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Post by Knygathin on Feb 12, 2023 22:07:00 GMT
I got The House of Sounds and Others from Hippocampus Press. It seems like a good representative collection, with a few of his most famous stories, and the complete version of The Purple Cloud. Nothing from Prince Zaleski though (don't know if that be a major loss or not?).
I have only read "The House of Sounds", "Xélucha", and the great "Huguenin's Wife", before.
"Xélucha" (1896)
"The Pale Ape" (1911)
"The Case of Euphemia Raphash" (1895)
"Huguenin's Wife" (1895)
"The House of Sounds" (1911)
"The Great King" (1911)
"The Bride" (1902)
The Purple Cloud (1901)
"Vaila" (1896)
The text appears reliable. But I compared the beginning of The Purple Cloud with Gutenberg's (1901), and found a couple of words that differed. Either the Gutenburg version was wrongly transferred, or perhaps Joshi made a few small changes he found grammatically more correct than in the original?
It is a nice looking trade paperback, like A. Merritt's The Metal Monster in the same Lovecraft's Library series.
Do you know who made the background illustration of the front cover? It looks quite old. The inside says J. T. Lindroos, but I wonder if that really is so; maybe he designed the graphics overlay. Some of his other work available online looks nothing like that illustration.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 13, 2023 8:09:01 GMT
... a nice looking trade paperback, like A. Merritt's The Metal Monster in the same Lovecraft's Library series. ... is larger format. And has a lot of text neatly packed onto the pages. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 13, 2023 9:51:57 GMT
I compared the beginning of The Purple Cloud with Gutenberg's (1901), and found a couple of words that differed. Either the Gutenburg version was wrongly transferred, or perhaps Joshi made a few small changes he found grammatically more correct than in the original? It is his standard method for trying to establish copyright in works that are in the public domain. He just changes a few words here and there. |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Feb 13, 2023 11:41:01 GMT
It's interesting, given Lovecraft's own florid style, that he talks about Shiel in these terms in Supernatural Horror in Literature:
Matthew Phipps Shiel, author of many weird, grotesque, and adventurous novels and tales, occasionally attains a high level of horrific magic. Xelucha is a noxiously hideous fragment, but is excelled by Mr. Shiel’s undoubted masterpiece, The House of Sounds, floridly written in the “yellow nineties,” and recast with more artistic restraint in the early twentieth century.
It's not as if Lovecraft is known for his own artistic restraint.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Feb 13, 2023 16:02:37 GMT
I've been looking at S.T. Joshi and a large part of his world view seems to be influenced by Lovecraft; in fact almost all his tastes seem to have been molded by what Lovecraft wrote on various subjects. In an interview I read he even seems to imply having become a militant atheist because Lovecraft was an unbeliever. Maybe as an immigrant he identified with the outsider aspect of Lovecraft, or maybe as an intelligent young boy he was searching for an identity outside of the norm, that he felt close to. He seems to have problems coming to terms with Lovecraft's extreme racist views, but it is understandable, as he has an additional problem in this as he is of Indian descent and Lovecraft would have ranked him pretty low in the order of human beings. He must have become apoplectic when he read Colin Wilson's description of Lovecraft in his book The Strength to Dream: "He began as one of the worst and most florid writers of the twentieth century, but finally developed a certain discipline and economy — although he always remained fond of words like 'eldritch' and 'grotesque,' and such combinations as 'black clutching panic' and 'stark utter horror.'" But here is the key, Wilson goes on to say: "Two short novels, The Shadow Out of Time and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward are certainly minor classics of horror fiction; while at least a dozen stories deserve to survive." I've been reading recently William Hope Hodgson, who is another bad writer (but a fine looking man) if we were to judge on style alone, but the thing is it works because of the style, not in spite of it. Hodgson evokes cosmic unease, as Lovecraft does in a few of his best stories, and he is more successful than many more literary writers I could name.
