Stephen Jones - Necronomicon

[allthingshorror]

Victor Gollancz (2008)

i194.photobucket.com/albums/z272/johnnyelvis/necro.jpg
Les Edwards


CONTENTS:

Night-Gaunts
Dagon
The Statement of Randolph Carter
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Cats of Ulthar
The Nameless City
Herbert West - Reanimator
The Music of Erich Zann
The Lurking Fear
The Hound
The Rats in the Wall
Under the Pyramids
The Unnamable
In the Vault
The Outsider
The Horror at Red Hook
The Colour Out of Space
Pickman's Model
The Call of Cthullu
Cool Air
The Shunned House
The Silver Key
The Dunwich Horror
The Whisperer in Darkness
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Dreams in the Witch-House
From Beyond
Through the Gates of the Silver Key (with E. Hoffmann Price)
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow Out of Time
The Haunter of the Dark
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
To a Dreamer
AFTERWORD: A Gentleman of Providence by Stephen Jones



VC certainly went to town with this book, and it is a true thing of beauty. Got some stunning illustrations from Les Edwards running throughout, and I was extremely lucky to be given one of the original drawings from Les earlier on this year for some research stuff I did for him:

i194.photobucket.com/albums/z272/johnnyelvis/DSCF2868.jpg

[Michael Connolly]

Sept 30, 2009 17:31:14 GMT allthingshorror said:

Victor Gollancz (2008)


Les Edwards


CONTENTS:

Night-Gaunts
Dagon
The Statement of Randolph Carter
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Cats of Ulthar
The Nameless City
Herbert West - Reanimator
The Music of Erich Zann
The Lurking Fear
The Hound
The Rats in the Wall
Under the Pyramids
The Unnamable
In the Vault
The Outsider
The Horror at Red Hook
The Colour Out of Space
Pickman's Model
The Call of Cthullu
Cool Air
The Shunned House
The Silver Key
The Dunwich Horror
The Whisperer in Darkness
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Dreams in the Witch-House
From Beyond
Through the Gates of the Silver Key (with E. Hoffmann Price)
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow Out of Time
The Haunter of the Dark
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
To a Dreamer
AFTERWORD: A Gentleman of Providence by Stephen Jones



VC certainly went to town with this book, and it is a true thing of beauty. Got some stunning illustrations from Les Edwards running throughout, and I was extremely lucky to be given one of the original drawings from Les earlier on this year for some research stuff I did for him:

While M.R. James wrote (in 1928) "In it is a disquisition of nearly 40 pages of double columns on Supernatural Horror in Literature by one H.P. Lovecraft, whose style is of the most offensive. He uses the word cosmic about 24 times", I think that he would have enjoyed "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". It is very antiquarian (as I think David Rowlands pointed out somewhere) and avoids most of the excesses of Lovecraft's sometimes florid style.

[helrunar]

I had no idea M. R. James ever read anything by Lovecraft, or was even aware of the latter's existence. Poor HPL. I have no idea what James would have thought of "Charles Dexter Ward." I re-read it a few months ago and found it to be one of HPL's best.

cheers, Helrunar

[Michael Connolly]

Sept 4, 2018 15:31:20 GMT helrunar said:

I had no idea M. R. James ever read anything by Lovecraft, or was even aware of the latter's existence. Poor HPL. I have no idea what James would have thought of "Charles Dexter Ward." I re-read it a few months ago and found it to be one of HPL's best.

cheers, Helrunar

Ghosts & Scholars 8 published M.R. James's letter about Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature", probably all he ever read by Lovecraft. You can read it here: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveMRJLetter.html

I've re-read most of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" even though it's acres of dense prose with almost no dialogue to break up the text. Dialogue for exposition or characterization of even a minimal kind seem to have been beyond Lovecraft.

[ropardoe]

Sept 4, 2018 15:31:20 GMT helrunar said:

I had no idea M. R. James ever read anything by Lovecraft, or was even aware of the latter's existence. Poor HPL. I have no idea what James would have thought of "Charles Dexter Ward." I re-read it a few months ago and found it to be one of HPL's best.

cheers, Helrunar

As far as I know MRJ never read any of Lovecraft's fiction...I'd love to know what he'd have thought of it if he had.  I like to think he'd have enjoyed some of it (I don't like HPL's style but I love some of his stories!).  When quoting MRJ's derogatory comment on the style of "Supernatural Horror in Literature", it's worth bearing in mind that he then went on to refer to the information in it throughout his letter so he must have found some merit in it!

