S.T. Joshi's BlogMay 22, 2015 Variorum Lovecraft Done!I am delighted to say that work on LovecraftsCollected Fiction: A Variorum Editionis now all but complete. Derrick Hussey, the publisher of Hippocampus Press, has been incredibly diligent and meticulous in going over all the texts (as well as my own textual notes) and has saved me from countless errors. It appears that my own records of textual variants were not at all as accurate or coherent as they should have been (but remember that I started doing this work as a callow eighteen-year-old freshman in 1976!). But now the work is done, and all that remains is to look over the final proofs before sending them to the printer. Derrick vows that this will be done on or before June 1, which means that the three-volume edition should be ready by mid-July. I am a bit mortified that we first announced the edition as appearing in late 2014but the long delay is well worth it, trust me!I have recently been told that my edition of Edward Lucas Whites weird tales (first published asThe Stuff of Dreamsby Arcane Wisdom in 2013) will be reprinted in paperback by Dover. Glad to hear it! I continue to work on my anthology of weird tales by women writers, tentatively titledThe Cold Embrace(after a story by Mary Elizabeth Braddon), for Dover. Even though the deadline is not until October, I hope to finish it before Mary and I go on our cruise down the Danube (June 1222).Speaking of Mary, she gave me a fright a while back by contracting pneumoniaon her birthday (May 9)! We had to rush her to the emergency room at the University of Washington Medical Center, where they kept her for seven hours before decreeing that she needed to stay overnight. In fact, she ended up staying in the hospital for four days, chiefly because her oxygen intake was quite low. But she is now out and recovering well. Nevertheless, during the past two weeks I have (as Lovecraft once said when his aunt, Annie Gamwell, had to go to the hospital for a mastectomy) been a sort of combined nurse, secretary, market-man, butler, & errand-boy. But, as HPL also added, it was no doubt far worse on the patient than on me!I am in receipt of an interesting publication,Windy City Pulp Stories#15, edited by Tom Roberts. Evidently this is a booklet (actually, a full-size book of some 204 pages) containing all manner of essays and other matter pertaining toWeird Talesand also designed to commemorating the 125th anniversary of H. P. Lovecrafts birth. It contains my article Lovecraft andWeird Taleswhich is nothing less than a revised version of my somewhat combative introduction toH. P. Lovecraft in The Eyrie(Necronomicon Press, 1979). But Joshi collectors need not seek out this item, as the essay is already in myLovecraft and a World in Transition(2014).I am also in receipt of proofs of Nicole Cushings first short story collection,The Mirrors(due out from Cycatrix Press in a month or two), which I copyedited and for which I wrote a foreword. There is striking cover art by Zach McCain, and the book, even in this somewhat preliminary state, exhibits the fine production values of the publisher, Jason V Brock. An item well worth purchasing when it appears!I have just sent in the final manuscript ofThe Madness of Cthulhu, Volume 2to Titan Books. I imagine it is on schedule to appear in October. I cannot recall if I have previously supplied the table of contents, but here it is: Forewordby Kim Newman Introductionby S. T. Joshi 20,000 Years Under the Seaby Kevin J. Anderson Tsathogguas Breathby Brian Stableford The Door Beneathby Alan Dean Foster Dead Man Walkingby William F. Nolan A Crazy Mistakeby Nancy Kilpatrick The Anatomy Lessonby Cody Goodfellow The Hollow Skyby Jason C. Eckhardt The Last Onesby Mark Howard Jones A Footnote in the Black Budgetby Jonathan Maberry Deep Fractureby Steve Rasnic Tem The Dream Stonesby Donald Tyson The Blood in My Mouthby Laird Barron On the Shores of Destructionby Karen Haber Object 00922UUby Erik Bear and Greg Bear Notes on ContributorsI am just about finished editing my immense collection of Robert Aickmans stories for Centipede Press. Regrettably, the book will not contain much, if any, matter from a recent volume of Aickman miscellany just published by Tartarus Press under the titleThe Strangers and Other Writings(http://tartaruspress.com/aickmanstrangers.htm). But I suspect this volume does not contain anything of truly earth-shattering quality or importance. Anyway, my editionwhich I imagine will come in at more than 400,000 wordsis plenty big enough on its own!May 3, 2015 Black Wings VFinished!I am happy to announce the completoon ofBlack Wings Va volume that I do feel is one of the better books in this series. Here is the official table of contents: Introductionby S. T. Joshi Plenty of Iremby Jonathan Thomas Diary of a Sane Manby Nicole Cushing The Woman in the Atticby Robert H. Waugh Far from Any Shoreby Caitln R. Kiernan In Blackness Etched, My Nameby W. H. Pugmire Snakeladderby Cody Goodfellow The Walker in the Nightby Jason C. Eckhardt In Bloomby Lynne Jamneck The Black Abbessby John Reppion The Questby Mollie L. Burleson A Question of Bloodby David Hambling Red Wallsby Mark Howard Jones The Organ of Chaosby Donald Tyson Seed of the Godsby Donald R. Burleson Fire Breedersby Sunni K Brock Casting Fractalsby Sam Gafford The Red Witch of Chorazinby Darrell Schweitzer The Oldiesby Nancy Kilpatrick Voodooby Stephen Woodworth Loreby Wade GermanThat last item is, of course, a poemfollowing the pattern established inBlack Wings IVby Charles Lovecraft with his striking sonnet sequence based on The Lurking Fear. Wades poem is a more general riff on the forbidden book theme.I was pleased to have the contributions of two British writers. John Reppion had written one of the more notable stories in Salom JonessCthulhu Lives(Ghostwood Books, 2014), and he delivered a powerful story set in a small town in England. David Hambling always does good work, and his story here is along the lines of those that will (I trust soon) be released in his PS book,The Dulwich Horror and Others.Jason C. Eckhardts The Walker in the Night is a poignant evocation of the figure of Lovecraft himself, stirringly set during the great hurricane that struck Providence in September 1938.Pete Crowther, the publisher of PS Publishing, has given me the go-ahead to assemble aBlack Wings VI, but I will not begin work on that book for several monthsand, of course, it will again be by invitation only. After that, I may take a break from theBlack Wingsseries and compile a general weird anthology, which I am inclined to titleApostles of the Weird.I was pleased to receive a copy of a striking book by Sammy Maine, titledNecronomicon: Dark Fantasy, Digital Art and H. P. Lovecraft(London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2015). I wrote the foreword to it. This is a vivid art book with all manner of striking illustrations derived from the work of Lovecraft and his successors. It appears the book is only available for sale in the UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Necronomicon-Gothic-Dreams-S-T-Joshi/dp/1783613203/), but perhaps copies can be obtained from various US dealers.I was somehow not notified that a signature review of a reprint of Gore Vidals pseudonymous novelThieves Fall Out(1953), which I wrote forPublishers Weekly, had appeared in the February 9 issue. I see it is available online:http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-78116-792-2. This is a book that Vidal wrote during a period when (in his view) the New York publishing community was prejudiced against him because he had come out as gay. It has been reprinted by Titan Bookswhich I hope will allow me to set up my own imprint of weird/horror titles. My agent has forwarded to Titan a long list of titles (mostly reprint) that I have proposed for my series.Hippocampus Press is preparing a revised version of itsTen Years of Hippocampus Press, 20002010, covering the first fifteen years of its existence as a publisher. It certainly does contain an impressive list of titles, and I am writing brief notes on each of its publications to give some background on them. The publisher, Derrick Hussey, has apparently found that such a booklet is a good publicity tool, so we hope to have it ready at least by the NecronomiCon II convention (August 2023), if not much earlier.Speaking of conventions, I