While clearing out some excess material in my basement lair, I came upon a sheaf of (mostly) Hippocampus Press books that I’d forgotten I had. So I am now prepared to offer them in a sort of mini fire sale. The following titles are all available for only $10 each:

Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., Lovecraftian Voyages

Sam Gafford, The Dreamer in Fire and Others (only one copy!)

(only one copy!) S. T. Joshi, ed., Black Wings of Cthulhu 5

S. T. Joshi, ed., The Red Brain (paperback)

(paperback) H. P. Lovecraft, Complete Fiction: A Variorum Edition, Volume 4

Michael Shea, Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales

Donald Sidney-Fryer, Aesthetics Ho!

Jeffrey Thomas, Haunted Worlds

Jonathan Thomas, Naked Revenants

And the books that I’ve mentioned in some recent blogs are still available in limited quantities, so I’ll offer them at an immediate discount of $10 each:

Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Morris, Back There in the Grass

H. P. Lovecraft, Letters to Alfred Galpin and Others

H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith (2 vols.—$20 for the set)

(2 vols.—$20 for the set) May Sinclair, If the Dead Knew

Clint Smith, The Skeleton Melodies

To those who purchase any of the above, the following books of poetry are only $5:

Adam Bolivar, The Lay of Old Hex

Ashley Dioses, Diary of a Sorceress

Fred Phillips, Wind from Sheol

Dead Reckonings No. 27 (Spring 2020)

I was happy to have edited and published a title that has long been on my horizon: Huxley and Gladstone on Genesis (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FP5TY5B). This is a reprint of a debate between William Ewart Gladstone (the four-time British prime minister who, like our own William Jennings Bryan, became a fundamentalist Christian toward the end of his life) and the great anthropologist and philosopher Thomas Henry Huxley over the veracity of certain details in the Book of Genesis. The debate appeared in the pages of the Nineteenth Century , a leading British intellectual journal, in the 1880s; a few years later, the debate resumed, with the focus being the ludicrous story of the Gadarene swine (the story, as recounted in the three Synoptic Gospels, of how Jesus purportedly expelled demons from a madman and thrust them into the bodies of pigs, who at once drowned themselves in a body of water). Most of Huxley’s various essays were reprinted in his own books published toward the end of his life, but I do not believe Gladstone’s essays have ever been reprinted; and, of course, the essays don’t make much sense unless you read them as part of this debate. I have added an introduction, but otherwise have not done much in the way of commentary.

The beginning of the HBO miniseries Lovecraft Country , directed by Jordan Peele, has led to a certain activity on my part, as I have been called to comment on Lovecraft and related issues. I conducted an entertaining podcast with John Brooks, and it is now live (https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/hardtobelieve?selected=CCPN5880253297). I have just been interviewed by Alexander Adams for an article he will write for a magazine called the Critic. I myself wrote an article, “H. P. Lovecraft: Racism and Recognition,” for the Truth Seeker for September.

As for the miniseries itself—I do not have HBO so I cannot comment on it, but initial reviews seem to be quite mixed. I contributed to an assessment that my friend Michael Washburn gave for the online journal Book and Film Globe (https://bookandfilmglobe.com/television/tv-review-lovecraft-country/). This does not make me very keen on seeing the show.

Speaking of podcasts, my two colleagues Clint Smith and Curtis M. Lawson participated in a podcast in which I appear to be discussed (https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/wyrd-transmissions/ep-23-skeleton-melodies-and-2wEeSNXhuHF/). I actually haven’t listened to this myself, but it seems that my assistance to both writers (which I was and am entirely happy to provide, given the striking talent they exhibit) is cited.

On Lovecraft’s 130th birthday last Thursday, I participated in a video birthday greeting (filmed by Mary on her smartphone) at the request of En la Noches de los Tiempos, a Mexican-Ecuadorian initiative focused on celebrating Lovecraft’s birthday (http://enlanochedelostiempos.com/felicidades-lovecraft/). At a minimum, this shows how Lovecraft’s life and work continue to attract devotion worldwide.

Another such token is the appearance of a Russian translation of Lovecraft’s essay “Vermont—A First Impression” in the online magazine Darker Magazine (https://darkermagazine.ru/page/vermont-a-first-impression). In the same issue is a Russian translation of my essay “Autobiography in Lovecraft” (https://darkermagazine.ru/page/autobiography-in-lovecraft). Thanks to Artem Ageev for the translation!

Finally, in the category of “What the—?”, a colleague in Italy, Adriano Monti-Buzzetti, a journalist and novelist, has found a mention of a “Lovecraft, Howard P.” in the city directory of Los Angeles for 1917! If anyone can explain how this entry (which lists Lovecraft as a “boilermaker” [!!!]) came to be, I would be most grateful!



Section of the 1917 Los Angeles city directory showing one Howard P. Lovecraft. (Click for the full page.)

I am happy to announce the publication of still more new books from Hippocampus Press. I believe the publisher has decided that, during this period of enforced inactivity that many of us find ourselves in, we don’t have much to do except read. So Hippocampus is trying to clear up quite a backlog of books that have been ready (or nearly ready) for some time. The items that have come in are these (I give the discount price that I am offering)

H. P.Lovecraft, Letters to Alfred Galpin and Others ($15)

($15) H. P.Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith (two-volume paperback) ($40 for the set—I will not be offering these individually)

(two-volume paperback) ($40 for the set—I will not be offering these individually) Clint Smith, The Skeleton Melodies ($10)

Letters to Alfred Galpin and Others is a radically expanded edition of Letters to Alfred Galpin (2003), now including the letters to Adolphe de Castro, John T. Dunn, Edward H. Cole, and others. It has an abundance of writings by these correspondents.

The paperback edition of Dawnward Spire has long been in the works, and we’ve issued it now because the hardcover edition is just about exhausted. This paperback edition includes one or two scraps of correspondence (a postcard of two) that came to light after the hardcover edition appeared.

Clint Smith’s second story collection—following Ghouljaw and Other Stories (2014)—is an exceptional piece of work, with tales featuring a wide array of themes and motifs, and including a superb novella, “Haunt Me Still,” previously unpublished.

I see that I still have two copies of Lovecraft’s Letters to Donald and Howard Wandrei and to Emil Petaja , which I am happy to offer for $15. And I have a copy of my recent anthology Apostles of the Weird , which I will let go for $20.

Those who purchase any of the items above can have the new issue of Dead Reckonings (No. 27, Spring 2020) for only $5. This contains two contributions by me: 1) a review of recent issues of two fanzines, Obadiah Baird’s The Audient Void and Graeme Phillips’s Cyäegha ; 2) a review of Ramsey Campbell’s novel The Kind Folk. There is also Gary Fry’s sensitive review of my novella Something from Below.

