Newly republished in paperback, the 1981 book The Gothic Novel 1790-1830: Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs
Gothic Novel Plot Summaries
03 Sunday Aug 2014
Posted in New books
Kittehs in Space
03 Sunday Aug 2014
Posted in Unnamable
Send ur kitteh to th Moon. But haz to be dead furst…
“…cryptical realms which are known only to cats and which villagers say are on the moon’s dark side, whither the cats leap from tall housetops” (Lovecraft, “Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath”)
Surrealism and Magic exhibition at Cornell
03 Sunday Aug 2014
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
“Surrealism and Magic” is a new exhibition at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (100 miles NW of New York City, ‘as the crow flies’). The show opens August 30th, and runs until 21st December 2014.
explores the surrealists’ interest in magic, the occult, and indigenous spirituality … Inspired by the magic-themed library of Kurt Seligmann (1900–1962), acquired by Cornell upon his death … A range of paintings and works on paper by Seligmann and his fellow surrealists will be presented, along with rare books from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, correspondence, ephemera, music, and film.
Kurt Seligmann, “Carnival” (1950).
Lovecraft and Howard in Africa
01 Friday Aug 2014
Posted in Historical context, REH
On the Two-Gun Raconteur blog today Keith Taylor surveys some scientific history to try to illuminate why Lovecraft and R.E. Howard might have been spurred to discuss the idea that ‘a white race or tribe had once lived in Africa’. This was a commonly accepted theory by the mid 1920s, apparently bolstered by archaeological and survey evidence and then given an added dimension by sparse Boskop archaeological skull finds from 1913 onwards — the latter being the focus of Taylor’s blog musings.
One can see this then-common idea in action in a Lovecraft letter, written after hearing a vivid and extensive first-hand account of visiting the Zimbabwe ruins in Africa. Lovecraft had had this account directly from his friend Edward Lloyd Sechrist …
This essay has been replaced by the essay in my new book of revised, expanded, and footnoted versions of my recent Tentaclii essays, Lovecraft in Historical Context: fifth collection.
Eaton Journal #2
01 Friday Aug 2014
Posted in Scholarly works
The second issue of the open access journal Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction is now online. Includes “Good Practices for Archivists Working with Fan Materials and Communities”.
Funghi by fun guys
31 Thursday Jul 2014
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Ancient mushrooms meet high technology such as 3d printing.
Fungus Chair in 3D-Printed Mould
Eco-friendly mushroom fibre replacement for foam packaging…
“Building The World’s First Mushroom Tower”…
One wonders what might happen when future bio-engineering is added to the mix. Take a giant puffball (up to five feet wide) and bio-engineer it to form a dome rather than a solid ball, and make it grow four times as big. Spray the resultant 20ft high dome with a further bio-engineered organism that turns the flesh into a durable weather-proof form. Pop-up houses, literally — just take a good saw and cut out your doors and windows. When you’re finished with it for the summer, spray it with simple salt or suchlike, so the autumn rain gets through the membrane and the dome just rots down to the ground within days, leaving no trace.
Herb’s giant puffball.
“Mycotecture: architecture grown out of mushrooms” (90 minute video lecture) by Phil Ross…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q5i9poYc3w?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Lovecraft was right, part 547
31 Thursday Jul 2014
Posted in Odd scratchings
The largest living organism ever found has been discovered in an ancient American forest. The Armillaria ostoyae … has been spreading its black shoestring filaments, called rhizomorphs, through the forest for an estimated 2,400 years, killing trees as it grows. It now covers 2,200 acres of the Malheur National Forest, in eastern Oregon.
Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos
30 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in New books
Excellent news — Bobby Derie’s Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos is set for August publication, according to a new Hippocampus Press catalogue listing. The author had mooted to me a much later date, so I’m pleased to see it due out so soon. I’d welcome a review copy of this book.
And coming in September from Hippocampus, the affordable paperback of S.T. Joshi’s two-volume Unutterable Horror: a history of supernatural fiction.
New Dunsany works found
29 Tuesday Jul 2014
Posted in New books, Odd scratchings
S.T. Joshi is back from the Dunsany castle in Ireland, newly married (congratulations!), and with news on his blog that in Ireland…
“we came upon hundreds of uncollected or unpublished works [by Dunsany] of whose existence neither we nor anyone else were aware”
He also reports that the new “Lovecraft Annual (No. 8)” is apparently “imminent”.
RISD completes Museum renovation
29 Tuesday Jul 2014
Posted in Historical context
The Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art has just completed extensive renovations of the Eliza G. Radeke Building, costing around $8.4m.
H.P. Lovecraft attended the grand opening in late April 1926. Probably on Sunday 25th April, the day after the official dedication ceremonies of what was then known as the Eliza G. Radeke Museum of Art. Lovecraft also found that he shared his Barnes St. house with… “an official of the School of Design Museum” (Letters from New York, p.312). This calm new museum must surely have been a Lovecraft haunt in the years after his return from New York. Lovecraft already knew well the RISD Museum’s neighbouring…
This essay has been replaced by the essay in my new book of revised, expanded, and footnoted versions of my recent Tentaclii essays, Lovecraft in Historical Context: fifth collection.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle now online
28 Monday Jul 2014
Posted in Historical context
The Brooklyn Public Library now has a complete scanned run of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle online for free, including the years that Lovecraft was in Brooklyn.
Lovecraft’s marriage announced, 2nd April 1924…
The piano sale ad, 20th April 1924…
Evidently the $500 for the piano was not found from a private buyer. It was later sold for $350 in September 1924.
Added to Open Lovecraft
28 Monday Jul 2014
Posted in Scholarly works
* Kevin Corstorphine (2013), “‘Colors We Cannot See’: Invisibility and The Limits of Perception in Weird Fiction”. (Paper presented at the conference “The Weird” University of London, November 2013. Compares key stories of invisible monsters, and their probable influence on Lovecraft. Previously presented as “Invisible Monsters: The Limits of Perception in Bierce, Lovecraft and Machen” at the International Gothic Association meeting, University of Surrey, August 2013)
* Catia Cristina Sanzovo Jota (2013), “Terror and shock in H. P. Lovecraft. (Possibly a class paper?)