enjoyed CthulhuCon in Portland (April 2426), even though I felt a cold coming on as we drove down from Seattle and ended up spending most of the three days in bed. But I managed to participate in various functions, including a very lively panel on weird poetry (with Wade German, W. H. Pugmire, Jason V Brock, and Evan Peterson). This convention was a spinoff of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, which will take place in early October. It will also feature a substantial number of panels and other events beyond the films it will be showing. I'll keep open the possibility of my attendance.Work continues on many frontsmy edition of Robert Aickman for Centipede Press; a new volume of W. H. Pugmires stories (mostly reprint but some original) for Centipede; final work on the Variorum Lovecraft (which should be out around late June or July); reading proofs for the Dennis Etchison volume (Masters of the Weird Tale) for Centipede; and so on and so forth. Never a dull moment!April 13, 2015 A Tribute to Caitln R. KiernanI am happy to announce that I am assisting in the preparation of a major volume of stories, essays, and other matter as a tribute to the work of Caitln R. Kiernan, who I regard as the leading writer of weird fiction of her generation. I will be working closely with Caitln and her partner, Kathryn Pollnac, on the book, which will be published in 2016 by Centipede Press. Kathryn and I will be the officially designated editors of the book. We have an impressive lineup of authors and artists who have expressed an interest in contributing, but I am not at liberty to mention any of their names at this time. Since it is a Centipede Press publication, readers can be assured that it will be a superb-looking publication with the highest standards in design, layout, artwork, and other elements. We intend to title the bookBelow the Wide, Carnivorous Sky: A Tribute to Caitln R. Kiernan.I am also happy to have received, at last, some copies ofBlack Wings IV: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror(PS Publishing). I believe it is one of the most successful of the books in this series, with outstanding tales by Fred Chappell (Artifact), Richard Gavin (The Rasping Absence), Ann K. Schwader (Night of the Piper), Jonathan Thomas (We Are Made of Stars), John Pelan & Stephen Mark Rainey (Contact), and much else besides. Regrettably, I only have 2 spare copies to offer to my customers. The list price in the UK is 25 (about $40), so I will be happy to let these 2 copies go for $35 on the usual terms.I am also wrapping upBlack Wings V, which has plenty of interesting material in it also. I am undecided what to do next: whether to go ahead and compile aBlack Wings VIor to compile a general anthology of weird fiction (tentatively titledApostles of the Weird). I will ask my publisher, Pete Crowther of PS Publishing, what he prefers.I continue to do more work for Dover Publications, which has now signed me up to assemble a volume of weird tales by women writers. There have been several such volumes in the past, but I hope that my research into the history of supernatural writing (embodied inUnutterable Horror) has given me some insights into lesser-known tales and authors. The compilation begins with Mary Shelley (there is nothing short by the queen of the Gothics, Ann Radcliffe) and ends with Virginia Woolf (A Haunted House, 1921)for of course all the material has to be in the public domain.Dover has generated a cover for the edition of Maurice LevelsThirty Hours with a Corpse: here it is!

I was saddened to hear of the death last week of Sherry Austin, the outstanding author of subtle and superbly written weird tales such asMariah of the Spirits and Other Southern Ghost Stories(2002) andWhere the Woodbine Twines(2006). Hippocampus Press was planning an omnibus of her weird work, and we hope to proceed with this volume, which will include the material in the two books just mentioned along with several uncollected tales.April 6, 2015 Lovecrafts Influence on MathesonWork continues here at its usual hectic pace, chiefly focused on preparing my immense edition of the complete strange stories of Robert Aickman. But an interesting new discovery pertaining to Lovecraft has been passed on to me by a colleague, Stephen Spector. Mr. Spector was kind enough to send me an old science fiction magazine,Marvel Science Fiction(November 1951), which contains a rare and (until recently) unreprinted novella by Richard Matheson, Mountains of the Mind. The importance of this item rests in the fact that it clearly betrays the influence of Lovecraft, chiefly in its hints of a race of entities called the Great Ones who appear to have controlled human development over the millenniaan idea that clearly evokes The Shadow out of Time. There may also be echoes ofAt the Mountains of Madnessin other parts of the tale. The story has indeed been reprinted inMatheson Uncollected, Volume 2(Gauntlet Press, 2010), but is otherwise very difficult to find. To be frank, it is not a stellar piece of fiction, although it does develop a cumulative power as it goes along. But given that this may be the only story by Matheson that unequivocally shows an influence from Lovecraft, it remains noteworthy. Congratulations to Stephen Spector for the discovery!I see that three more volumes of the Illustrated Lovecraft have come out from PS Publishing: Volume 4 (The Shadow out of Time), Volume 5 (The Shadow over Innsmouth), and Volume 6 (At the Mountains of Madness). All the volumes, aside from containing spectacular illustrations by Pete Von Sholly, contain interesting ancillary matter that makes them well worth securing. Volume 4 has essays by Paul Montelone, Pete Von Sholly, and W. H. Pugmire. Volume 5 reprints two key stories that influenced HPLs tale (The Harbor-Master by Robert W. Chambers and Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb), along with original essays by Pete Von Sholly and Robert M. Price. Volume 6 reprints the hard-to-find story In Amundsens Tent by John Martin Leahy (fromWeird Tales, January 1928) that clearly influenced HPLs novella, along with original articles by Pete Von Sholly, Robert M. Price, and myself (a brief discussion of the Leahy story). I regret that I have no spare copies of these books to sell to customers.For no accountable reason, I have received from Greenwood Press two copies of the Hippocampus Press paperback reprint ofAn H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia(2001), which I wrote in collaboration with David E. Schultz. As I believe that this is a pretty useful resource for Lovecraftians, I would be happy to part with these copies for $15 each on the usual terms. Come and get em!I have completed the assembly of my next collection of essays,Varieties of the Weird Tale, due out next year from Hippocampus Press. The great majority of the contents come from essays or introductions that have appeared in a wide range of books and magazines. Some of the earlier pieces have been revised to some extent, but most are pretty much identical to their original appearances. To some degree the volume can be considered a pendant toUnutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction(2012), since I go into much greater detail on certain authors and works that I could only treat relatively briefly in that treatise. Here is the final table of contents: Preface Introduction: Establishing the Canon of Weird Fiction I.The Golden Age Some Notes on Ambrose Bierce I. Bierce as Political Satirist II. Bierce as Fabulust III. What Happens in The Death of Halpin Frayser A Triumvirate of Fantastic Poets: Ambrose Bierce, George Sterling, and Clark Ashton Smith Bram Stoker:Draculaand Others Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: The Domestic Ghost E. Nesbit: Lying Awake in the Dark Edna W. Underwood: Dear Dead Women Things in the Weeds: The Supernatural in Hodgsons Short Stories II.The Era of Lovecraft M. R. James and the Classic Ghost Story Some Notes on Lord Dunsany I. The Pegana Mythos II. Jorkens III. Christianity and Paganism in Two Dunsany Novels Sax Rohmer: The Popular Weird Tale Maurice Level and the Grand Guignol Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Morris: A Taste for the Weird Bran Mak Morn and History The Novels of Donald Wandrei III.Some Contemporaries Science and Superstition: Fritz Leibers Modernisation of Gothic Master