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Post by Knygathin on Feb 17, 2023 12:26:27 GMT
In the Hippocampus edition "thank you" has been replaced by "thanks". Was the contraction "thanks" spoken and written in 1895? To me it sounds so modern and sloppy, not befitting the well dressed and behaved genteel of that time. In the version in Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detection: An Oxford Anthology (1992) it is "thank you" too. Does Joshi explain in any way in the introduction how he chose or edited his texts? I think if I buy an actual physical edition of Shiel's works this won't be it. Joshi provides notes on the texts: "The Case of Euphemia Raphash" was taken from The Pale Ape and Other Pulses (1911). I don't know if that differs from its original 1895 appearance. The Purple Cloud is from the 1901 edition.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 17, 2023 11:32:08 GMT
In the Hippocampus edition "thank you" has been replaced by "thanks". Was the contraction "thanks" spoken and written in 1895? To me it sounds so modern and sloppy, not befitting the well dressed and behaved genteel of that time.
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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 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 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 (Lovecraftās 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 15, 2023 22:52:42 GMT
I am now struggling with David Lindsay's Devil's Tor. A good book, but extremely slow, ... I will finish it. I frequently have to reread his awkward sentences, because he places verbs and pronouns or nouns in reversed order, and so far apart that by the end of the sentence I have forgotten what belongs to what. But I can't even begin to tell you what an exciting tale this is! I am about halfway through. If you have the patience to read this book, it slowly grows on you and gets more and more dramatic, and you will be in for one heluva interesting story! This is clearly a writer who cares nothing about his readers, he is not out to please an audience, but is driven by an extreme passion of personal discovery.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 15, 2023 9:14:23 GMT
The original list also has some serious gaps. No love for T.E.D. Klein, Michael McDowell, Skipp&Spector, Peter Straub, Richard Laymon, Charles L. Grant? And no Thomas Ligotti. "Top Ten". Top what? Top quality? No, top selling. Such lists are always commercially driven. A charade written by bribed journalists to fool the masses into buyng more copies.
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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 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 Lovecraftās 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, āHugueninās Wifeā, 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 āThe House of Soundsā about the toy-maker of St. Antoine.
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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 (Lovecraftās letters). If he really has changed words because he thought the author chose the āwrongā word, that would be unacceptable. For example, Gutenbergās text of The Purple Cloud reads āā¦ that parson who preached, just before the Boreal set out, about the wickedness of any further attempt to reach the North Poleā¦ā In Hippocampusās edition the word āwickednessā is replaced by āwrongnessā. I donāt know which is right. If Shiel wrote āwickednessā, 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 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. ... The House of Sounds is larger format. And has a lot of text neatly packed onto the pages.
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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", "XĆ©lucha", and the great "Huguenin's Wife", before.
"XĆ©lucha" (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 3, 2023 10:08:01 GMT
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 3, 2023 9:59:32 GMT
I would recommend buying the $1,000.00 copy, instead of the $314.73 or $375.00 copies as they have stickers on that I fear cannot be removed without damaging the dust jacket. But really, in the old days extra price stickers were quite charming.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 2, 2023 0:25:05 GMT
Reading W. H. Hodgson's The Night Land was a breeze comparably. This must be the worst recommendation I read in a long time. :-) But, it is a good book. :-)
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