My Recognition of H. P.Lovecraft has reached nearly 70,000 words, and I imagine it will come in at 90,000 or at the very most 100,000 words when it is done. Of course, I could have gone into considerably greater detail on all the matters covered in the book, but that would have resulted in a treatise nearly as long as I Am Providence! The basic outline of the book is as follows:

Introduction

1. Beginnings (1905–1922)

2. The Pulp Era (1923–1937)

3. Arkham House: The Early Years (1937–1959)

4. Arkham House: The Later Years (1960–1971)

5. The Revival of Scholarship (1971–1980)

6. Heading toward the Centennial (1981–1990)

7. The Road to Canonisation (1991–2005)

8. Dissemination and Controversy (2006–2020)

I am almost through chapter 7. Chapter 8 will take quite a bit of preliminary research, since I can no longer use my bibliography (Univ. of Tampa Press, 2009) as a reference because that book contains no material after 2007.

I continue to be busy on various fronts—both in relation to Lovecraft and other issues. I was pleased to have brought back into print my anthology Documents of American Prejudice (Basic Books, 1999), which didn’t get much attention when it came out; but the times have changed, and I thought it would be a good idea to bring it out again under a different title and slightly different contents as Racism in America: A Documentary History : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CPDK3ZD. I put a lot of work into this anthology at the time, so I hope it engenders some interest now. It could hardly be more timely.

On the Lovecraft front, I have plunged into the treatise that I have been promising for years to write: The Recognition of H. P. Lovecraft: His Rise from Obscurity to World Renown. In this month alone I have written about 50,000 words—and I’m only up to the year 1980! Lots more to cover, but I should easily finish this by the end of the year, if not sooner. I have had to do some refreshing of my memory in regard to various works of Lovecraft criticism in the past. For example, I ended up purchasing some 1960 issues of Fantasy & Science Fiction that had two charmingly scornful reviews of Lovecraft by Damon Knight, including the notorious “The Tedious Mr. Lovecraft” (August 1960). In fact, the reviews were not quite as abusive as I’d expected, and the bulk of the criticism was apparently based on Knight’s reading of the Derleth “posthumous collaboration” “The Shuttered Room”—not very representative of Lovecraft at his best! But no one knew at the time how deceitfully Derleth was passing off these works as partial manuscripts by Lovecraft that he only “completed.”

I am writing afterwords to five out of the six volumes of a proposed omnibus of (nearly) the entirety of Lovecraft’s fictional work (along with some essays and letters) to be published by the French publisher Mnémos. (This same publisher published a three-volume edition of Clark Ashton Smith’s work a few years ago.) The translations into French will be based on the most up-to-date version of the Lovecraft texts as I have established them. Apparently the set may come out very soon—even later this year, or early next.

Jerad Walters and I continue to tinker with the contents of the Frank Belknap Long volume for the Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction. We have now decided to reprint the weird novel The Night of the Wolf (1972) and the mystery/suspense novel The Horror Expert (1961) as separate books; the Library of Weird Fiction volume will still contain two short novels ( The Horror from the Hills [1931] and Journey into Darkness [1967]). Also, I assented to Jerad’s decision to include some “weird menace” stories (which I initially did not wish to include at all) in the volume.

I was pleased to read the manuscript of Usman T. Malik’s first story collection, Midnight Doorways, a relatively slim volume of seven stories (a few of them, however, of novella length) that will soon be published in Pakistan. I had not read much of Usman’s work before and was struck by the mellifluousness and emotive power of his prose and by the vividness with which he brings Pakistani culture to life (most of the tales are set in Lahore). I was happy to write a blurb for the book.

I have pretty much completed my work on Ramsey Campbell’s second essay collection, Ramsey Campbell, Certainly. The book contains dozens of essays, reviews, and memoirs that Campbell has written over the past two decades. I shall be listed as editor of the volume, and I believe it will come out next spring from PS Publishing, in conjunction with my own revised treatise on Campbell, now titled Ramsey Campbell, Master of Weird Fiction .

I found much interest in an online article on Lovecraft written by my friend Michael Washburn. Here it is: https://bookandfilmglobe.com/creators/memories-of-the-lovecraft-wars/.

And in the category of “Aw, how cute!”—Greg Lowney has discovered a photo of Wilum and his sister Linda in a book from his library. Enjoy!



Linda and Wilum Pugmire, c. 1957-58.

I have at last obtained copies of several of the new Hippocampus Press publications—specifically, two new volumes in the Classics of Gothic Horror series edited by me, May Sinclair’s If the Dead Knew (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/fiction/if-the-dead-knew-the-weird-fiction-of-may-sinclair) and Back There in the Grass, the collected weird tales of Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Morris (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/fiction/back-there-in-the-grass-the-horror-tales-of-irvin-s.-cobb-and-gouverneur-morris). I received an unusually generous supply of copies of these books, so I will be happy to dispose of them at the bargain rate of only $10 each.

I also have some copies of Donald Sidney-Fryer’s A King Called Arthor (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/fiction/a-king-called-arthor-and-other-morceaux-by-donald-sidney-fryer), a fascinating mix of fiction, essays, and poetry. I’ll let this go for $10 also.

Hippocampus is preparing to release a number of additional titles very soon, including a huge two-volume edition of Lovecraft’s Letters to Family and Family Friends (initially planned as a big hardcover book, but that plan is now unfeasible), Eccentric, Impractical Devils (a volume of the letters of August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith), Lovecraft’s Letters to Alfred Galpin and Others , etc. etc. etc. It may be a while before I get copies of these titles, but they will come eventually.

My colleague Miguel Fliguer has come through on his promise to translate some of Wilum Pugmire’s work for his online magazine, Circulo de Lovecraft . Issue no. 15 contains Wilum’s story “In Dark of Providence,” and also features a translation of Bobby Derie’s article “W. H. Pugmire: The Queen of Gothic Horror.” Here is the link to the website: https://lektu.com/l/circulo-lovecraft/circulo-de-lovecraft-no15/14125.

I have received a copy of Cadabra Records’ newest release, Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror , for which I wrote the liner notes (https://cadabrarecords.com/products/h-p-lovecrafts-the-dunwich-horror-2x-lp-set-read-by-andrew-leman-score-by-chris-bozzone-edition). Alas, I only have the one copy, so interested individuals will have to purchase this directly from Cadabra. I have just written liner notes to two stories by Ambrose Bierce that will soon be recorded: “The Boarded Window” and “An Inhabitant of Carcosa.”