I should say Lovecraft disliked the age he lived in, and I have great sympathy with him in this regard.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 14, 2023 12:38:45 GMT
I compared the beginning of The Purple Cloud with Gutenberg's (1901), and found a couple of words that differed. Either the Gutenburg version was wrongly transferred, or perhaps Joshi made a few small changes he found grammatically more correct than in the original? It is his standard method for trying to establish copyright in works that are in the public domain. He just changes a few words here and there. I hope that is not the underlying intention of his editorial work. Surely he has contributed worthwhile textual recovery. I fully understand if he wants to have the copyright to his introductions at least, and that he desires to make money and a living from his work. But I have not heard of him ever censuring work. That is to his credit and honors him. It is a bit surprising, considering his non-white foreign background, pressure from publishers and offended critics, and the general political agenda. Even August Derleth censured (Lovecraft‘s letters). If he really has changed words because he thought the author chose the “wrong” word, that would be unacceptable. For example, Gutenberg’s text of The Purple Cloud reads “… that parson who preached, just before the Boreal set out, about the wickedness of any further attempt to reach the North Pole…” In Hippocampus’s edition the word “wickedness” is replaced by “wrongness”. I don’t know which is right. If Shiel wrote “wickedness”, even though it be an awkward word in the context, then that is the way it should stand. |
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 14, 2023 12:47:06 GMT
It's interesting, given Lovecraft's own florid style, that he talks about Shiel in these terms ... It's not as if Lovecraft is known for his own artistic restraint. I never found Lovecraft’s writing to be florid. He perfectly and masterfully puts together words to create a certain setting of aesthetics, mood, and atmosphere. It is readers who constantly want action that have little patience with this kind of writing, because they lack the sensitivity for it. In the case of Shiel, I have not looked at his writing closely enough to decide if I find it overly florid. But the last story I read, “Huguenin’s Wife”, created an incredible atmosphere. I thought is was masterful. More than masterful. The work of a rare eccentric genius, like Poe or Lovecraft. Artists who are concerned with restraint and moderation, often turn out mediocre. Shiel also had profound insights, like that of the third paragraph in “The House of Sounds” about the toy-maker of St. Antoine. |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Feb 14, 2023 13:06:07 GMT
It is his standard method for trying to establish copyright in works that are in the public domain. He just changes a few words here and there. I hope that is not the underlying intention of his editorial work. Surely he has contributed worthwhile textual recovery. I fully understand if he wants to have the copyright to his introductions at least, and that he desires to make money and a living from his work. But I have not heard of him ever censuring work. That is to his credit and honors him. It is a bit surprising, considering his non-white foreign background, pressure from publishers and offended critics, and the general political agenda. Even August Derleth censured (Lovecraft‘s letters). If he really has changed words because he thought the author chose the “wrong” word, that would be unacceptable. For example, Gutenberg’s text of The Purple Cloud reads “… that parson who preached, just before the Boreal set out, about the wickedness of any further attempt to reach the North Pole…” In Hippocampus’s edition the word “wickedness” is replaced by “wrongness”. I don’t know which is right. If Shiel wrote “wickedness”, even though it be an awkward word in the context, then that is the way it should stand. I'll quote directly from goodreads, to save the effort of having to type myself: The novel exists in three distinct texts. It was first published as a serial, illustrated by J.J. Cameron, in The Royal Magazine, Vol. V, 27-30, Vol. VI, 31-32, January to June 1901. This, the shortest version, was photo-offset in Vol. I of A. Reynolds Morse's monumental series, The Works of M.P. Shiel (1979-83). The original book text, the longest version, was published in London by Chatto & Windus in September 1901. The 1901 text was reprinted in London by Tartarus Press in 2004 in a superb edition with all the Cameron illustrations from the serial and a new Introduction by Brian Stableford. Hippocampus Press included the 1901 text, but without illustrations, in an omnibus volume, The House of Sounds & Others, edited by S.T. Joshi (2005). Shiel revised the novel in the '20s, by tightening the language, not changing the plot. This version was 1st published in London by Victor Gollancz Ltd (1929) and in New York by Vanguard Press (1930). This final version was the text most commonly reprinted in numerous subsequent editions. The Dodo Press edition has wickedness, and has 1901 on the title page, but it doesn't of course mean they used that edition as their source. To me wickedness is a better word than wrongness, as it is a description of the preaching of a parson, and wickedness has religious meaning to it. |
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 14, 2023 13:54:00 GMT
Abraham Merritt on the other hand, whose writing I don't think is of the same high quality as Lovecraft's and Shiel's, could be absurdly florid, especially when he tripped over into the romantically sentimental. But I love his rich imagination. Clark Ashton Smith used purple prose, but he was a master of that style, flourishing exact words that others had never even heard of.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 14, 2023 18:17:29 GMT
But I have not heard of him ever censuring work. That is to his credit and honors him. It is a bit surprising, considering his non-white foreign background, pressure from publishers and offended critics, and the general political agenda. Even August Derleth censured (Lovecraft‘s letters). Try this. C. M. Eddy |
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 16, 2023 1:02:50 GMT