and Pupil: August Derleth and Ramsey Campbells First Book Thomas LigottisThe Nightmare Factory Caitln R. Kiernan and Sensuous Prose Acknowledgments***Maybe I should hold a contest to see if readers can identify where all these items originally appeared!March 19, 2015 Black Wings IIIPaperback ArrivesI am at last in receipt of the paperback ofBlack Wings III, which Titan has (absurdly) retitledBlack Wings of Cthulhu 3.My copies arrived quite a bit after the contributors received theirsthe editor is always the last to know! I have several spare copies available for sale, and would be happy to dispose of them to interested customers for $15 each.Speaking of books, I find that sales of the Hippocampus Press books I offered last time have not exactly been robust. So I am forced to hold a kind of fire sale even at this early date, just to get the books out of here. In other words, I am happy to offer the books at a price of two for $25 (or, if you wish one book and one copy of the second issue ofSpectral Realms, you can have them for a total of $20). I can assure you that you will not be disappointed by any of the items in question!I am also in receipt of a copy ofThat Is Not Dead, a new anthology of Lovecraftian fiction edited by Darrell Schweitzer and issued by PS Publishing (http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/that-is-not-dead-hardcover-edited-by-darrell-schweitzer-2671-p.asp). This volume contains my story Incident at Ferney, in which Voltaire encounters Nyarlathotep! The story isnt quite as silly as this description makes it sound; in fact, I think it rather good. I believe it is the first publication of a work of fiction by me in quite some timemaybe since the appearance of my novelThe Assaults of Chaos(Hippocampus Press, 2013). I have now been invited to write stories for two other Lovecraftian anthologies, although I am not certain of my ability to write anything suitable for one or even both of these. Also, I am contemplating the writing of some novel-length works, both detection and horror. Well see if they come to anything.I have now begun in earnest the editing of the collected weird tales of Robert Aickman for Centipede Presss Masters of the Weird Tale series. This project is proving to be most entertaining, and I believe it will be the first time that Aickmans tales will be presented in chronological order by date of original publication. The Tartarus Press edition of AickmansCollected Strange Stories(1990) attempted a chronological arrangement, but didnt get it quite right.I am also working on a large volume of Thophile Gautiers weird and fantastic tales for Dark Renaissance Books. This volume should be done soon, although I have no idea when itor the previous books I have assembled for this publisher (the weird tales of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, E. Nesbit, and [in one volume] Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Morris)will appear.I have fashioned the rough contents of a new collection of essays on weird fiction, to be entitledVarieties of the Weird Tale. This will include essays I have written over the past decade or more on all manner of authors (Bierce, Dunsany, Leiber, etc.), as well as some introductions to my editions of various authors. The book should appear sometime next year from Hippocampus Press.PS Publishing should be receiving copies of the hardcover edition ofBlack Wings IVany day now, and they will presumably reach me a week or two after they do so. I will then be able to offer my spare copies for sale to interested customers. I have almost finished the compilation ofBlack WingsVand hope to pass it on to the publisher (for release in the spring of 2016) within a month or so.March 3, 2015 A Sheaf of Books from Hippocampus PressI have at long last received several of Hippocampus Presss recent titles, and I am happy to offer them at slight discounts from the list price, as follows: James Robert Smith,A Confederacy of Horrors($15) Rhys Hughes,Bone Idle in the Charnel House($15) Donald Tyson,The Lovecraft Coven($15) Michael Aronovitz,The Witch of the Wood($15) Joshua Kent,The Witch at Sparrow Creek($15) Spectral Realms#2 ($10)The collections by Smith and Hughes are full of interesting matter; Hughes in particular has one of the most idiosyncratic imaginations of any writer Ive ever encountered, and his stories are unfailingly piquant and memorable. The Tyson book is a pair of Lovecraftian novellas, both exceptional. Aronovitzs short novel and Kents full-length novel (set entirely in rural Appalachia) are also works that you are not likely to forget. So feel free to snap these up on the usual terms!I received my copies ofSpectral Realmsonly yesterday. It is an exceptional issue, with poems by such notable writers as John Shirley (2 poems!), Gemma Files, William F. Nolan, Jason V Brock, John C. Tibbetts, W. H. Pugmire, Mike Allen, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Adam Bolivar, Michael Fantina, and several others, along with the first part of Leigh Blackmores exhaustive essay on the poetry of Leah Bodine Drake.Hippocampus is gearing up to publish a number of interesting books for the NecronomiCon II convention (Providence, R.I., August 2023), among them Antonis Antoniadess novelThe Necronomicon, my revisedRise, Fall, and Rise of the Cthulhu Mythos, story collections by Ann K. Schwader (Dark Equinox and Other Tales of Lovecraftian Horror), Jonathan Thomas (Dreams of Ys and Other Invisible Worlds), and other volumes.One of these is Lois H. GreshsCult of the Dead and Other Weird and Lovecraftian Tales, which I have just finished going over; I also wrote an introduction for it. It is an exceptional collection of her tales, and I am proud to note that I myself published a number of them in my own anthologies.We are also working on a collection of Donald R. Burlesons essays on Lovecraft, as assembled by Phillip A. Ellis. This will also be a superlative book and will bring back into print many of Burlesons splendidly illuminating articles. Burleson will, I believe, be the Critic [or maybe Scholar] Guest of Honor at NecronomiCon II.I was pleased to renew my contract for my compilation of LovecraftsAgainst Religion: The Atheist Writings of H. P. Lovecraft, first published in 2010. The book will remain available from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0578052482/). I do believe this is a fine collection of material, containing both essays and letters that show Lovecraft to be a pioneering atheist thinker and polemicist. Well worth securing!I was tickled to see thatBlack Wings Ihas been translated into Czech (http://www.laser-books.cz/knihy/ant01.html#stjckc). I am hopeful that this will be only the first of several foreign-language editions for this series; indeed, I believe a Spanish version is in the works. I am also waiting on tenterhooks for the massive two-volume German edition ofI Am Providence, the first volume of which is, I think, imminent.Speaking ofBlack Wings, I am still waiting for (a) the paperback edition ofBlack Wings III(retitled by Titan Books asBlack Wings of Cthulhu 3), which some contributors have apparently already received, and (b) the hardcover ofBlack Wings IVfrom PS, which should appear any day now. Naturally, I will let readers know at once when these volumes reach me, as I should have at least a few copies to sell.February 27, 2015 Robert Dunbar on LovecraftMy attention has been drawn to yet another attack on Lovecraft, this time by one Robert Dunbar (https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/7724333-hatecraft). I had a bit of difficulty figuring out who Robert Dunbar is, for by some regrettable accident he has not yet been made the subject of a Wikipedia entry. It turns out that Mr. Dunbar has written a few supernatural novels recently, along with a literary novel and (Gawdelpus) some poetry. Ordinarily I would let this item pass in merciful silence, but it presents such juicy targets for rebuttal that I cannot resist a response.Dunbar opens with yet another criticism of Lovecrafts prose style. He quotes the celebrated final paragraph of The Call of Cthulhu:Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more, for theVigilantsailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will comebut I must not and cannot think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye.In regard to which, Mr. Dunbar writes