North End as H.P. Lovecraft saw it.
   On the trail to Dark Swamp.

PART TWO: Ancient secrets

   The extent of the influence of “The Horla” on H.P. Lovecraft.
   H.P. Lovecraft and Great Zimbabwe.
   Finding Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft and Chthetho.

PART THREE: Friends and correspondents

   Allan Grayson of New York: the young poet of Dunedin.
   Some new biographical details for Henry S. Whitehead, and four texts:
      Whitehead’s early biography, Harvard College Class of 1904 yearbook.
      Cures Mentally Sick by Prayer (interview), Boston Post, 1921.
      Editorial Prejudice Against The Occult (article), The Writer, 1922.
      Henry S. Whitehead (obituary), The Evening Independent, 1932.
   “Hell’s Turned Loose”: a ‘lost’ Lovecraft revision poem, found.
   ‘… Nor a Lender Be’: H.P. Lovecraft and Ernest La Touche Hancock.
   Some new biographical details for Albert August Sandusky.
   Some notes on Richard Ely Morse.
   A note on Gordon Hatfield, composer and stage director.
   A note on Edward Harold Cole.
   A note on the H.P. Lovecraft correspondent Albert Chapin.
   Samuel Loveman’s late and wayward hand.
   Anne Tillery Renshaw (c.1890?-c.1940?).

PART FOUR: Influence

   On Lovecraft’s glands.
   Did Lovecraft read Moby Dick?
   Hawthorne’s influence on the genesis of the Necronomicon.
   Lovecraft’s pocket nuclear device.
   A note on Lovecraft and Terence McKenna.

Book review: Lovecraft and Influence: his predecessors and successors.

Three additions and corrections for essays from previous volumes.

POEM: “The Harbour”

Buy it here.