Non-Fiction Books

H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), the most important American supernaturalist since Poe, has had an incalculable influence on all the horror-story writing of recent decades. Although his supernatural fiction has of late been enjoying an unprecedented fame, it is still not widely known that he wrote a critical history of supernatural horror in literature that has yet to be superseded as the finest historical discussion of the genre. This extraordinary work is presented in this volume in its final, revised text. With incisive penetration and power, Lovecraft here formulates the aesthetics of supernatural horror, and summarizes in masterful fashion the range of its literary expression from primitive folklore to the tales of his own 20th-century masters. Following a discussion of terror-literature in ancient, medieval and renaissance culture, he launches on a critical survey of the whole history of horror fiction from the Gothic school of the 18th century (when supernatural horror finally found its own genre) to the time of De la Mare and M. R. James. The Castle of Otranto , Radcliffe, "Monk" Lewis, Fathek , Charles Brockden Brown, Melmoth the Wanderer , Frankenstein, Bulwer-Lytton, Fongué's Undine , Wuthering Heights , Poe (an entire chapter), The House of the Seven Gables , de Maupassant's Horla , Bierce, The Turn of the Screw , M. P. Shiel, W. H. Hodgson, Machen, Blackwood, and Dunsany are among the authors and works discussed in depth. Lovecraft also notices a host of lesser supernatural writers — enough to draw up an extensive reading list. By charting so completely the background for his own concepts of horror and literary techniques, Lovecraft throws light on his own fiction as well as on the horror literature which has followed in his influential wake. For this reason this book will be especially intriguing to those who have read and enjoyed Lovecraft's fiction as an isolated phenomenon. These and other readers, searching for a guide through the inadequately marked region of literary horror, need search no further. New introduction by E. F. Bleiler.

Horror author H.P. Lovecraft has for years been a misunderstood figure, portrayed by other writers as a misanthrope or neurotic. Conover's collection of letters from Lovecraft produce a rare book wherein the Lovecraft that emerges from these pages is humorous, garrulous, and candid.

Library binding. Pages in great condition.

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Selected Letters III (1929-1931) is a collection of letters by H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in 1971 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,513 copies. It is the third of a five-volume series of collections of Lovecraft's letters and includes a preface by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei.

1976 Arkham House hardcover in dust jacket

The monumental letters project is concluded with this fifth volume encompassing the final years and death of Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Although these two poets and authors never met in person, they did share a writing correspondence for over 14 years. Starting in 1922 after a letter from HPL praising Smith's artwork and poetry, these are the first printings of the complementary letters from Smith. Included inside are excerpts from Smiths letters to August Derleth after HPL's death and the poem "To Howard Phillips Lovecraft" written two weeks after Lovecrafts death. A fascinating glimpse into the workings of these fine writers.

When the sixteen-year old Robert Bloch wrote a fan letter to H.P. Lovecraft in 1933, he had no idea that it would be the beginning of an intense, four-year correspondence that end only with Lovecraft’s tragic death in 1937. What is most remarkable about these 50 letters is how Lovecraft treats Bloch as an equal, even though he is nearly three times his age and a titan in the world of weird fiction. This volume features the unabridged text of nearly all of Lovecraft’s letters to Robert Bloch, with extensive footnotes by David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi, as well as a new preface by Robert Bloch himself.

One of the most influential practitioners of American horror, H.P. Lovecraft inspired the work of Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker. As he perfected his mastery of the macabre, his works developed from seminal fragments into acknowledged masterpieces of terror. This volume traces his chilling career and includes: IMPRISONED WITH THE PHARAOHS--Houdini seeks to reveal the demons that inhabit the Egyptian night. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS--An unsuspecting expedition uncovers a city of untold terror, buried beneath an Antarctic wasteland. Plus, for the first time in any Del Rey edition: HERBERT WEST: REANIMATOR--Mad experiments yield hideous results in this, the inspiration for the cult film Re-Animator. COOL AIR--An icy apartment hides secrets no man dares unlock. THE TERRIBLE OLD MAN--The intruders seek a fortune but find only death! AND TWENTY-FOUR MORE BLOOD-CHILLING TALES