For no particular reason, I have renewed one of my old interests—English history. I have for many years had on my shelves (now relegated, alas, to my shed) various volumes of the Oxford History of England. I don’t know that I have ever read these books. My interest may have been kindled by my fascination with the superb Netflix TV series The Crown, chronicling the early years of the reign of Elizabeth II. Mary and I have richly enjoyed the first two seasons of this show; the third season is not yet available on DVD, only on streaming, which we don’t have. The series has also re-ignited my inveterate Anglophilia, which in my early years was significantly augmented by HPL’s own similar passion. I am now reading G. O. Clark’s The Reign of Elizabeth (1936). [The book obviously refers to Elizabeth I, not Elizabeth II.] No doubt this work is somewhat outdated; but it is written with a lively prose and a narrative drive that make it compelling reading. I will need to purchase some of the volumes in the series that I am missing, but that is easily done. And I may even, at a later stage, re-read some of the classic multivolume histories that I read as a youth—James Anthony Froude’s History of England (1850–70; covering the Tudor period), Samuel Rawson Gardiner’s History of England (1883–1904; covering the period 1603–1660), and Thomas Babington Macaulay’s incomplete History of England (1848; covering the period 1685–1702). Idle entertainment for an old man!

In the category of “blasts from the past,” my friend Margaret (Miggy) Hall of Scotland has sent me a photograph of myself and her during one of her visits to me. This photo was taken in May 2001.



Margaret Hall and S. T. on a boat around Manhattan, May 2001.

Speaking of photos, the mystery of the photo of the person accompanying Ramsey Campbell in that photo that Wilum had in one of his books has been solved! (See my blog of December 11, 2019.) A colleague has informed me that it is one Peter Smith, an occultist of the 1980s and 1990s who was involved in a group that called itself the Esoteric Order of Dagon. My informant does not know when or where the photo was taken.

As I celebrate my 62nd birthday (June 22), I pause to reflect on the other luminaries who share this date. Previously I had believed that only the old hack H. Rider Haggard and the mediocre singer/actor Kris Kristofferson were born on this day; but my diligent wife has dug up several other folks, much more notable in various regards, than these. Even if we put aside the dubious John Dillinger, we find that such figures in the entertainment field as the director Billy Wilder, the actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, the musician Todd Rundgren, and (hold on to your hats!) the supremely talented Meryl Streep were all born on June 22! As for other writers, it is most amusing to find that I share a birthday with none other than the late Octavia Butler, whose name came up in a Lovecraftian context some years ago. In the world of politics, we find the veteran legislator Diane Feinstein—and also (drum roll, please) Elizabeth Warren. Hot dawg! Can’t get better than that.

As a way of celebrating my birthday, I have decided to hold yet another of my occasional fire sales of books that have been sitting around here for a while. The following titles are available for the bargain price of $10; two of them are available for $18; three for $25. Please note that in several cases I have only one spare copy of the item in question!

R. H. Barlow, The Dragon-Fly and Leaves

James Chambers et al. (ed.), A New York State of Fright

Steve Dillon, Guilty Pleasures

Lord Dunsany, The Ghost in the Corner and Other Stories

Théophile Gautier, The Mummy’s Foot

S. T. Joshi, Bits of Autobiography and Interviews

S. T. Joshi, Emperors of Dreams

S. T. Joshi, 300 Books by S. T. Joshi

S. T. Joshi, 21st-Century Horror

S. T. Joshi (ed.), Best of Black Wings

S. T. Joshi & Lynne Jamneck (ed.), Gothic Lovecraft (trade ed.)

(trade ed.) S. T. Joshi & David E. Schultz, Lovecraft’s Library (4th ed.)

(4th ed.) T. E. D. Klein, Providence After Dark

Curtis M. Lawson, Black Heart Boys’ Choir

H. P. Lovecraft, To a Dreamer: Best Poems of H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft, Contro la religione

E. Nesbit, From the Dead

Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death and Others

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and Others

Don Swaim, The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce

Robert H. Waugh, The Tragic Thread in Science Fiction

Stephen Woodworth, A Carnival of Chimeras

Those who purchase any of the above items can secure any of the following for a mere $5:

Dead Reckonings Nos. 12, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26

Nos. 12, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26 Lovecraft Annual Nos. 11 (2017), 12 (2018)

Nos. 11 (2017), 12 (2018) Spectral Realms Nos. 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Nos. 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Leigh Blackmore, Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses

Michael Fantina, Alchemy of Dreams

Charles Lovecraft (ed.), Avatars of Wizardry

D. L. Myers, Oracles from the Black Pool

Ann K. Schwader, Dark Energies

I also have copies of the signed/limited edition of Gothic Lovecraft available for $25.

In regard to my own activities, I continue to work on numerous projects. I recently read Frank Belknap Long’s two short novels, Journey into Darkness (1961) and The Night of the Wolf (1972), and found both of them highly creditable. The former was marketed as science fiction, but it is clearly a weird tale—and may have been directly inspired by “The Colour out of Space” (Lovecraft is mentioned by name in the text, and a sadly erroneous plot summary of that story is provided). Both of these novels will now be reprinted in a volume of Long’s work in the Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction.

I continue to help promote the work of W. H. Pugmire. Recently I gave permission to Mike Cuellar, who runs the Weird Tales Podcast, to read Wilum’s story “The Zanies of Sorrow” on his podcast. He recently did so. Here is a link: https://theweirdtalespodcast.podbean.com/e/the-zanies-of-sorrow-by-w-h-pugmire/.

Just now I have learned that an interview I conducted with Guillaume Sowinski for a French website has gone up. Here it is: https://medium.com/@associationmiskatonic/les-indicibles-entretiens-9-10f99e9bb4f2.

My colleague, the publisher Vince Emery, has just issued a delectable item: nothing less than George Sterling’s Babes in the Wood (http://www.emerybooks.com/babes/babes-in-the-wood.htm). These are six stories that Sterling published in Popular Magazine in 1914; they were elaborations of the primitive-world setting and characters used in Jack London’s novel Before Adam (1906)—which, incidentally, might have exercised a minimal influence on Lovecraft’s “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.” The Sterling stories are all entertaining and have never been reprinted; but the chief virtue of this book is Emery’s own extensive 60-page introduction, which provides thorough background on Sterling’s relations with London, the writing of the stories, and other relevant matters.

As for my own work, I only now learned through a colleague in Brazil that the abridged version of my Lovecraft biography, A Dreamer and a Visionary: H. P. Lovecraft in His Time (Liverpool University Press, 2001), was translated into Portuguese by the Brazilian publisher Hedra (https://www.amazon.com/Vida-H-P-Lovecraft-Portuguese-Brasil/dp/8577153983). I confess that I do not have any recollection of this project, and I see nothing about it in my blogs for 2014. Possibly this was something the UK publisher arranged with Hedra. Anyway, I suppose I shall have to secure the item somehow—but it isn’t cheap!