plaintively: Does that passage truly inspire anyone to read more? Anyone who hasnt sustained a cranial injury?Well, as a matter of fact, my own judgment (derived from reading a fair amount of the great literature in English, Latin, Greek, French, German, and other languages) is that this is not merely good prose; it issuperbprose. I am getting to the point of thinking that anyone who doesnt think Lovecraft a fine prose writer is simply an ignoramussomeone who simply doesnt know anything about prose. It is as if youve put a dunce cap on your head and said to the world, I dont know the first thing about good writing.What is more, I would be willing to bet any amount of money that such writers as Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell, Caitln R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, and dozens of other contemporary writers in the weird fiction field have also found this passage powerful and effective. These and many other writers have all been significantly influenced by Lovecraft and are happy to admit it. Straub, indeed, edited the 2005 Library of America edition of Lovecraft that (paceMr. Dunbar) officially and permanently placed him in the ranks of canonical American writers.What does Mr. Dunbar have to counter these authorities? He puts forth one Peter Damien, who writes that Lovecraft is a godawful writer. He was so bad. I really cannot stress this enough. I had even more difficulty figuring out who Peter Damien is than in ascertaining Mr. Dunbars identity; amusingly enough, a Google search ends up confusing him with Peter Damian, a Catholic priest in the 11th century! All I can ascertain is that Mr. Damien is some kind of bloviator who enjoys spouting off on all manner of subjects he appears to know little about. And yet, Mr. Dunbar quotes him as some eminent authority on prose style (and of course his meticulous and well-reasoned comment proves that he must be!).As for me, I will repeat one more time the views of areal critic(and a real writer), one Joyce Carol Oates, who I trust is eminent enough even for Mr. Dunbar. What does she say about Lovecrafts prose? Most of Lovecrafts talesdevelop by way of incremental detail, beginning with quite plausible situationsOne is drawn into Lovecraft by the very air of plausibility and characteristic understatement of the prose, the question beingWhen will the weirdness strike?There is a melancholy, operatic grandeur in Lovecrafts most passionate work, like The Outsider and At the Mountains of Madness; a curious elegiac poetry of unspeakable loss, of adolescent despair and an existential loneliness so pervasive that it lingers in the readers memory, like a dream, long after the rudiments of Lovecraftian plot have faded.But lets keep the focus on Mr. Dunbar. If he thinks Lovecraft is such a bad writer, he must think that he himself can do better. Lets see if he can. I take a passage at random from the authors novelWood:Rosaria almost felt sorry for him. After all, Miss Whatsis could be snippy and officious, even toward him, or especially toward him. (Except when they imagined themselves to be unobserved.) He just stood there, grinning, and Miss Whosis had already started yammering at him.Thisis supposed to be good prose, in contrast to Lovecrafts? I would call attention to the clumsy slang of snippy and yammering, the ungrammatical sentence-fragment enclosed in the parenthesis, and in general an utter lack of rhythm, music, and modulation. No wonder I can barely stomach reading much contemporary prose (with rare exceptions such as Ramsey Campbell, Caitln R. Kiernan, and a few others)!It is breathtaking that Dunbar is prepared to dismiss the entire field of weird fiction as anti-literary. Surely an odd assertion about a field that has seen contributions by such writers as Daniel Defoe, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Jorge Luis Borges, and dozensperhaps hundredsof others who strike me as being tolerably literary. (Question: If the genre is so anti-literary, why is Mr. Dunbar dabbling in it? Maybe he is trying to uplift it into some level of literariness! Judged by the passage I quoted above, he isnt doing a very good job of it.)It should be no surprise that Dunbar fills himself with righteous indignation about Lovecrafts racism. It now appears that any defenders of Lovecraft are giving him a free pass on the subject. How so? I myself (who am surely one of his chief defendersnot to mention a person of colour, which Mr. Dunbar emphatically is not) have stated in my biography that racism is the greatest black mark on Lovecrafts character and gone into considerable detail about how racism affected his life, work, and thought. Just because I dont get hyperventilated and self-righteous when talking about the subject, or because I dont append every single utterance I make about Lovecraft with, Oh, and by the way, Lovecraft was a racist, it would appear that I am giving him a free pass. Are we giving a free pass to Jack London for not constantly harping on his yellow peril screeds while we readThe Call of the Wild,or on T. S. Eliots anti-Semitism while readingThe Waste Land,or on Roald Dahls racismandanti-Semitism while readingSomeone Like You?(And lets not even approach the adjacent genre of science fiction. There is abundant evidence that such figures as John W. Campbell, Jr., Robert A. Heinlein, and Orson Scott Card were and are racists of a much worse stripe than Lovecraftbut no one is advocating not reading them anymore.)And why stop there? Why not ban other writers for their erroneous opinions on other subjects? Lord Dunsany was politically conservative and a member of the idle hereditary aristocracyso of course we must not readA Dreamers Tales.Ambrose Bierce was a vicious misogynistso of course we must not read An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Edgar Allan Poe was a drunkard and a pedophile (he married his 13-year-old cousin, for Gawds sake)so of course his poetry and short stories are off-limits.The details of Mr. Dunbars analysis (I use the word loosely) of Lovecrafts racism leave much to be desired. He quotes the luminous Charles Baxter as saying (in reference to Leslie S. KlingersNew Annotated H. P. Lovecraft): Klinger notes that Lovecrafts support of Hitlers eugenic programs, including the racial cleansing advocated by Ernest Rdin and others, is well known. This is wrong on two counts; first, Klinger made no such assertion, and Lovecraft in fact didnotendorse the Nazi eugenic scheme. A letter to Robert Bloch (22 November 1934) goes on at some length on the subject, but this passage is representative: Thecomplexityof the laws governing organic growth is enormousso enormous that the number of unknown factors must always remain hopelessly great. We can discover & apply a few biological principlesbut the limit of effectiveness is soon reached. For exampledespite all the advances in endocrinology & all the experiments in glandular rejuvenation, there is no such thing as a permanent or well-balanced staving-off of senescence & dissolution. What is morethere really is nooneidea of racial excellence. Even if theprincipleof eugenic control were accepted by a nation, there would remain a constant struggle among various factions advocating differentgoalsof development. One group would advocate the cultivation of this or that group of emotions, or the establishment of this or that blood mixture, while another would campaign ceaselessly for a directly opposite result. Thus the Nazis in Germany want to get rid of every trace of Jewish blood, while other groups believe that the highest intellectual qualities in all races come through prehistoric & forgotten infusions of Semitic blood! Amidst such a confusion of objects, what single policy could ever gain an effective ascendancy?How odd that rational passages like this are never quoted by Lovecrafts detractors!The other strange thing about Dunbars screed is his odd assumption that everyone who defends Lovecraft on the racism issue must be politically conservative, while those who exhibit noble sanctimoniousness on the subject must be politically liberal. I hardly imagine that my liberal bona fides are in much doubt, given how liberally (pardon the pun) and enthusiastically I lambaste conservatives in the pages of theAmerican Rationalist,or in such of my books asThe Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong(2006). But