Explore the marvelous complexity of Lovecraft's writing—including his use of literary allusions, biographical details, and obscure references in this rich, in-depth exploration of great horror fiction from the acknowledged master of the weird, including the stories "Herbert West—Reanimator", "Pickman's Model", "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Horror at Red Hook" and more. Did Lovecraft believe in ghosts or paranormal phenomena? In what story does the narrator fear riding the Boston T? A pathfinder in the literary territory of the macabre, H.P. Lovecraft is one of America's giants of the horror genre. Now, in this second volume of annotated tales, Lovecraft scholars S. T. Joshi and Peter Cannon provide another rare opportunity to look into the mind of a genius. Their extensive notes lift the veil between real events in the writer's life—such as the death of his father—and the words that spill out onto the page in magnificent grotesquerie. Mansions, universities, laboratories, and dank New England boneyards appear also as the haunts where Lovecraft's characters confront the fabulous and fantastic, or—like the narrator in "Herbert West—Reanimator"—dig up fresh corpses. Richly illustrated and scrupulously researched, this extraordinary work adds exciting levels of meaning to Lovecraft's chilling tales . . . and increases our wonder at the magic that transforms life into a great writer's art.

In Lord of a Visible World, the editors have amassed and arranged the letters of this prolific writer into the story of his life. The volume traces Lovecraft's upbringing in Providence, Rhode Island, his involvement with the pulp magazine Weird Tales, his short-lived marriage, and his later status as the preeminent man of letters in his field. In addition to conveying the candid details of his life, the volume also traces the evolution of his wide-ranging opinions. Lovecraft shows himself to be deeply engaged in the social, political, and cultural milieu of his time. The editors, two of the leading Lovecraft scholars, have meticulously edited the text, transcribing the letters from manuscript sources and supplying explanatory annotations throughout. Lord of a Visible World is of interest to both the general reader and the scholar, presenting for the first time a well-rounded portrait, in his own words, of a writer whose work has fascinated millions of readers.

Alfred Galpin (1901-1983) was among H. P. Lovecraft’s most brilliant and stimulating correspondents: a youthful prodigy, he had already become so knowledgeable in literature and philosophy that by 1921 Lovecraft wrote: "He is intellectually exactly like me save in degree. In degree he is immensely my superior—-he is what I should like to be but have not brains enough to be." In this volume, Lovecraft's fascinating letters to his friend are collected for the first time, with footnotes and detailed commentary by the editors. Also included are the surviving letters to the Gallomo, a round-robin correspondence cycle including Galpin, Lovecraft, and Maurice W. Moe. In these letters we find fascinating accounts of Lovecraft’s dreams, remarks on the inspirations for his early horror tales, and further details on amateur journalism controversies. Lengthy letters written jointly to Galpin and Frank Belknap Long relate his travels along the eastern seaboard. As an appendix, a substantial amount of Galpin’s own writings—-some never-before published—-are included, shedding further light on the Lovecraft-Galpin relationship.

Mysteries of Time and Spirit is a collection of all the correspondence between Lovecraft and future Arkham-House co-founder Donald Wandrei. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Book by Lovecraft, H. P.

Lovecraft's writings in the realm of literary criticism are unfailingly acute and cover a surprisingly wide range. Besides his authoritative early essay on "The Literature of Rome" (1918), other works condemn free verse and simple spelling, and devote attention to neglected poets. Discovering weird fiction as his chosen field, he produced such scintillating essays as "Lord Dunsany and His Work" (1922) and "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (1927), along with essays on Frank Belknap Long and Clark Ashton Smith. Late in life Lovecraft codified his grasp of weird literature by writing such trenchant pieces as "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction" (1933) and "Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction" (1934). One of his last writings, "Suggestions for a Reading Guide" (1936), is a comprehensive discussion of world literature. H. P. Lovecraft has belatedly received world renown as the twentieth century s premier author of supernatural fiction; but during his lifetime he wrote far more essays than stories. This edition gathers Lovecraft s complete nonfictional output for the first time, arranged in broad thematic groupings. S. T. Joshi, the world's leading authority on Lovecraft, exhaustively annotates all texts, also providing critical and bibliographical notes.

Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner by Lovecraft, H. P.. Published by Hippocampus Press,2005, Paperback

Book by Lovecraft, H. P.

Book by Lovecraft, H. P.

This fifth and final volume of Lovecraft’s Collected Essays mines a rich vein of his philosophical writings. A lifelong student of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and other branches of philosophy, Lovecraft early declared himself a forthright materialist and atheist. Here he defends his views in numerous controversies with colleagues. Such essays as “Idealism and Materialism—A Reflection” and the In Defence of Dagon essays outline the essentials of Lovecraft’s philosophical thought, including such issues as free will, the improbability of theism, and cosmic pessimism. In his later years, the problems of politics and economics came to the forefront of his attention. In the essays “Some Repetitions on the Times,” “A Layman Looks at the Government,” and the unpublished “The Journal and the New Deal” Lovecraft vigorously argues for a moderate socialism to relieve the widespread unemployment brought on by the Depression. The problem of art in the modern age also concerned Lovecraft, and in the unpublished essay “A Living Heritage: Roman Architecture in Today’s America” Lovecraft condemns modern architecture as an inherently ugly product of sterile theory. This volume also contains Lovecraft’s autobiographical essays, including the delightful “A Confession of Unfaith,” describing his shedding of religious belief, and the piquant “Cats and Dogs,” in which cats stand as symbols for the abstract beauty of a boundless cosmos. All texts are extensively annotated, with critical and bibliographical notes, by S.T. Joshi.

A chilling new compendium of twenty classic horror stories by the grandmaster of the macabre features "The Nameless City," "The Cats of Ulthar," "Nyarlathotep," "The Quest of Iranon," and "At the Mountains of Madness," about a professor who stumbles upon an unspeakable evil in the desolate wastes of Antarctica. Original.

H. P. Lovecraft has belatedly received world renown as the twentieth century's premier author of supernatural fiction; but during his lifetime he wrote far more essays than stories. This edition gathers Lovecraft s complete nonfictional output for the first time, arranged in broad thematic groupings. S. T. Joshi, the world's leading authority on Lovecraft, exhaustively annotates all texts, also providing critical and bibliographical notes. Our groundbreaking CD-ROM incorporates not only the text of the entire five volumes of H. P. Lovecraft's COLLECTED ESSAYS, with annotations, bibliographical citations, and introductions, but also the complete texts of Lovecraft's own journal The Conservative, plus actual scans of the entire run of the journal. This amazing archive is fully searchable, so scholars can readily locate and identify the most useful citations. For instance, searching Boston returns 224 instances spread through the five volumes of essays, plus four results in The Conservative. Results of searches are presented in a separate window, assembled in easy-to-read listings which link back to the source text. Many of Lovecraft's own illustrations and star maps are also incorporated in remarkable clarity, including some appearing in full color for the first time. Other unique features of this electronic edition include links between the essays and chronological and alphabetical listings of all of Lovecraft s works. Whether the task is to locate a dim-remembered phrase from A Descent to Avernus, or finding all of HPL's appearances in Dowdell's Bearcat, research was never easier! Comprising over a million words, with this handy, portable CD-ROM Lovecraftians need never lack suitable reading material again.

In this first volume, Lovecraft's relations to one of his most prominent colleagues and disciples, August Derleth (1909-1971), are recounted in the hundreds of letters they exchanged beginning in 1926. The youthful Derleth first wrote to Lovecraft, via [i]Weird Tales[/i] magazine, in regard to an obscure work of weird fiction, and their subsequent correspondence deals extensively with the history of weird fiction, the two authors' ongoing attempts to publish stories in pulp magazines, Derleth's evolution into a sensitive writer of regional fiction and of detective stories, and debates over such issues as spiritualism, occultism, the literary use of coincidence, points of language and style, and other matters. Especially noteworthy are several letters by Lovecraft that Derleth interpreted as giving him permission to elaborate upon Lovecraft's pseudomythology, which Derleth named the "Cthulhu Mythos." All the letters are exhaustively annotated by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi.

