31 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted in Scholarly works
A forthcoming conference: “Gothic: Culture, Subculture, Counterculture“, 8th-9th March 2013 at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham and Strawberry Hill House, London.
“This conference, held in the Gothic mansion at Strawberry Hill, west London, will interrogate the many and varied cultures of the Gothic that were largely set in train by the owner of this mansion, Horace Walpole, in the mid-eighteenth century.”
30 Monday Jul 2012
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Cthulhu : a Puppet Play has completed Kickstarter funding, and raised $2,205. The show will happen in Houston, USA, at the 14 Pews arts centre.
30 Monday Jul 2012
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
I’m pleased to say that one of the many little galleries in my city is having an exhibition of surrealist paintings likely to interest Lovecraft fans. Wedgwood Steventon’s solo show launches at Artwaves gallery in Stoke-on-Trent on Friday 3rd of August 2012 (7pm-9pm). The exhibition will run from 4th-18th Aug, between 11am-4pm daily (closed Sundays).
Wedgwood Steventon is based locally, but until now has mostly shown internationally. “A collection of works on paper and canvas, personal experiences of an existence in 21st Century England (and Beyond) : a Gathering of Nightmares, Truths and Dares.”
30 Monday Jul 2012
Posted in Historical context, New books, New discoveries, Scholarly works, Summer School
I’m pleased to say that the print edition of my annual essays collection is now available for purchase!
Lovecraft in Historical Context: a third collection of essays and notes. 25,000 words, and many illustrations. 120 pages, as a 6″ x 9″ paperback. Buy it here.
Contains expanded, polished, and copiously footnoted/referenced versions of my recent draft essays and short notes. Plus new essays that are exclusive to the print edition.
1. Who was “Harley Warren”?
2. Who were the Blatschkas?
3. Lovecraft’s telescope.
4. Lovecraft’s camera.
5. Edison’s virtual ‘visit’ to Providence, 1896, a source for “Nyarlathotep”.
6. Missing : the Sentinel of Lovecraft’s Sentinel Hill.
7. Running down Danforth, at the Paterson Museum.
8. Neutaconkanut : Lovecraft’s last summer walk.
9. What could Lovecraft and his circle have known of Doctor John Dee?
10. Locating “The Mound”.
11. Some covers of The All-Story.
12. Mirrored : reflections on Lovecraft’s reflections.
13. Ten examples of tentacular propaganda, 1881-1910s.
14. A real horror : on the 1918 flu pandemic in Providence.
And more…!
I hope to produced a hand-coded Kindle ebook edition at some point soon.
Enjoy!
29 Sunday Jul 2012
Posted in Historical context, New books
Forthcoming from McFarland, Anti-Foreign Imagery in American Pulps and Comic Books, 1920-1960. Due in Autumn 2012.
29 Sunday Jul 2012
Posted in Historical context
Providence magazine, online in full-view form, a complete run from 1916 to 1922. Produced monthly by the Chamber of Trade, it has many illustrated historical articles, and a monthly “Rhode Island Current Events” summary of the month’s main news items.
28 Saturday Jul 2012
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
An interesting new book project, coming in Fall 2013. A supposed sale-catalogue of books from the private occult library of the Church of Starry Wisdom of Providence, on their disbanding in 1877…
Including short bibliographic and historical essays on the books, by “noted scholars“. You’ll remember of course that Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark” (1935) had the hero discovering the remains of the library in 1938.
26 Thursday Jul 2012
Posted in Podcasts etc.
Uvala Radio has kindly produced a full audio reading of Lovecraft’s “The Mound” (1929-30). A fine reading in the laconic male American accent of Jim Campanella. Donations are invited.
American Indian mound postcard, 1909.
25 Wednesday Jul 2012
Posted in Historical context, New books
Got a spare $200+, and looking for the coolest Xmas present? The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has a two-volume set of facsimiles of all Lovecraft’s Weird Tales appearances…
“These two volumes reprint in facsimile all of Lovecraft’s writings in Weird Tales: original tales, collaborations, poems and letters to ye editor. Volume One covers October 1923—July 1924, and is an oversized edition of 52 pages; Volume Two (November 1924—September 1952) is 568 pages!”
[ Hat-tip: Wimum Pugmire ]
24 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted in Historical context
Providence Public Library main Children’s Room, as Lovecraft would have known it…
My immediate thought is that this photograph was made during a school visit, to make it seem busy. But possibly in the pre-radio age children just had a different attitude to books and learning, and really did flock there in such numbers.
Something of a boys’ eye view of the exterior of the building…
A plan from Architectural Review, 1902 (sorry, this is the biggest I can find it) of the Library, which had formally opened in March 1900…
Hopefully the plans will appear in Joshi’s forthcoming Lovecraft’s-life-in-photographs book.
Interesting factoid for your next Lovecraft quiz night: the Fleur-de-Lys Studios building (in “The Call of Cthulhu”) was designed by the same team who designed the Providence Public Library.
24 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted in Historical context
Pornokitsch has a re-evaluation of Robert W. Chambers (The King in Yellow, 1895). Despite turning his back on the weird (although Jared points out that he could still do it, as he briefly showed in the depths of the First World War), he should not therefore be written off as a literary failure.
24 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted in Historical context, New books, New discoveries
Joseph Rydings (1934), Country Walks in Many Fields; Being Certain Choice Annals of The Paterson Rambling Club. Paterson, NJ: Press of the Morning Call.
There seems to have been a modern (POD?) $15 reprint of this 338-page book by the Passiac County Historical Society, but the first edition seems pretty common. The Society website was last updated 2009, and they have blanked the Publications page. The book’s Contents list is available here. The book does not appear in Joshi’s Comprehensive Bibliography, and it’s possible no Lovecraftian has ever looked through it to glean anything that might relate to Morton and the Lovecraft circle.
The Paterson Rambling Club was apparently where several members of the Lovecraft circle took refuge, after Lovecraft had left New York City. Paterson was where James F. Morton was curator of the Paterson Museum.