I am not blind to liberalisms flaws, and one of its worst is, I fear, exactly the kind of political correctness that gets all hot and bothered about the views of an author nearly a century dead while not doing much to combat real evils we face today. If Mr. Dunbar is so outraged at Lovecrafts racism, I wonder what he would say if, fifty years from now, our own society is crucified for its oversexed, violence-ridden, thoroughly misogynistic cultureas, indeed, it should be. And if Mr. Dunbar thinks that we collectively have dealt with racism a great deal better than Lovecrafts generation did, he simply isnt paying attention to what is going on in this country or around the world. (Dunbar ought to consider himself lucky that no one will bother to probe the skeletons inhiscloset when he is dead. Does he deny that he has any skeletons?)What is more, Dunbar reveals not the faintest awareness that Lovecraft himself became (except on the issue of race) not merely a liberal but a socialistone who enjoyed lambasting the Republicans of his era as hidebound reactionaries. One such passage, written late in life, should suffice:As for the Republicanshow can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion thatreal libertyis synonymous with the single detail ofunrestricted economic license,or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical American heritage ) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.Those words are truer now than when they were first written.Dunbar also seems inclined to the seriously erroneous view that weird fiction as a whole is somehow a conservative or even a reactionary genre. I have no idea why or how he could have come to such a view. His own understanding of politics seems about as crude and undeveloped as his understanding of literature. My own acquaintance with the leading writers of this field confirms that a substantial majority of them are politically liberal. But why that should have any bearing on our evaluation of their purely literary merits is a query that I happily admit I fail to understand.To wrap up. I unhesitatingly declare H. P. Lovecraft not merely a good writer but agreatwritergreat in his management of prose, great in his imaginative scope, great in the philosophical and aesthetic underpinnings of his fiction, and great in the effective construction of a tale that allows it to become so compellingly readable. His influence is now perhaps greater than that of Edgar Allan Poe, and on its purely intrinsic merits his work is superior to that of every writer in the history of weird fiction with the possible exception of Ramsey Campbell.And as for Lovecrafts politics, I think it would be vastly better if a certain amount of rationality and understanding could be brought to bear upon the subject. Self-righteous indignation may make one feel momentarily virtuous, but it accomplishes little else. As an atheist I am not much inclined to quote the Bible as an authority, but one pungent utterance does strike me as appropriate in this context: Judge not, lest ye be judged.I wonder why Lovecrafts detractors dont just give up. Their foolish screeds are so easily refuted that there is really no sport in it anymore. And yet, they seem unable to resist the temptation to reveal their ignorance and prejudice for all the world to see.February 16, 2015 Many Projects in the Works!Things seem to be even more hectic than usual these days, and I am having difficulty keeping track oflet alone working onthe multitude of projects I have committed to completing. But before I go into that, I am happy to see the appearance of a superb article on Lovearaft by areal critic(one Michael Dirda, formerly the editor of theWashington Post Book Worldand a critic always sensitive to the value of genre fiction), who appreciates Lovecraft (and, ahem, me) as they deserve. Dont let the whimsical title fool you; it is a splendid piece, and its appearance in a most noteworthy venue (the [London]Times Literary Supplement] will get the sour taste of Charles Baxters article out of our mouths:http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1512314.ece.On the downside, I was saddened to see Scarecrow Press/Rowman & Littlefield cancel my series, Studies in Supernatural Literature. The sales of the published titles have been pretty anaemic, and the publisher is generally cutting back on the number of titles it publishes. I was not really sorry, for I had encountered more difficulty than I had expected in coming up with viable titlesand I was not enthusiastic about signing up books on such popular but inferior writers as Stephen King (although Stefan Dziemianowicz, who had thought of submitting a proposal on him, would no doubt have done a splendid job) and Dean R. Koontz. Some titles that have been contractede.g., a monograph on Richard Matheson by June Pulliam and Tony Fonseca, and an anthology of essays onWeird Talesedited by Jeffrey Shankswill be published; others have been dropped. One of theseGary William Crawfords monograph on Robert Aickmanmay be picked up by Hippocampus Press. I was particularly sorry to see that John C. Tibbettss book on Peter Straub was cancelled, but I imagine John can place this with an academic press.I was pleased and surprised to receive a copy of David J. SchowsThe Shaft, now available in a beautiful hardcover edition (a reprint of the 1990 UK edition from Maconald) by Centipede Press:http://www.centipedepress.com/horror/shaft.html. I received only one copy of this book, so interested readers will have to purchase a copy for themselves. I had made a strong pitch to the publisher to reissue this book, which I regard as one of the finest novels of the horror boom of the 1970s1990s; and I scanned the text for the publisher, since the author did not have an electronic file available. The next step is to ensure that the book is picked up in paperback, since the limited Centipede Press edition will no doubt go out of print in short order.I was amused to see the publication ofThe Starry Wisdom Library(PS Publishing), an amusing fake book catalogue featuring descriptions of many of the forbidden books invented by Lovecraft and others, assembled by Nate Pederson. The catalogue contains contributions by a remarkable number of prestigious writers, including Ann K. Schwader, Darrell Schweitzer, Donald Tyson, Don Webb, F. Paul Wilson, Gemma Files, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., John Langan, Matt Cardin, Michael Cisco, Nick Mamatas, Ramsey Campbell (onThe Revelations of Glaaki, of course), Richard Gavin, Robert M. Price, Simon Strantzas, and W. H. Pugmire. I wrote the foreword. A most engaging compilation! Again, I received only one copy, so I hope readers will hasten to purchase it from the publisher (http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/the-starry-wisdom-library-jhc-edited-by-nate-pedersen-2564-p.asp).Speaking of PS, I see that Darrell Schweitzers anthologyThat Is Not Deadis announced as forthcoming (http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/that-is-not-dead-hardcover-edited-by-darrell-schweitzer-2671-p.asp). This contains my immortal story Incident at Ferney, depicting the encounter of Voltaire with Nyarlathotep! Absurd as it sounds, I think the story came out reasonably well.Black Wings IV(http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/black-wings-iv-new-tales-of-lovecraftian-horror-hardcover-edited-by-st-joshi-2625-p.asp) is also listed as forthcoming and should be available at any time. I have also heard that the paperback (from Titan) ofBlack Wings III(retitledBlack Wings of Cthilhu 3) is available; indeed, I saw Wilum Pugmires copy the other day. But I have not received any copies myself as yet.I was delighted to have done a light copyedit of Nicole Cushings story collectionThe Mirrors, which should appear from Cycatrix Press in time for the World Horror Convention in Atlanta in early May. It is a splendid volume with some remarkable tales in it. I was pleased and humbled to have written the foreword. Dont hesitate to pick it up when it comes out!Apparently a number of new titles from Hippocampus Press have appeared, but I have not received any copies; the moment I do, I will make them available for purchase to interested customers. We are planning a number of provocative titles to appear for the NecronomiCon II convention in Providence, R.I., in