Primal Sources: Essays on H. P. Lovecraft

• By S. T. Joshi
• December 2003
• ISBN 0972164405
• 208 pages
• Paperback

Acclaimed Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi's best pieces on H. P. Lovecraft are collected for the first time in one volume, resulting in an exciting tour-de-force for fans and scholars alike.

S. T. Joshi, the world's leading authority on Lovecraft, has written a substantial number of articles on Lovecraft-biographical, critical, philosophical, and bibliographical-over the 25 years in which he has been studying the Providence master of horror. In this collection, the most extensive of Joshi's critical essays ever published, many aspects of Lovecraft's works are studied. Essays on Lovecraft's relations with the Munsey magazines, with Weird Tales, and with the films of his day add sidelights to Joshi's landmark biography, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life.

Joshi also treats such provocative issues as the interrelation of the dream world and the real world in Lovecraft's Dunsanian fantasies, his use of autobiography in his tales, and the many extraterrestrial civilizations he introduces in his longer narratives. Several studies of individual stories highlight little-known facts about Lovecraft's stories, including their literary and philosophical sources and the details of their plots and themes. This volume is a rich treasure-trove of information on Lovecraft by his leading interpreter.

Contents:

• Introduction

I. Lovecraft The Man

• Lovecraft and the Munsey Magazines
• Lovecraft and Weird Tales
• A Look at Lovecraft's Letters
• Lovecraft and the Films of His Day
• Lovecraft's Library

II. Lovecraft the Writer and Thinker

• Autobiography in Lovecraft
• "Reality" and Knowledge
• In Defence of Dagon and Lovecraft's Philosophy
• The Rationale of Lovecraft's Pseudonyms
• The Dream World and the Real World in Lovecraft
• Lovecraft's Alien Civilisations: A Political Interpretation
• Topical References in Lovecraft

III. Studies on Individual Works

• Lovecraft, Regner Lodbrog, and Olaus Wormius
• On "Polaris"
• What Happens in "Arthur Jermyn"
• "The Tree" and Ancient History
• The Sources for "From Beyond"
• Lovecraft and the Regnum Congo
• Lovecraft and Dunsany's Chronicles of Rodriguez
• On "The Descendant"
• Some Sources for "The Mound" and At the Mountains of Madness
• On "The Book"
• Lovecraft's Fantastic Poetry
• Books by S. T. Joshi