[dem bones]

Sept 5, 2018 16:46:54 GMT ropardoe said:

As far as I know MRJ never read any of Lovecraft's fiction...I'd love to know what he'd have thought of it if he had.

It depends on which volume(s) of Not At Night he read. His Some Remarks On The Ghost Story possibly provides a clue.

"... to my mind [E. F. Benson] sins occasionally by stepping over the lines of legitimate horridness. He is, however, blameless in this aspect as compared to some Americans who compile volumes called Not At Night and the like. They are merely nauseating ... etc."

The only American to compile - or, at least, introduce - a volume of Not At Night (retitled Not At Night! for the occasion) was Herbert "The Gangs of New York" Asbury, for Macy-Masius in 1928. Asbury recycles 25 stories from Christine Campbell Thomson's first three selections - among them Lovecraft's The Horror At Red Hook.

[ropardoe]

Sept 5, 2018 18:41:13 GMT dem bones said:

Sept 5, 2018 16:46:54 GMT ropardoe said:

As far as I know MRJ never read any of Lovecraft's fiction...I'd love to know what he'd have thought of it if he had.

The only American to compile - or, at least, introduce - a volume of Not At Night (retitled Not At Night! for the occasion) was Herbert "The Gangs of New York" Asbury, for Macy-Masius in 1928. Asbury recycles 25 stories from Christine Campbell Thomson's first three selections - among them Lovecraft's The Horror At Red Hook.

Well, that would be enough to put anyone off!

[dem bones]

Sept 6, 2018 8:15:59 GMT ropardoe said:

Well, that would be enough to put anyone off!

If it was the Asbury 'Not At Night!' triggered MRJ's lamentable outburst, how heartless of him to deny us his thoughts on the likes of H. Thompson Rich's frankly, beguiling, quintessentially non-'Jamesian' The Purple Cincture, Bassett "Brain transplant" Morgan's Laocoon, Paul S. Powers' The Life Serum and Seabury Quinn's early Jules de Grandin adventures, The Horror On The Links and The House Of Horrors.

Do you have an exact date for when Some Remarks on the Ghost Stories was written? There's the slimmest chance he was referring to the then most recent Not At Night volume, By Daylight Only (Oct. 1929), featuring The Rats In The Walls, though that seems unlikely.

[ropardoe]

Sept 7, 2018 1:51:56 GMT dem bones said:

Sept 6, 2018 8:15:59 GMT ropardoe said:

Well, that would be enough to put anyone off!

If it was the Asbury 'Not At Night!' triggered MRJ's lamentable outburst, how heartless of him to deny us his thoughts on the likes of H. Thompson Rich's frankly, beguiling, quintessentially non-'Jamesian' The Purple Cincture, Bassett "Brain transplant" Morgan's Laocoon, Paul S. Powers' The Life Serum and Seabury Quinn's early Jules de Grandin adventures, The Horror On The Links and The House Of Horrors.

Do you have an exact date for when Some Remarks on the Ghost Stories was written? There's the slimmest chance he was referring to the then most recent Not At Night volume, By Daylight Only (Oct. 1929), featuring The Rats In The Walls, though that seems unlikely.

I don't know exactly.  As we know, of course, the article appeared in the Christmas 1929 edition of The Bookman.  In early November ("the other day", MRJ wrote on November 11th), a photographer came to take a picture to accompany his article, so the likelihood is that he'd written it before then.  I think that would make the Oct '29 Not at Night volume a bit too late.   

[Michael Connolly]

Sept 7, 2018 7:56:26 GMT ropardoe said:

Sept 7, 2018 1:51:56 GMT dem bones said:

If it was the Asbury 'Not At Night!' triggered MRJ's lamentable outburst, how heartless of him to deny us his thoughts on the likes of H. Thompson Rich's frankly, beguiling, quintessentially non-'Jamesian' The Purple Cincture, Bassett "Brain transplant" Morgan's Laocoon, Paul S. Powers' The Life Serum and Seabury Quinn's early Jules de Grandin adventures, The Horror On The Links and The House Of Horrors.

Do you have an exact date for when Some Remarks on the Ghost Stories was written? There's the slimmest chance he was referring to the then most recent Not At Night volume, By Daylight Only (Oct. 1929), featuring The Rats In The Walls, though that seems unlikely.

I don't know exactly.  As we know, of course, the article appeared in the Christmas 1929 edition of The Bookman.  In early November ("the other day", MRJ wrote on November 11th), a photographer came to take a picture to accompany his article, so the likelihood is that he'd written it before then.  I think that would make the Oct '29 Not at Night volume a bit too late.   

Such bother I've caused (again).