August, among which will be a revised version of myRise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos(2008), now retitledThe Rise, Fall, and Rise of the Cthulhu Mythos. I have just finished preparing the index, although I do not know whether cover art has been completed, or even begun.Another hugely important title to appear later this year from Hippocampus will be nothing less significant than David E. Schultzs long-awaited annotated edition of LovecraftsFungi from Yuggoth. Aside from the fact that every poem in this 36-sonnet cycle will be illustrated (I believe there are six different illustrators, each tackling six sonnets), Schultzs commentary may cover some 200 pages and illuminate both the literary sources of each poem but their influence on subsequent works by Lovecraft. This is a project that has been more thanthirty yearsin the making. I remember seeing a draft of it when I first met Schultz in 1986, at Steve Maricondas wedding; and the project had been in progress before then. It will no doubt be the last word on this sonnet cycle!February 5, 2015 Dreams from the Witch Houseand OthersMy colleague Lynne Jamneck is undertaking an exciting project calledDreams from the Witch House, an anthology of all-original Lovecraftian stories written by women. Lynne is undertaking an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the project (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dreams-from-the-witch-house-women-of-lovecraft). Some nice goodies are being offered for contributions (seehttps://www.facebook.com/events/707915729307537/715125678586542). Im confident the anthology will be a splendid one, so best to get in on the ground floor!Speaking of anthologies, ourGothic Lovecraftvolume received a late but splendid contribution by John Shirley, The Rime of the Cosmic Marinerin which John perfectly mimics the style and manner of Samuel Taylor Coleridge while also producing a splendidly chilling Lovecraftian weird tale. Also, we have decided to go with Caitln R. Kiernans As Red as Red (2010) over her story Andromeda among the Stones (2002). The latter, while a fine story, did not seem to us quite to reflect the fusion of Gothic and Lovecraftian themes we wished, and in any case it has been reprinted a number of times; but the former story is a brilliant evocation of HPLs The Shunned House and its allusions to vampire activity in Rhode Island in the 1890s.My article on Lovecraftian elements in the films of Guillermo del Toro is now definitely scheduled for publication in the volumeThe Supernatural Cinema of Guillermo del Toro, which will be appearing this spring or summer from McFarland (http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-9595-5). Another essay of mine, on Shirley JacksonsThe Sundial, has been sent back to me for some minor revisions. I cant remember when the book containing it will appear, but I imagine I will know soon enough.I have now read proofs of the PS edition ofBlack Wings IV(due out this month, perhaps) as well as the proofs of the paperback edition ofBlack Wings III(also due out this month from Titan Booksunder the altered titleBlack Wings of Cthulhu III). My compilation ofBlack Wings Vproceeds apace. But after that, I may take a break from Lovecraftian anthologies (although I am still negotiating with Titan forCthulhu Noir) and compile a general weird anthology. My tentative title for such a book isApostles of the Weird. The idea is to present as wide-ranging a volume as possible, to demonstrate the broad scope and parameters of the weird tale.January 29, 2015 Charles Baxter on LovecraftAgain!I was a bit surprised to see that a highly truncated version of my response to Charles Baxters article in theNew York Review of Bookshas been published in the new issue of that paper (dated February 19, 2015). I had sent my response to the editors ofNYRBand was told that only a 400-word letter could be published. (My full response was ten times that length.) I hastily prepared such a letter, but then never heard from the editors as to whether it would be published or not.Adding to the bizarrerie, Mr. Baxter has appended a reply that addresses, not the letter as published inNYRB, but my full response! I am not particularly impressed by Mr. Baxters reply, which I will hereby subject to a sentence-by-sentence analysis: One would think, reading S. T. Joshis response to my book review, that I had attacked the object of a cult. [If correcting the errors of a critics analysis of a given writer constitutes defending a cult writer, then Poe, Melville, Whitman, Bierce, Hemingway, Mencken, and dozens of other writers are all cult writers. All these writers have faced, during and after their lifetimes, malicious and error-riddled attacks exactly along the lines of Baxters screed on Lovecraft.] His lengthy letter never acknowledges that my review of Lovecrafts stories was divided into two parts: the first containing my misgivings about the fiction, the second containing guarded praise. [This is a deliberate mischaracterisation of Baxters article. In fact, the first part of it was a grotesque slander against Lovecraft the person (as one who was a stranger to joy and who was a shut-in, etc. etc.). And while I could have addressed some errors and distortions in the guarded praise in the second part of the article, that didnt seem to me sufficiently important to discuss.] I am not surprised that Joshi, who has spent much of his life studying Lovecraft, was affronted by my review, but he doesnt seem to understand the distinction between matters of fact and matters of judgment. Readers of Lovecraft can judge for themselves whether Lovecrafts prose contains infelicities of style, along with misogyny and racism. [Mr. Baxter stubbornly refused to acknowledge the numerous errors of fact that he made in his review; and many of his judgments on Lovecraft are based directly on those errors of fact.] Joshis argument against the stories misogyny is of the some-of-his-best-friends-were-women variety, a confusion of the work and the life. [To call someone a misogynist, as Baxter did in his article, is to make a fairly clear personal commentor attackon a writers character, and it is false and disingenuous to claim that the assertion merely reflects an interpretation of the authors literary work. In any event, I have clearly established that Baxter has misinterpreted key elements of the stories in finding a misogynist undercurrent where there is none.] As for Lovecrafts racism, Joshis defense of Lovecrafts views in his letter is astonishing in this day and age; he quotes, with apparent approval, Lovecrafts suggestion of apartheid as a benevolent remedy. [My whole argument, in discussing HPLs racism, is that it is unfair and unwise to judge him based on the standards of this day and agevery few (including such known racists and anti-Semites as Jack London, T. S. Eliot, and Roald Dahl) would come away unscathed from such scrutiny. In any event, the apartheid that HPL recommended was one that a number of black leaders of his day (e.g., Marcus Garvey) had themselves advocated.] Joshi seems unable to grasp my argument that the racism is at the core of the stories horror of aliens. [I cant grasp this argument because it is nonsensical and belied by the plain facts of the case. It is a highly tortuous and prejudicial reading of Lovecrafts stories to maintain that any of his extraterrestrial gods and monsterswith the exception of the Deep Ones in The Shadow over Innsmouthare somehow meant as stand-ins for ethnic minorities. See more on this below.] I never denied that the stories have a disturbing power. What readers should certainly note, however, is that Joshi is territorial; while I grant him the right to his opinions, he does not grant me a right to mine. [Now Baxter has descended to whining. It is the last, desperate ploy of persons losing a debate to plead that their opponents are trying to silence them. Baxter is free to say anything he wants on Lovecraft; but surely I am free to rebut his arguments and point out their errors and fallacies. No one is trying to abridge Baxters freedom of speech; but freedom of speech does not imply freedom from criticism. Baxter seems to think he can say anything he wants on Lovecraft and not face critical scrutinybut that would be a denial ofmyfreedom of speech, and of the speech of any others who dont agree with him.]Things get