Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Inventive Mind of Lovecraft

Lovecraft responded to his fans by adding dark, black grimoires to his canon every chance he could. He chuckled to mix real and conjured names and authors into the library. Sometimes he got in a hurry and made errors.

S. T. Joshi points out one from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. [1] The Qanoon-e-Islam is a very real book stated to have been held by Curwen from 1746. Not possible, since the author, Ja'fur Sharif, was translated by one G. A. Herklots (The Customs of the Moosulmans of India) in 1832. Lovecraft cribbed the name from his Encyclopedia Britanica under "Magic"!

What is your favorite Mythos book? Post comments below.

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Here is a neat interview by Mythos and dark fiction writer C J Henderson.

C J Henderson Interview Here.

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1 H. P. Lovecraft: The Thing On the Doorstep and Other Weird tales, ed. Joshi, Penguin, 2001. pp. 102, 396. n53

2 comments:

Michelle Souliere said...

Chris, have you seen the short HPL film called "The Hapless Antiquarian"? It had me in stitches. HPL meets Edward Gorey in quest to escape an Evil Tome. Hilarious and delightful. HIGHLY recommended.

Chris Perridas said...

I haven't but it sounds great!

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