And here is an announcement of another major project on which I have been working for some time:

Centipede Press is proud to announce the forthcoming publication of Powers of Darkness, the first complete translation of a Swedish version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which appeared in a Swedish newspaper in 1899-1900. The book has been translated by Rickard Berghorn and edited by S. T. Joshi and Martin Andersson. This title is in production, and will be published in January 2022. At almost 300,000 words, Powers of Darkness ( Mörkrets makter ) is almost twice as long as the standard text of Dracula published in 1897. In addition, it contains numerous scenes not included in the 1897 text, along with a new ending and significant alterations of character names (Jonathan Harker becomes Thomas Harker; Dracula himself is referred to as Mavros Draculitz). This edition of Powers of Darkness should not be confused with a book of the same title published by Abrams in 2017, which was an English translation of a highly truncated Icelandic translation of Dracula that is about half the length of the 1897 text. There is a strong possibility that this version of Dracula was founded on an early version of the novel that found its way to Sweden in the 1890s. This version does not survive in English, and Berghorn in his lengthy introduction makes a plausible conjecture as to who the Swedish translator could have been. The translator may have added scenes and episodes to the text (especially passages where it is suggested that Dracula is conducting a fascist political conspiracy). The text has been translated by Rickard Berghorn, a leading Swedish scholar and publisher of weird fiction, and edited by S. T. Joshi and Martin Andersson, who are both experts on the weird fiction of the turn of the 20th century. As John Edgar Browning has written: “ Mörkrets makter ( Powers of Darkness ) is among the most important discoveries in Dracula ’s long history.” Now, more than a century after its initial publication, it appears unabridged in English for the first time. No advance orders or notifications are being at this time, but we will keep you posted on progress. Thank you!

Before getting to the news of the day, I wish to announce yet another new version of the listing of books from the library of W. H. Pugmire (http://sesqua.net/pugmire-book-sale.html). This new listing now includes his holdings of mystery fiction, reference works, and art books, along with new titles in poetry, general fiction, and other existing categories. There are some highly intriguing and rare pamphlets of weird fiction, including David Barker’s early novel Death at the Flea Circus (2017). Come and get ’em!

I am happy to announce the publication by Sarnath Press of another volume of my miscellaneous essays on weird fiction, this one entitled The Advance of the Weird Tale. The items in the book are as follows:

I. Some Overviews Weird Fiction and Ordinary People The Canon of Weird Fiction The Supernatural in Greek and Latin Literature The Criticism of Weird Fiction The Theory and Practice of Satirical Criticism Women and the Ghost Story The Haunted House

II. The Classics The Life and Career of Ambrose Bierce The Ghost Story, 1870–1920 Arthur Machen and Weird Fiction The Weird Work of Robert Hichens Clark Ashton Smith’s Juvenilia Algernon Blackwood and John Silence The Weird Work of M. P. Shiel May Sinclair: The Spiritual Ghost Story H. B. Drake’s The Shadowy Thing Carl Jacobi: The Life of a Pulpsmith

III. H. P. Lovecraft and His Disciples Lovecraft and the Gothic Poe and Lovecraft Lovecraft and the Titans: A Critical Legacy Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop Lovecraft and “In Amundsen’s Tent” Why Michel Houellebecq Is Wrong about Lovecraft’s Racism Lovecraft and “Adept’s Gambit” Solar Pons Meets Cthulhu: Detective Elements in Derleth’s Mythos Tales

IV. The Moderns Shirley Jackson and Weird Fiction On Rod Serling’s “Clean Kills and Other Trophies” Ramsey Campbell and Weird Fiction Brian McNaughton: The Care and Feeding of Ghouls W. H. Pugmire: Lovecraftian and Prose Poet Caitlín R. Kiernan and the Mythos Some Younger Weird Writers Michael Aronovitz Clint Smith David Hambling Curtis M. Lawson Some Modern Weird Poets Ann K. Schwader Kyla Lee Ward Wade German

Acknowledgments

Index

A certain number of these items are taken from the many entries I wrote for Supernatural Literature of the World (Greenwood Press, 2005). I rather like these pieces, and I will include many of the shorter entries in my next volume, tentatively entitled The Progression of the Weird Tale. I do not have any spare copies of this book and am not likely to get any, so interested readers had best order directly from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088T7BTK6).

Another book that has sneaked its way into print is Varieties of Crime Fiction . I finally got all of two copies from the publisher, Wildside Press. Inexplicably, there is not yet a page for this book on the publisher’s website, although there is an Amazon entry (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1479445460), which states that the book actually appeared in September 2019. I am obliged to accept this statement—but am fearful that this book (which I spent a good three years writing, off and on) will imitate one of David Hume’s philosophical treatises and “fall deadborn from the press.” Let’s hope my legions of fans make me eat my words! I have one spare copy of the book that I would be happy to sell to an interested customer for $15.

I recently had an article on Lovecraft published in the Truth Seeker , “the world’s oldest freethought publication,” founded in 1873. Lovecraft himself refers to it in a letter to Maurice W. Moe (May 15, 1918), where, in a debate over an article on atheists and agnostics that Moe had written, he writes: “The ‘agnostic’ of your essay must have been a very utilitarian agnostic (that such ‘utilitarian Agnostics’ do exist, I will not deny. Vide any issue of The Truthseeker! But are they typical?)!” The May–August 2020 issue published my article “H. P. Lovecraft: Denier of God—Creator of Gods” (http://thetruthseeker.net/). This is in fact the introduction to my compilation, Lovecraft: Against Religion (2010). But the layout of my article, and the illustrations accompanying it, are worth the price of admission all by themselves! The title was brilliantly devised by the magazine’s editor, Roderick Bradford. The issue can be seen in pdf format through the magazine’s website. The password is: Sun.

I recently had occasion to read Osbert Sitwell’s The Man Who Lost Himself (1930). I did so only because it was among the books that Lovecraft listed in his “Weird &c. Items in Library of H. P. Lovecraft.” I own the book myself (I obtained it from the Strand Bookstore in New York ages ago, for all of $3). How is this a “weird” novel? Well, I’m scratching my head about that myself. It is the account of a writer, Tristram Orlander, who begins life as a poet and gains some celebrity among the literati; but after an unsuccessful love affair leads to a nervous breakdown, he spends many months overseas, mostly in Spain. The first-person narrator, who accompanied Orlander on his trip, tells of how Orlander reported seeing an older version of himself in a hotel in Granda. It takes a very long time for this “weird” scene to occur.

Decades pass. Orlander becomes a successful (but, from a purely aesthetic perspective, mediocre) novelist. He returns to Granada—and (somewhat predictably) meets the younger version of himself in that same hotel. He dies soon thereafter. I will not say this is a bad novel; it is, in a sense, a tour de force, in that it is entirely made up of narration, with not a single word of dialogue or even monologue. But the weird elements are so attenuated that I am quite puzzled why Lovecraft regarded it as a weird tale. I have not been able to locate any passage in Lovecraft’s letters where he discusses the work.