curiouser and curiouser. Another letter published in theNYRBissue is by one Mark Halpern. It addresses nothing in Baxters own article but attacksmefor some perceived failings in my biography of Lovecraftor, rather, one failing in particular, to wit: Joshi must have been suffering from one of his rare moments of fatigue when it came to linking his subjects attitude toward Jews and other sorts of non-Nordic immigrants to New Yorks Lower East Side to the emotional source of Cthulhu and his like, because he writes not one word about the topic in his otherwise painfully detailed biography. Well, lordy me! I confess to be guilty as chargedbecause thereislittle or no connection between Lovecrafts racism and his creation of the gods and monsters in his fiction.It is most curious how many recent critics (Charles Baxter, Laura Miller, and now Mr. Halpern) have put forth this view without providing the slighest evidence for it. Let us examine the physical properties of Lovecrafts iconic creation, Cthulhu. When the narrator of The Call of Cthulhu first sees Wilcoxs bas-relief of the creature, he describes it as follows: If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was thegeneral outlineof the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. Lovecrafts description of the actual sight of Cthulhu by Johansen is deliberately vague, but we do have this: The Thing of the idols, the green, sticky spawn of the stars, had awaked to claim his own. Uh-ohCthulhu isgreen!Maybe this means that he is a stand-in for people of colour! If you believe that, theres a bridge nearby that Id like to sell you.It is true that the Cthulhu cultists in Louisiana do symbolise Lovecrafts disdain of certain types of foreigners: they were men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattoes, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a colouring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. Well and good; but this whole passage (the second section of the story) is largely an elaborate info dump whereby we learn the basic properties of Cthulhu and his spawn, as recounted by old Castro. I dont see that there is anything specifically anti-Semtiic in the passage above. Mr. Halpern (who predictably refers to Lovecrafts pathological anti-Semitism) will be surprised to learn that Lovecraft repeatedly declared his belief that Jews in both America and Europe were in several ways culturally superior to Anglo-Saxonssomething that could certainly not be said of the Cthulhu cultists in Louisiana.How about Lovecrafts other gods and monsters? Azathoth? He is described in one story as follows: that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinitythe boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time Any racist implications there, people?Yog-Sothoth, maybe? We hear of him as a congeries of iridescent globes. Theremustbe a racist implication there somewhere, butGawdelpmeI just dont have the critical acumen to detect it.Shub-Niggurath? Well, she is usually mentioned in the same breath as The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. Omigod!blackgoat! All right, thats it: she must be a stand-in for HPLs disdain for black women who breed a lot! What else is possible? Well, wait a minuteHPL does describe her elsewhere as a kind of sophisticated Astarte, so I guess we can presume that HPL was prejudiced against the ancient Mesopotamians.Nyarlathotep also seems very promising. He is first described as having the bearing of a Pharaoh. OK, no question about itthis must reflect HPLs prejudice against Arabs! But it seems that Nyarlathotep emerged from the blackness of twenty-seven centuriesmeaning that he emerged about thirteen centuries before the birth of Mohammad. But didnt HPL describe him as the Black Man in The Dreams in the Witch House? Oh, waitthat was the standard designation for the leader of a witch coven. And HPL states specifically that the Black Man in that story was devoid of negroid features.How about the fungi from Yuggoth in The Whisperer in Darkness? Well, theyre described as half-fungous, half-crustacean creatures from a planet identifiable as the remote and recently discovered Pluto; so unless we assume that HPL had a prejudice against mushrooms or crabs, I dont see any racist undercurrent here.The Old Ones ofAt the Mountains of Madness?They are barrel-shaped creatures with starfish-heads and tentacles. Again I struggle to connect them with HPLs racism. Anyway, arent they substantially superior to humans in intellect and many other qualities? What about those loathsome shoggoths? I suppose something could be made of the fact that they are immense, amorphous masses ofblackprotoplasm The Great Race of The Shadow out of Time? They are huge, rugose, cone-shaped creatures who are also vastly superior to human beings, since they are virtually omniscient and have conquered time. Not much racism there, I fear.I have repeatedly maintained that the only major story by Lovecraft based on racist presuppositions is The Shadow over Innsmouth. And (paceMr. Halpern) I do in fact discuss this matter at length in my biography. Here is some of what I wrote there: The Shadow over Innsmouth isclearly a cautionary tale on the ill effects ofmiscegenation,or the sexual union of different racesIt is, accordingly, difficult to deny a suggestion of racism running all through the story. There is much more to this effect, but I trust that will do.Our valiant critics have also failed to notice the several stories in which various unsavoury characters are unmistakably Caucasian. This applies particularly to the aristocratic Dutch-American family in The Lurking Fear, the wealthy Anglo-American family in The Rats in the Walls, and even the decadent inhabitants of Dunwich in The Dunwich Horror. The Dunwich denizens are clearly a racially homogeneous (white) clan of backwoods New England farmers; there seem to be no ethnic minorities there. If one didnt know who wrote these stories, one could easily conclude that their author was prejudiced against white people!The plain fact is that most of Lovecrafts gods and monsters are meant to symbolise the immensityboth spatial and temporalof a universe where human beings occupy a derisively insignificant place. Their titanic power and anomalous physical properties are metaphors for the inscrutability of a universe where things may be very different from the way they are here.Those hostile critics seeking to maintain some intimate connection between Lovecrafts racism and the creation of these alien entities will have to put forth more than mere assertions to make their case. In my mind, the evidence is overwhelmingly against them.January 19, 2015 Gothic LovecraftDone!I am happy to announce that the anthology that Lynne Jamneck and I have been assembling for some time,Gothic Lovecraft, is now done. Here is a peek at the table of contents: Donald R. Burleson, The Shadow over Lear Don Webb, The Revelation at the Abbey Jonathan Thomas, Old Goodman Brown Lois H. Gresh, Square of the Inquisition Mollie L. Burleson, A Yuletide Carol Donald Tyson, Curse of the House of Usher Mark Howard Jones, The Rolling of Old Thunder Nancy Kilpatrick, Always a Castle? Robert S. Wilson, Four Arches Gwyneth Jones, The Old Schoolhouse Orrin Grey, Dream House Lynda E. Rucker, The Unknown Chambers Caitln R. Kiernan, Andromeda among the StonesAll the stories save the last are original, and every one is a powerful fusion of Gothic elements of various sorts with Lovecraftian motifs. A splendid book! It should be published by Cycatrix Press in time for the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, NY, which I will be attending (as will the publisher, Jason V Brock).Meanwhile, I am mortified and dismayed that there has been so little interest in theWeird Fiction Review, whose bumper-crop fifth issue I announced last time. I have received very few offers to take my spare copies of the issue off my hands. So at great personal sacrifice I am offering the issue for a bargain price of $20. Come one, come all! And, when the issue goes out of print and begins commanding high prices (as it inevitably will), dont say I didnt give you a chance!I am in the process of preparing the index and reading the proofs of my revisedRise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythoswhich is now retitledThe Rise, Fall, and Rise of the Cthulhu Mythos. Hippocampus Press hopes