But I have not heard of him ever censuring work. That is to his credit and honors him. It is a bit surprising, considering his non-white foreign background, pressure from publishers and offended critics, and the general political agenda. Even August Derleth censured (Lovecraft‘s letters). Try this. C. M. EddyWe are all biased in our literary taste. No one is under moral obligation to publish something they don't like. I would have done the same if I felt like Joshi. Let someone else take it on. But if someone does decide to publish it, then they better damned not censure any of it!!! I am reluctant to speak ill in public of someone who is not here to fend for himself. I have nothing personal against Joshi. He has unearthed enormous amounts of interesting material. And corrected Lovecraft's texts after decades of accumulated disintegration. And I fancy a man who sings in a choir can't be all bad. But it might be a problem that one single man so completely dominates everything about Lovecraft publishing and related weird writers. Things risk being lopsided. If you want to read these writers today, you have little choice but to turn to Joshi. And I can't help but wonder sometimes, why this progressive liberal Indian man is so obsessed with Lovecraft and his life, whose conservative opinions and outlook he rejects and disapproves of. If it may be some inner subconscious guilty pleasure of Indian retribution, being able to finally control this dead white man supremacist racist's life after he is dead? And to pass the final judgment. At the same time it appears as if Lovecraft has truly gotten into Joshi's heart. By the way, while I am at it, all people are racists - whites, yellow, blacks, - in the sense that they feel most comfortable and at home with their own kind. Isn't that so? Anyhow, I will be keeping Gutenberg's version of The Purple Cloud as a second source of reference. |
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 16, 2023 1:44:07 GMT
I did some comparing of "The Case of Euphemia Raphash" at Roy Glashan's Library. Almost every sentence differs from the Hippocampus version! Perhaps one is the early edition, and the other Shiel's later re-working. I think I shall stop comparing now! |
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Post by andydecker on Feb 16, 2023 12:18:12 GMT
But it might be a problem that one single man so completely dominates everything about Lovecraft publishing and related weird writers. Things risk being lopsided. If you want to read these writers today, you have little choice but to turn to Joshi. You are right. But either all the other Lovecraft scholars keep a low profile or are just not here because they don't exist. Joshi is working the field for more than 30 years now and he is particulary hard-working. His output may appear inflationary, but where is the competition? I can't imagine some young academics - or fans - thirsting to publish 100 year old genre novels in new and annotated editions being so intimidated by the man that they give up before they start. Of course the field could benefit from more discussion, but I guess you can't bake yourself new writers who know as much and are opinionated enough to give Joshi real competition. And I can't help but wonder sometimes, why this progressive liberal Indian man is so obsessed with Lovecraft and his life, whose conservative opinions and outlook he rejects and disapproves of. If it may be some inner subconscious guilty pleasure of Indian retribution, being able to finally control this dead white man supremacist racist's life after he is dead? And to pass the final judgment. At the same time it appears as if Lovecraft has truly gotten into Joshi's heart. By the way, while I am at it, all people are racists - whites, yellow, blacks, - in the sense that they feel most comfortable and at home with their own kind. Isn't that so? Lovecraft was just the easiest target. His private correspondence and his stories have been inseperable thrown together. If one reads a WT story like Belknap Long's Death Waters from 1924 for instance, which is appallingly racist drivel, everything Lovecraft ever published officially seems at best tame. (The pulp genre of the jungle tale never interested me at all, but I suspect one could found hundreds of even worse tales there.) But who knows Belknap Long any longer?Just one of a bunch of forgotten writers who thought it okay of parroting the prejudices of their times to the entertainment of their paying audience.
You won't find any original text of such old material if you don't buy a first edition. (And even then nobody knows how much editorial changed.) For instance in the 20 year old Robert E. Howard editions by Morning Star are listed all the new changes in the texts, like "no comma after marble". And they used Howard's original typescripts as a basis. If you read this all your eyes will glaze over. Still it is an honest approach, but some you will seldom find.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 16, 2023 13:44:26 GMT
But who knows Belknap Long any longer? I think I read a weird tale by Belknapius some time, but found it mediocre. I found Robert Bloch's Cthulhu Mythos stories mediocre too, compared to Lovecraft. To me, most of the literary circle around Lovecraft seemed mediocre, except for Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard. I only associate Long to being perhaps Lovecraft's closest friend, a lowkey mellow person, who lived a long life, well overlapping my own adult life. It is exciting to have been only one body away from, so very close to, actual contact with the person of Lovecraft. Almost born of the same generation! It feels as if I theoretically in principle could have met Lovecraft in real life. Someone like Ramsey Campbell had contact with August Derleth already in the 1960s. That is even closer of course, depending on how you see it. Derleth was something else, he never met Lovecraft in real life. I am about 20 years younger, but it still feels exciting, just the same, to have been fairly close in time to the Weird Tales legends. I know, ... I 'm a fanboy. |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Feb 16, 2023 14:14:21 GMT
Robert E. Howard is interesting, his main creation Conan has entered popular culture, but in a form generally unlike the book one. He is basically an Austrian accented bodybuilder. Of course, other examples of this are Dracula and Frankenstein. The latter is among the most extreme in terms of change, as he is a lumbering, flat-headed idiot, whereas in the book he is an intelligent, articulate, and ultimately tragic figure.
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