I was delighted to receive copies of the second (and last) volume of the German translation of I Am Providence, titled H. P. Lovecraft: Leben und Werk (“H. P. Lovecraft: Life and Work”), translated by Andreas Fliedner. Here is the publisher’s web page about the book: https://golkonda-verlag.de/produkt/s-t-joshi-h-p-lovecraft-leben-und-werk-2/. It pleases me that this book is now available in French, German, and Italian (although only the first volume of the Italian edition— Io sono Providence —has been published, with two more to go). I have one spare copy of Leben und Werk that I will be happy to part with for $20.

The French edition ( Je suis Providence ) has apparently been a big hit in France. On top of which, it has recently won two awards: the Special Imaginales Award (granted by the convention—Les Imaginales—that I attended last year around this time) and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, which Christophe Thill (who supervised the ten translators who worked on the book) states is “a prestigious award given by a panel of writers and critics.”

I have been busy in other ways. On May 5, I had a three-hour interview with Tim Weisberg of the radio station Midnight Society (https://midnight.fm/2020/05/03/tuesday-may-5th-guest-s-t-joshi/). It was a wide-ranging discussion of matters chiefly pertaining to Lovecraft, covering his atheism, his political views, and many aspects of his work. All very entertaining! I may go back on the show at some later date.

I see that Dark Regions Press has at long last issued the signed/limited hardcover edition of Michael Shea’s Demiurge, a volume of his complete Cthulhu Mythos tales edited by me (https://darkregions.com/products/demiurge-the-complete-cthulhu-mythos-tales-of-michael-shea-edited-by-s-t-joshi). It is not cheap, but it’s an exceptionally handsome book that every collector should own. I may mention that Hippocampus Press has contracted with Linda Shea to issue Michael’s superlative (and unpublished) Lovecraftian novel Mr. Cannyharme —which is nothing less than a vast expansion of Lovecraft’s “The Hound,” set in the gritty world of 1960s San Francisco. We should be able to get the book out later this year in an attractive hardcover edition.

I have just read a most interesting volume: The Flock of Ba-Hui by “Oobmab” (read the name backwards to understand its significance), which is nothing less than a collection of four long stories written by a Chinese author who has been inspired by Lovecraft. It is issued by a British publisher, Camphor Press (https://camphorpress.com/books/the-flock-of-ba-hui/). The translators, Arthur Meursault and Akira, have done a splendid job in rendering these stories into English; but the highest praise should go to the author, whoever he is (the translators identify him as male, but provide no other details), for fusing Lovecraft’s distinctive vision with the distinctive topography, history, and culture of China. I will be writing a review of the book for the Lovecraft Annual.

I am happy to announce the publication, through Sarnath Press, of a substantial volume of the stories (weird and otherwise) of William Waldorf Astor (1848–1919). Astor was an exceptionally interesting fellow: born in the U.S., scion of one of the wealthiest families in America (whose grandfather, John Jacob Astor, helped to endow the New York Public Library), but who developed a distaste for his native land—not surprisingly—and emigrated to England, where he eventually became the first Viscount Astor. Along the way, he developed a hobby of writing short stories, all published in the Pall Mall Magazine, which he founded in 1893. A good many of these stories are weird, featuring such elements as ghosts, reincarnation, and other motifs; most are set in Europe, especially Italy (Astor was the U.S. minister to Italy for the period 1882–85), and involve either the ancient world (Greece, Rome, Egypt), or the Italian Renaissance. Several tales are set in modern-day Italy or France.

Astor published a volune of his stories, Pharaoh’s Daughter and Other Stories (1900), but, aside from including only a few of his weird stories (several of which were written after the book’s publication), it included some historical tales that to my mind do not represent him to best advantage. Astor also wrote some full-length historical novels, mostly set in Renaissance Italy, but I have not read these.

My volume, The Ghosts of Austerlitz and Others, contains sixteen of Astor’s best stories, and a majority of them are weird. Among the best are “The Ghosts of Austerlitz,” “Monsieur de Néron” (about the reincarnation of the Emperor Nero in Paris in the 1890s), “The Vengeance of Poseidon,” and “The Beloved of Amon-Ra.” The book is a robust 358 pages. Here is the Amazon page for the print edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087HC3MSN. It is available in a Kindle edition also. I do not have any spare copies of this book, but I hope readers will purchase it directly from Amazon. I have written a substantial bio-critical introduction and added a full bibliography of Astor’s writings.

Otherwise, I continue to work on the editing of Lovecraft’s letters. I am hopeful that Letters to Alfred Galpin and Others will soon be in print from Hippocampus Press. The enormous Letters to Family and Family Friends should also appear (as a two-volume paperback, not as a hardcover—a luxury in this difficult time). Later this year we should be publishing Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner and Others (including letters to Arthur Harris, James Larkin Pearson, Winifred V. Jackson, Arthur Leeds, and Paul J. Campbell).

I have been asked by Centipede Press to assemble a volume of Frank Belknap Long’s best tales for the Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction. In some sense this will be an abridgment of the immense volume of Long’s work that appeared from Centipede in 2010; but, while I will indeed use a number of stories from that book, I have selected several others that were not included. I will exclude stories that are purely or largely science fiction, “weird menace,” or otherwise non-weird. In re-reading Long’s work, I find it a bit more notable than I had assumed. He himself regarded his later story “Cottage Tenant” (1975) as his best tale; whether it is or not, it is quite a fine narrative, and there are several other later tales that are more than creditable. But the bulk of the volume will include stories that Long published in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

I was of course sorry to hear of the passing of Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., at the age of sixty-four. Our relationship began rockily, as I wrote an unduly harsh review of his Lovecraftian novel Nightmare’s Disciple (1999), which purportedly led to his giving up writing for a time. But I met him at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 2007, and he presented me with the first of a new line of writing, “Carl Lee and Cassilda,” which fused an adept use of the King in Yellow mythos with scintillating, impressionistic writing reminiscent of Hubert Selby and others, but was very much his own. I was pleased to shepherd several collections of these tales into print with Hippocampus Press. I met Joe again in Berlin in 2013 as part of a cruise that my wife and I were on. He was a distinctive personality, and the core of his work will survive.

I trust everyone is keeping safe and healthy. If you are sitting at home idle, now is an excellent time to catch up on your reading! To that end, I am holding another sale of books from the library of W. H. Pugmire. I will once again offer a 50% discount on all books on the current list, which can be found here: http://sesqua.net/pugmire-book-sale.html. This discount will now be in effect in perpetuity. In addition, I am discounting all books in the “Poetry, Poems, and Poets” and “General Literature” list costing $10 or less to $1 (plus appropriate postage). You can’t beat that!

On the personal front, I am delighted to note that my friend and colleague Rickard Berghorn has reprinted my 21st-Century Horror as a hardcover book, with a splendid dust jacket illustration by Nicolas Krizan: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/21st-century-horror-s-t-joshi/1130224394. The book is also available for purchase through the Evil Empire (i.e., Amazon worldwide). I would think the book is worth getting just for the dust jacket art! I have one spare copy, which I am happy to offer for $20.