In this second volume of the letters of H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth, the two authors-now noted luminaries in Weird Tales and the world of pulp magazines-continue to write letters on an almost weekly basis. Lovecraft, however, is plagued with self-doubt as a result of the rejection of [i]At the Mountains of Madness[/i] by [i]Weird Tales[/i] and other professional setbacks. Meanwhile, Derleth is beginning to make a name for himself in the realm of detective fiction with the creation of Solar Pons; he has also begun sensitive mainstream writing that is finding placement in prestigious little magazines of the period. Derleth himself surreptitiously submitted Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Dreams in the Witch House" to [i]Weird Tales[/i]; the former was rejected, the latter accepted. In all, Lovecraft wrote nearly 400 letters to Derleth, but only about 40 of Derleth's letters to Lovecraft survive. All the letters are extensively annotated by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi.

James Ferdinand Morton was one of H. P. Lovecraft's most learned and accomplished correspondents: the recipient of a B.A. and M.A. from Harvard, Morton served as a leading figure in the Esperanto Association of North America, the Thomas Paine Natural History Association, and other organizations, and was a longtime curator of the Paterson (New Jersey) Museum. Lovecraft's correspondence with Morton reveals the full range of his and Morton's intellectual interests, ranging from freethought to socialism, from amateur journalism to crossword puzzles, from race relations to the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. Along the way, Lovecraft provides engaging accounts-many times written in piquant slang-of his travels across New England, his diet, and other details that bring the dreamer from Providence to life. A sampling of Morton's own writings complements the letters, and includes his substantial essay "Fragments of a Mental Autobiography." The volume concludes with many fascinating memoirs of Morton by friends and colleagues, including E. Hoffmann Price, W. Paul Cook, and Morton's wife Pearl K. Merritt. Extensively annotated by leading Lovecraft scholars David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, this volume illuminates one of the great literary personalities of his time - and in his own words. The letters are presented in unabridged form and with detailed notes and commentary.

H. P. Lovecraft did not have a great many female correspondents, but among the most notable was Elizabeth Toldridge, a poet living in Washington, D.C., who began corresponding with Lovecraft in the late 1920s. Over their decade-long exchange of letters, Lovecraft discussed at length the aesthetic basis of poetry and the methods by which poetic expression could be made relevant in an age of science. He came to recognize that his earlier attempts at writing eighteenth-century-style verse were aesthetic failures, and he attempted to put his new poetic theories into practice with Fungi from Yuggoth (1929-30) and other poems. Lovecraft also extensively discussed the current political and economic situation, recognizing that the onset of the Great Depression necessitated a political shift-one that ultimately led him to moderate socialism. Anne Tillery Renshaw was a colleague of long standing, having known Lovecraft during his amateur journalism period in the 1910s. Late in life she commissioned Lovecraft to work on her treatise on English usage, Well-Bred Speech (1936). This edition publishes for the first time several chapters that Lovecraft wrote for that book that were dropped before publication. Exhaustively annotated by leading Lovecraft scholars David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, this volume illuminates one of the great literary personalities of his time-and in his own words. The letters are presented in unabridged form and with detailed notes and commentary.

H. P. Lovecraft's generous tutelage of younger literary colleagues earned him their lifelong devotion and admiration. Few profited more by his assistance than Robert Bloch, who went on to become the celebrated author of Psycho and other classic works of horror and suspense. Establishing a correspondence with Lovecraft when he was sixteen, Bloch learned so much about the craft of writing-and about other matters-that he later stated: "Lovecraft was my university." This volume brings together Lovecraft's complete extant correspondence with Bloch as well as with such other young writers, editors, and fans of the 1930s as Kenneth Sterling (who collaborated with Lovecraft on "In the Walls of Eryx"), Donald A. Wollheim (editor of the Phantagraph and a leading figure in science fiction in the decades that followed), Willis Conover (whose Lovecraft at Last is one of the most poignant books ever written about the Providence writer), and others. As in all previous volumes in the Collected Letters series, these letters have been meticulously edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, two of the leading authorities on Lovecraft. Also included are many rare and pertinent writings by the various correspondents, which shed light on their relationship to Lovecraft. An exhaustive bibliography and a comprehensive index conclude the volume.

