From the Publisher:

For the past thirty-five years, S. T. Joshi has been one of the leading authorities on H. P. Lovecraft. As Lovecraft’s editor and biographer, Joshi has revolutionized our understanding of the dreamer from Providence. This enormous volume, which contains all the critical essays that Joshi has written since 1979, is a treasure-house of scholarship that exhibits Joshi’s all-encompassing knowledge of Lovecraft the man, writer, and thinker.

Joshi has focused on a holistic understanding of Lovecraft, integrating his life and thought into the study of his work. Lovecraft, the atheist and materialist, infused his worldview into each tale, essay, and poem. Joshi has studied the interrelations between Lovecraft’s life and work in such papers as “Autobiography in Lovecraft” and “Lovecraft and the Munsey Magazines.” Joshi’s analysis of Lovecraft’s philosophical thought comes forth in such major essays as “Lovecraft’s Alien Civilisations: A Political Interpretation” and “H. P. Lovecraft: The Fiction of Materialism.”

Joshi has also devoted much attention to neglected aspects of Lovecraft’s work, and this book contains illuminating discussions of Lovecraft’s poetry, essays, and letters. Joshi’s landmark study “Textual Problems in Lovecraft” laid the groundwork for his corrected editions of Lovecraft’s tales. A final section of the book studies Lovecraft’s legacy and influence, including a lengthy essay on the Cthulhu Mythos and, as a capstone, a transcript of Joshi’s keynote address at the NecronomiCon convention of 2013.

This mammoth volume features nearly four decades of scholarship on one of the towering writers of the twentieth century, written by one of his most insightful interpreters.

Contents

Introduction

I. Biographical Studies
Lovecraft and Weird Tales
Further Notes on Lovecraft and Music
Lovecraft’s Library
Lovecraft’s Revisions: How Much of Them Did He Write?
Lovecraft and His Wife
Lovecraft and the Films of His Day
The Rationale of Lovecraft’s Pseudonyms
Lovecraft and the Munsey Magazines
Barbarism vs. Civilization: Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft in Their Correspondence

II. Philosophical Studies
The Political and Economic Thought of H. P. Lovecraft
“Reality” and Knowledge: Some Notes on Lovecraft’s Aesthetic
In Defence of Dagon and Lovecraft’s Philosophy
Lovecraft’s Alien Civilisations: A Political Interpretation
Lovecraft and a World in Transition
Lovecraft and the “Big Issue”
H. P. Lovecraft: The Fiction of Materialism
Lovecraft and Religion
Time, Space, and Natural Law: Science and Pseudo-Science in Lovecraft

III. Thematic and Textual Studies
Autobiography in Lovecraft
Lovecraft’s Other Planets
Textual Problems in Lovecraft
The Structure of Lovecraft’s Longer Narratives
The Dream World and the Real World in Lovecraft
Topical References in Lovecraft
Humour and Satire in Lovecraft
A Guide to the Lovecraft Fiction Manuscripts at the John Hay Library

IV. Studies of Individual Works
Who Wrote “The Mound”?
On “The Book”
On “Polaris”
On “The Tree on the Hill”
Lovecraft and the Regnum Congo
The Sources for “From Beyond”
On “The Descendant”
What Happens in “Arthur Jermyn”
“The Tree” and Ancient History
Lovecraft and Dunsany’s Chronicles of Rodriguez
Some Sources for “The Mound” and At the Mountains of Madness
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Excised Passages from “The Thing on the Doorstep”

V. On Lovecraft’s Essays, Poetry, and Letters
“History of the Necronomicon”
“Supernatural Horror in Literature”
Two Spurious Lovecraft Poems
A Look at Lovecraft’s Letters
Lovecraft’s Fantastic Poetry
Lovecraft, Regner Lodbrog, and Olaus Wormius
Lovecraft’s Essays

VI. On Lovecraft’s Legacy and Influence
The Development of Lovecraftian Studies: 1971–1982
R. H. Barlow and the Recognition of H. P. Lovecraft
A Literary Tutelage: Robert Bloch and H. P. Lovecraft
Passing the Torch: H. P. Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber
Lovecraft at Last
The Cthulhu Mythos
The Recognition of H. P. Lovecraft, 1937–2013

Sources

Index