Meanwhile, a grand total of five of my books have apparently been published, but I have received copies of none of them! They include the two anthologies from PS Publishing that I mentioned in my last blog ( Apostles of the Weird and His Own Most Fantastic Creation ); in addition, two more volumes of my Classics of Gothic Horror have appeared from Hippocampus Press, May Sinclair’s If the Dead Knew (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/fiction/if-the-dead-knew-the-weird-fiction-of-may-sinclair) and the long-awaited (by me, at any rate) volume of the combined weird stories of Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Morris, Back There in the Grass (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/fiction/back-there-in-the-grass-the-horror-tales-of-irvin-s.-cobb-and-gouverneur-morris). I read the signature stories of both of these authors—Cobb’s “Fishhead” and Morris’s “Back There in the Grass”—as a teenager in Alfred Hitchcock anthologies, so I am thrilled to present their complete weird writings, which I selected through careful examination of their numerous short story collections at the New York Public Library two or three decades ago.

Finally, my Varieties of Crime Fiction appears to be out. I find the following page on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Crime-Fiction-S-Joshi/dp/1479445460), which actually indicates that the volume came out last September; but the book is not listed on the website of the publisher, Wildside Press, and I have received no copies. So I have no idea what is going on. I have a feeling that, as with one of David Hume’s philosophical treatises in the 18th century, this book will “fall dead-born from the press.”

I am happy to announce the publication by PS Publishing, after considerable delays, of two of my anthologies of original fiction: Apostles of the Weird and His Own Most Fantastic Creation. Here is the description of them from PS’s weekly newsletter: https://preview.mailerlite.com/n4g4d4. The newsletter does not give the full table of contents of the books, so I shall provide them here. Here are the stories in Apostles of the Weird:

Death in All Its Ripeness Mark Samuels Introduction S. T. Joshi Sebillia John Shirley Come Closer Gemma Files Widow’s Walk Jonathan Thomas The Walls Are Trembling Steve Rasnic Tem Trogs Nancy Kilpatrick The Zanies of Sorrow W. H. Pugmire This Hollow Thing Lynda E. Rucker The Outer Boundary Michael Washburn Black Museums Jason V Brock The Legend of the One-Armed Brakeman Michael Aronovitz Lisa’s Pieces Clint Smith Everything Is Good in the Forest George Edwards Murray Three Knocks on a Forsaken Door Richard Gavin The Thief of Dreams Darrell Schweitzer Axolotl House Cody Goodfellow Night Time in the Karoo Lynne Jamneck Porson’s Piece Reggie Oliver Cave Canem Stephen Woodworth

His Own Most Fantastic Creation (a volume of stories that feature Lovecraft as a fictional character) are as follows:

Introduction S. T. Joshi Death in All Its Ripeness Mark Samuels Worlds Apart Donald R. Burleson Witch’s Ladder Donald Tyson How Could It Be Elsewise? Richard Gavin A Gentleman of Darkness W. H. Pugmire The Feverish Stars John Shirley The Basilisk David Hambling Captured in Oils Simon Strantzas Persistence of Memory Jason V Brock Dreams Are Forever Scott Wiley A Meeting Beneath the Moon Mark Howard Jones The Return of the Night-Gaunts Darrell Schweitzer The Gilman Woman Stephen Woodworth In His Own Handwriting S. T. Joshi Avenging Angela Jonathan Thomas

I have not yet received any copies of these books, but hope to soon—and will offer any spare copies I have to interested customers.

Speaking of Lovecraft, I was interested to receive copies of a book entitled Les Carnets de Lovecraft: Dagon (which can loosely be translated as “Lovecraft’s sketchbooks”), illustrated by Armel Gaulme (Bragelonne, 2019). This proves to be an exhaustively illustrated edition of the story “Dagon,” with a paragraph or so of text on the verso and a line drawing by Gaulme on the recto. I now see that the publisher has also issued a volume of this same sort for “The Nameless City.” Indeed, the publisher’s array of Lovecraftian publications (which includes a translation of Black Wings I under the title Chroniques de Cthulhu ) is impressive: https://www.bragelonne.fr/catalogue/collections/les-grands-anciens/. I have one spare copy of Carnets and would be happy to let it go for a mere $10.

Another volume of great interest is Donald Tyson’s The Skinless Face and Other Horrors , just published by Joe Morey’s new press, Weird House (https://www.weirdhousepress.com/product/the-skinless-face/). This large (401 pp.) and superbly designed hardcover book contains fourteen of Tyson’s Lovecraftian stories, several of which I published in the Black Wings series and elsewhere. An incredible bargain at the price!

I have now received copies of the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography that I compiled with David E. Schultz and Scott Connors. This 586-page compilation was years in the making—and sports a superb cover illustration by Jason Van Hollander. I still have two copies for sale at $25.

In terms of my own work, I have been spending a great deal of time on a vastly augmented edition of R. H. Barlow’s weird fiction and poetry (to which we are now adding his essays and other nonfiction). The original edition was one of Hippocampus Press’s earliest volumes: Eyes of the God (2002). Now that book has been expanded to more than twice its size, coming to close to 550 pages and including a number of unpublished works of fiction and much other matter, including several essays on Barlow written in the 1950s and 1960s. Expect this volume later this year (I hope)!

I am slogging through the index to Born under Saturn: The Letters of Clark Ashton Smith and Samuel Loveman . This volume will appear subsequent to Eccentric, Impractical Devils: The Letters to Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth , which may appear in the coming weeks. The Smith-Loveman letters are of consuming interest in their detailed discussions of poetry and general literature—not only their own work but the work of Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Symons, and of course their mutual friend George Sterling.

I was delighted to appear on a podcast with the brilliant young writer Curtis M. Lawson. We spoke for well over an hour on a wide range of subjects—weird fiction, atheism, music, and much else. Here is a link to an audio of the broadcast: https://www.spreaker.com/user/12166256/wyrd-transmissions-episode-2. I believe Curtis is working on uploading a video as well.

And so, as the strange and disorienting period of history continues, I and my household remain healthy and productive.

On a melancholy note, let us all remember that March 26 is the first anniversary of the passing of William Hopfrog Pugmire. But he and his work continue to live and flourish in our memories!

We are, to be sure, living in strange times. I am writing while the coronavirus seems to be spreading inexorably around the globe—although it would appear that fear and even hysteria are spreading even faster. As I am living in (or, more precisely, near) one of the epicenters of the virus, I feel obliged to say something about what has been happening around here.

In the first place, it should be noted that the severest outbreak in this area has been restricted to a nursing home in Kirkland, a separate city quite a distance away (on the other side of Lake Washington)—and in a facility that, apparently, had previously come under criticism for failure to contain exactly this kind of spreading of infection. That said, it does not do to be either overly cautious or excessively reckless in one’s words and actions. Mary tells me of an isolated case (in another nursing home) only fifteen blocks from this house.