to have this book ready for NecronomiCon II this August, if not earlier. It has now been significantly expanded in size and may check in at more than 400 pages.Proofs ofBlack Wings IVhave arrived from the publisher (PS Publishing), and on the whole they look pretty good. PS had announced the book as being available in February, and lets hope it is able to keep that promise. The signature sheets of the signed/limited edition are also beginning to circulate, so that edition may not be quite as delayed as the one forBlack Wings IIIwas. (As a matter of fact, I never even got a copy of the signed/limited edition, nor did any of the contributors.) I believe the paperback ofBlack Wings IIwill also come out pretty soon, maybe February or March.I am contemplating the issuance of e-books of some of my older titles, specificallyThe Weird Tale(1990),H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West(1990),A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft(1996), andThe Modern Weird Tale(2001). These books may or may not actually be in print (the first three in reprints from Wildside Press; the fourth from McFarland), but I have retained e-book rights. But since I no longer have electronic files of these books, such files will have to be generateda tedious process. But I think it is worth doing. I shall probably let Hippocampus issue the e-books. Of course, in the process of preparing electronic files I shall probably do some revision. Indeed, I wish I could slap on a new title toA Subtler Magick, whose title and subtitle were determined by the publisher; but I suppose that is not possible.I have been labouring with a cold/cough ever since my return from Vancouver, BC (January 811), where I attended the Modern Language Association conference. Actually, Mary and I spent as little time at the conference as we could, spending most of the time in exploring this most interesting city. I was on a panel discussion on weird fiction on Sunday, January 11. I was dreading the event, because I know from experience that this conference (attended almost exclusively by academics) can be and usually is insufferably pompous and stuffy; but our panel, to my surprise, went reasonably well. One young person professed considerable familiarity with both HPL and my work, and I encouraged him to attend NecronomiCon II. I also met the poet Wade German and his charming wife, and we had much lively discussion on various subjects as well as a nice tour of an anthropological museum. On our own Mary and I walked around Stanley Park and had a splendid lunch at the Fish House there. (Pardon us, HPL!)I cannot leave my readers without commenting on the miraculous conclusion of the NFC championship game between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks. The game was going so badly for my Seahawks that I was going to give up watchingbut Mary said she would watch to the bitter end, so I decided to stick to it. And Im glad I did. I dont recall a more remarkable conclusion to a game in all my fifty years of watching football. All I say, however, is that the Seahawks had better not make so many mistakes if they expect to win the Super Bowl in two weeks.January 2, 2015 Weird Fiction ReviewArrivesI received copies ofWeird Fiction ReviewNo. 5 (2014) a week or so ago. Of course, it looks splendid from a purely physical perspective, but I believe the contents are also exemplary. It includes four separate interviews (Dennis Etchison on Ray Bradbury; Jonathan Johnson on Michael Aronovitz; Jason V Brock on Al Feldstein; Wayne Edwards on Stuart David Schiff); fiction by Brian Stableford, Jason V Brock, Donald Tyson, Jonathan Thomas, Robert H. Waugh, Darrell Schweitzer, and others; and articles by Dennis Etchison (on Forrest J Ackerman), Jan Vander Laenen, Stefan Dziemianowicz, and others; poetry by Wade German, Ann K. Schwader, and others; and columns by John Pelan and Danel Olson. The publisher, Centipede Press, states that the list price is $35 but is currently offering it for $25. I will follow suit and offer my spare copies for $25, which includes shipping for US customers.Well, my threater, promiseto dig out my violin and play it at the Northwest Chorales play-along/sing-along of HandelsMessiahon December 30 turned into a reality, and it was an enthralling experience. I was substantially assisted by three other violinists (one first violinist and two second violinists) who covered up my numerous mistakes and bad intonation. But I know the work so well (from a choral perspective) that I was able to lead the orchestra quite effectively. I was hoping that my wife, Mary, would take some pictures of the event, but she was ill and stayed home; however, some pictures taken by others have been forwarded to me, and I am hoping that my webmaster can make one of them visible here. I will, however, not repeat this undertaking or take up the violin on a regular basis: no time and no real interest!

Continuing on the musical theme, I have heard a rough CD of our choirs December 13 performance, andaside from the irritant of a crying babyit turned out reasonably well. We will be able to fine-tune the recording in various ways to make it better still, and there is a good chance that this one will in fact be offered for sale commercially, since I am securing permission for all songs that are still under copyright.Mary and I took a brief trip to Los Angeles over the Christmas holidays to see my two sisters and their families. One December 26 I was please to make the personal acquaintance of two young poets, Kyle (K. A.) Opperman (whoseThe Crimson Tomewill appear this year from Hippocampus Press) and Ashley Dioses (who has a poem in the newWeird Fiction Reviewand is likely to have a poetry book from Hippocampus sometime in the future). We engaged in several hours of lively discussion of poetry and other matters. Indeed, Kyle suggested to me that I encourage Leigh Blackmore to assemble a volume of the collected weird poetry of Leah Bodine Drake. Leigh has just written a long article on Drakes poetry (which will appear in two parts in the next two issues ofSpectral Realms)an article that notes that, aside from the fabulously rare Arkham House bookA Hornbook for Witches(1950), Drake also published a second poetry volume,The Tilting Dust(1956), which has some weird specimens. In addition, there is a third, unpublished poetry manuscript,Multiple Clay, among her papers at the University of Kentucky. I have just asked the library there for a copy or scan of this text. So I hope that a volume of Drakes poetry, under Leighs editorship, can appear in the next year or two.I am just now wrapping up my edition of the weird tales of Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Morris for Dark Renaissance Books. It will be calledBack There in the Grass, from the title of Morriss most famous story. This is really a very interesting compilation, and the weird work of these two author is quite creditable. I think I will then proceed with an assemblage of the weird tales of Thomas Burke, a writer I have always admired. Jessica Amanda Salmonson seems to have assembled a pretty comprehensive volume of Burkes weird tales (The Golden Gong and Other Night-Pieces[Ash-Tree Press, 2001]), but this book is long out of print and no doubt quite expensive. I may include the complete contents of Burkes classic collectionNight-Pieces(1935), even though not all the stories are weird; and there are other weird stories scattered in other collections that I will also include. After I assemble the Burke volume, I will put together a substantial book of Thophile Gautiers weird tales.Lynne Jamneck and I have pretty much completed our assembly ofGothic Lovecraft, and the volume has come out quite well indeed, with contributions from Lois H. Gresh, Orrin Grey, Nancy Kilpatrick, Lynda Rucker, Jonathan Thomas, Donald Tyson, Don Webb, and several others. This will be appearing from Jason V Brocks Cycatrix Press later this yearperhaps around the time of the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York. I am also helping Jason assemble Nicole Cushings first short story collection,The Mirrors, which he hopes to bring out for the World Horror Convention in Atlanta (May 710). I am not sure I will be able to attend that event, as I would have to miss one of my choir performances (currently set for May 9 and 16).So this year is likely to be a busy one!