This volume presents H. P. Lovecraft's letters to three individuals-J. Vernon Shea, Carl Ferdinand Strauch, and Lee McBride White-who were not exclusively interested in weird fiction nor were involved in the realms of amateur journalism or fantasy fandom. Although Shea did come into contact with Lovecraft through Weird Tales, his interests, even as a young man, were far wider-current politics, general literature, film, and socio-cultural trends. As such, Lovecraft's letters to him broach broad topics relating to aesthetics, philosophy, politics, and general culture. In one letter Lovecraft expounds on his fascination with the film Berkeley Square, a time-travel drama that markedly inspired one of his later stories, "The Shadow out of Time." Carl F. Strauch was a librarian and an academic-he wrote a dissertation on Ralph Waldo Emerson and taught for many years at Lehigh University-and Lovecraft was intrigued by Strauch's recital of witch legendry from the Pennsylvania Dutch region of Pennsylvania where he resided. The young Lee White was a student at Howard College in Alabama when he came into contact with Lovecraft, and the ten letters they exchanged over several years cover a wide range of literary topics. In one of his last letters Lovecraft makes extensive revisions on a poem about John Donne that White had written. These letters reveal Lovecraft to have as wide a range of intellectual and aesthetic interests as his diverse and multifaceted correspondents. As in all previous volumes in the Collected Letters series, these letters have been meticulously edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, two of the leading authorities on Lovecraft. Also included are many rare and pertinent writings by the various correspondents, which shed light on their relationship to Lovecraft. An exhaustive bibliography and a comprehensive index conclude the volume.

Lovecraft's correspondents were scattered all over the country, and he found it engaging to be in touch with individuals from those areas of the United States where he had never been. Letters to two correspondents from the Pacific Northwest, Duane W. Rimel and F. Lee Baldwin, fill the bulk of this volume, and they reveal Lovecraft's customary role of tutor and mentor to young devotees of weird fiction in the 1930s. As a novice writer of weird fiction, Rimel came in touch with Lovecraft to seek assistance on improving his work and getting it published in pulp or fan magazines. In the course of their relationship, Lovecraft helped Rimel on as many as three stories-"The Sorcery of Alphar," "The Tree on the Hill," and "The Disinterment." He gave Rimel valuable advice on the technique of writing weird fiction. Baldwin was a fan of weird fiction who assisted in the establishment of the first fantasy fanzine, the Fantasy Fan. Later he wrote one of the earliest biographical articles on Lovecraft (with a linoleum cut of Lovecraft by Rimel). Lovecraft wrote extensively to Baldwin about his writing, his attempts at drawing, and other matters that illuminate many aspects of his life and work. A third correspondent in this volume, Nils Frome, was a Canadian fan of weird and science fiction whom Lovecraft instructed on matters ranging from astronomy to occultism. As in all previous volumes in the Collected Letters series, these letters have been meticulously edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, two of the leading authorities on Lovecraft. Included as well are many rare and pertinent writings by the various correspondents, which shed light on their relationship to Lovecraft. An extensive bibliography and a comprehensive index conclude the volume.

H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard are two of the titans of weird fiction of their era. Dominating the pages of Weird Tales in the 1920s and 1930s, they have gained worldwide followings for their compelling writings and also for the very different lives they led. The two writers came in touch in 1930, when Howard wrote to Lovecraft via Weird Tales. A rich and vibrant correspondence immediately ensued. Both writers were fascinated with the past, especially the history of Roman and Celtic Britain, and their letters are full of intriguing discussions of contemporary theories on this subject.Gradually, a new discussion came to the fore-a complex dispute over the respective virtues of barbarism and civilisation, the frontier and settled life, and the physical and the mental. Lovecraft, a scion of centuries-old New England, and Howard, a product of recently settled Texas, were diametrically opposed on these and other issues, and each writes compellingly of his beliefs, attitudes, and theories. The result is a dramatic debate-livened by wit, learning, and personal revelation-that is as enthralling as the fiction they were writing at the time. All existing letters on both sides of the correspondence have been collected here, exhaustively annotated by the editors.