Nevertheless, we are attempting to lead our lives as normally as possible—with, of course, due precautions. We went to the theatre (Seattle Repertory Theatre) on Sunday, March 8, where we saw the powerful August Wilson play Jitney. But the very next evening, at my usual choir practice, it was reluctantly decided that the Northwest Chorale would cancel its spring concerts (May 9 and 16), simply because of potential dangers in large groups of people rehearsing week after week. In my judgment this was a somewhat hasty and ill-advised decision—but given that a fair number of our choir members are elderly, I suppose an excess of caution is not unwarranted. No doubt you have heard that the University of Washington has temporarily suspended in-person classes for all students, although I see that the libraries are still open.

Meanwhile, I carry on as well as I am able. I have just issued, through Sarnath Press, a combined edition of R. H. Barlow’s two early periodicals, The Dragon-Fly (1935–36) and Leaves (1937–38) (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851LL4QM). [Please forgive the fact that the cover has no type on it; the various other cover templates that Amazon offered would have resulted in a poor reproduction of the photograph, such as having Barlow’s head being cut off.] These important periodicals contained all manner of work (much of which was unpublished at the time) by Lovecraft, C. L. Moore, Donald Wandrei, August Derleth, J. Vernon Shea, and numerous others. I had momentarily considered a facsimile reproduction, but Leaves in particular would have reproduced very poorly (it was run off on mimeograph, and there was a lot of bleed-through from the other side of the page), so I reset the entire text. David E. Schultz lent a huge amount of effort in the undertaking and should really have been listed as a coeditor. I have several spare copies of the publication available for sale at the bargain price of $15.

I have just received a number of copies of The Best of Black Wings from PS Publishing (https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/best-of-black-wings-trade-paperback-edited-by-s-t-joshi-4913-p.asp). This well-produced paperback has lots of fine stories by Jonathan Thomas, W. H. Pugmire, John Langan, and numerous other contributors to the six volumes of the Black Wings series. I would be happy to sell these at $15 each to interested customers.

I am in receipt of a fascinating item: Lovecraft’s Notes and Commonplace Book , a facsimile by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society of the Futile Press edition of 1938, as edited by R. H. Barlow (https://store.hplhs.org/collections/frontpage/products/the-notes-and-commonplace-book-of-h-p-lovecraft). This booklet is reproduced (I believe) in the exact dimensions of the original. As a bonus, the Historical Society has added a facsimile of Barlow’s typescript of Lovecraft’s “Weird Story Plots,” a series of plot synopses of major works of weird fiction that were written in 1933 as Lovecraft was struggling to regain his inspiration (and confidence) as a fiction writer. This document was not published until it appeared in my edition of Lovecraft’s Collected Essays , Volume 2 (2004), and is still quite little known. This whole booklet is well worth the price!

I was delighted to read Ramsey Campbell’s new novel, The Wise Friend (Flame Tree Publishing), and write a review of it for the next Dead Reckonings , which should be out in a few months. The novel is one of Ramsey’s quieter efforts, perhaps, but it contains a sense of dread and unease that is virtually unmatched in his work. Go read it!

My work continues to be published abroad. I have just received a copy of an edition of Lovecraft in modern Greek for which I wrote the introduction. This is actually the third volume of what announced as a fifteen-volume edition of Lovecraft’s fiction, this one titled ΤΟ ΧΡΟΜΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΔΙΑΣΤΗΜΑ , containing “The Colour out of Space” (the title story) and two other tales. The publisher is Brainfood in Athens, and the book dates to 2019. I believe my introduction will now be featured in the remaining volumes of the series.

Black Wings IV has been translated into Czech (as the three previous volumes have been) as Cerna krídla Cthulhu 4 (Euromedia, 2019). It would appear that this publisher is now contemplating a translation of my biography, I Am Providence.

Henrik Möller has been diligently interviewing the “Providence Pals” (Jason Eckhardt, Donald R. Burleson, myself, and others) for a podcast; he is waiting for Marc Michaud to recover from a recent bout of illness (which he is doing, albeit slowly) to issue a major podcast. In the interim he has released a podcast of an interview with Steve Mariconda that I daresay is full of enlightenment: https://soundcloud.com/henrik-moeller-180995804/101-secrets-of-lovecrafts-prose-style-steven-mariconda. Happy listening!

Several tempting new books have appeared, or are about to appear, from Hippocampus Press. First up is Stephen Woodworth’s long-delayed and exemplary collection of short stories, A Carnival of Chimeras (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/fiction/a-carnival-of-chimeras-by-stephen-woodworth). For years I have found Stephen’s stories to be among the most scintillating and powerful contributions to my Black Wings series, and in this book there are several luminous Lovecraftian tales, including “Revival,” “Voodoo,” “A Tour of the Catacombs,” and others. Stephen excels in all types of weird fiction, and his prose is among the most fluid and evocative of anyone writing in the field today.

Then there is the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/clark-ashton-smith/nonfiction/clark-ashton-smith-a-comprehensive-bibliography), co-compiled with David E. Schultz and Scott Connors, another long-delayed book but out at last, at close to 600 pages. This is the first comprehensive bibliography of works by and about Smith since Donald Sidney-Fryer’s Emperor of Dreams (1978), and I will say that it required an immense amount of effort on the part of the three co-compilers. This is the eighth bibliography I have published (following those for Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Ramsey Campbell, Ambrose Bierce, Gore Vidal, H. L. Mencken, and William Hope Hodgson). My bibliography of George Sterling (co-compiled with Alan Gullette) may appear later this year, in conjunction with my edition of the joint correspondence of Sterling and Ambrose Bierce. Anyway, the Smith bibliography is an invaluable source for the study of this pioneering author, who is finally receiving his due as a poet and fantaisiste.

And of course there is the twelfth issue of Spectral Realms , with an extraordinarily enticing cover design by Dan Sauer, using a work of art by Albert Joseph Pénot that dates to around 1890 (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/journals/spectral-realms/spectral-realms-no.-12). I urge readers to indulge in this extraordinary bounty of weird poetry, which includes exceptional work by Christina Sng, Leigh Blackmore, Wade German, Nicole Cushing, K. A. Opperman, Ashley Dioses, and many others, including my beloved spouse. I also have a review of Wade German’s new collection, The Ladies of the Everlasting Lichen and Other Relics (Mount Abraxas Press, 2019). The volume (only 88 copies of which were printed) is already out of print, but a new and expanded edition will appear next year from Hippocampus.

I have only a limited number of copies of the Woodworth volume, and my copies of the Smith bibliography have not arrived yet. I am prepared to let these go for $15 and $25, respectively, and will toss in a copy of Spectral Realms for only $5 for any who purchase either of these books; if you purchase both, you can have Spectral Realms for free.

I am working hard on several other projects, including the joint correspondence of Smith and Samuel Loveman, not to mention enormously expanded editions of our previous editions of the writings of Loveman ( Out of the Immortal Night ) and R. H. Barlow’s Eyes of the God. The Loveman volume may appear quite soon, while the Barlow book will probably appear late this year or early next.

Among volumes of Lovecraft’s letters, the Letters to Alfred Galpi and Others (including letters to Edward H. Cole, Adolphe de Castro, and John T. Dunn) is imminent. Within the next few months we will release the enormous Letters to Family and Family Friends , probably in a two-volume paperback edition of about 600 pages each. This will be one of the most remarkable volumes in the series, containing his complete letters to his aunts, covering his critical New York years (1924–26) but also his extensive travels in the later 1920s. A volume of Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner and Others (also containing letters to Arthur Harris, Winifred V. Jackson, and others) is also in the offing.

I have been quite remiss in posting notices of recent publications on the Sarnath Press page of this website, but I believe my talented webmaster has now updated the list. Many choice items are available! I may have one or two copies of some of them here, but the majority of them will have to be ordered from Amazon.

I am here to make a momentous announcement: For the entire month of February, all books from the library of W. H. Pugmire will be offered at 50% off the list price! There are many choice (and collectible) items still available, and it would behoove all interested parties to put in a request to purchase them as soon as possible. So don’t hesitate to contact me if any item appeals to you. Here is a link to the most current version of the website: http://sesqua.net/pugmire-book-sale.html.

Among my own projects, I can announce that I have a few copies available of my edition of the Bram Stoker volume in the Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction (http://www.centipedepress.com/masters/stokerlwf.html). I am prepared to let these copies go for the bargain price of $40.

I am pleased to see that two books in which I was involved have made the preliminary ballot of the Bram Stoker Awards (http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/news/the-2019-bram-stoker-awards-preliminary-ballot/). One is Curtis M. Lawson’s scintillating novel Black Heart Boys’ Choir , for which I wrote the foreword. (I still have a number of copies of this book available for $10 a copy.) I am now reading a new work by Lawson, a novella written in collaboration with Dave Rinaldi entitled Those Who Go Forth into the Empty Place of Gods (https://www.amazon.com/Those-Forth-into-Empty-Place/dp/1713299844/). I am not quite finished with it, but so far it is proving to be a highly engaging work of over-the-top horror fused with Lovecraftian cosmicism. Well worth securing in its own right!

The other book that made the Stoker ballot is Kyla Lee Ward’s scintillating poetry collection The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities , for which I wrote the afterword. Best wishes to both Curtis and Kyla on making the final ballot and actually winning the award! I see that John Langan’s Sefira and Other Betrayals , which Hippocampus Press published, has made the preliminary ballot, and a number of poets who appear regularly in Spectral Realms —Frank Coffman, Deborah L. Davitt, and Marge Simon—have poetry collections on the preliminary ballot.

I continue to be busy with Hippocampus Press projects. Within days or weeks, we shall see the appearance of Spectral Realms #12, Stephen Woodworth’s superlative story collection A Carnival of Chimeras , and—at long last—the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography assembled by David E. Schultz, Scott Connors, and myself. Stay tuned for further announcements of these and other projects!

The long gap between this blog and its predecessor is only partly the result of my own indolence and the general hubbub of the holiday period. My webmaster, Greg Lowney, took an extended vacation (Dec. 19–Jan. 11) to China, to see his son (who is working for the State Department), and so I was unable to update my website in any fashion—not that there was any urgency to do so. I am looking forward to meeting Greg (at a scheduled dinner of our local “gang” of weird fiction devotees on Jan. 25) to get the lowdown on his trip to the Far East.

My big news (if it qualifies as such) is the publication of 300 Books by S. T. Joshi via my Sarnath Press imprint (https://www.amazon.com/300-Books-Joshi-Comprehensive-Bibliography/dp/165465406X/). In conjunction with this volume, I have assembled a volume entitled Bits of Autobiography and Interviews (https://www.amazon.com/Bits-Autobiography-Interviews-Compiled-Joshi/dp/1654636320/), with my ugly mug on the cover. The great bulk of the book consists of interviews (most of them online) I have given over the decades, from the early 1990s to the present day. Both books are priced at $15.95, but I will very soon have a supply of copies in hand, so I’m prepared to sell them for $15.00 each on the usual terms (i.e., media mail postage covered by the price). Should some masochists wish both volumes, I am prepared to let them go for a total of $25.00.

Another highly enticing item is the issuance of a complete audiobook of Lovecraft’s complete revisions and collaborations (essentially, the texts contained in volume 4 of the variorum edition of Lovecraft’s Complete Fiction ): https://www.hplhs.org/collaborations.php. Now you can have HPL’s complete fiction in two convenient thumbdrives! I have always found that hearing a Lovecraft story heightens my appreciation of it and provides new insights that a mere reading cannot always supply.

A colleague informs me that BBC Radio has followed up its production of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward with a version of “The Whisperer in Darkness”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w/episodes/player. This will in turn be followed by a version of “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” I have no idea of the quality of these productions, but the mere fact that the BBC is undertaking them is an important sign of Lovecraft’s worldwide celebrity.

My essay on Michel Houellebecq from Lovecraft Studies No. 12 (2018)—“Why Michel Houellebecq Is Wrong about Lovecraft’s Racism”—has now appeared in a Polish translation by Mateusz Kopacs: https://www.hplovecraft.pl/2020/01/09/s-t-joshi-dlaczego-houellebecq-myli-sie-co-do-rasizmu-lovecrafta/. Kopacs has added some further criticisms of Houellebecq, covering issues I did not address in my short piece. It appears that Houellebecq carries far greater weight in Europe as an “authority” on Lovecraft than he deserves, and Kopacs and others believe it is long overdue that the record be set straight on Houellebecq’s distortions and misinterpretations of Lovecraft, especially on the racism angle (he was the one who has most notably propounded the false view that the entirety of Lovecraft’s writing is infected with racism).

On a more personal note, I may mention that I dusted off my violin (thanks in no small part to my wife’s purchase of a new bow for it) and participated in my choir’s “ Messiah Sing-along/Play-along” on December 28. I was assured that I would be only one of several violinists playing at the event. What was my alarm when I discovered that there was only one other violinist—and he opted to play the second violin part, since I only knew the first violin part! There is a key section in the finale (“Amen”) where the first violins are playing all by themselves for about four bars—a petrifying experience for someone so out of practice as I was. Even though I thought I was horribly out of tune, this was nothing more than a fundraiser for our choir and not a “performance” in any meaningful sense of the term. Perhaps next time I will do more practicing ahead of the event—or, better still, not play at all!

↓ Entries from 2019…