Monday, May 19, 2008

L Sprague de Camp & Roy Squires Correspondence



This has interesting anecdotes about Sonia and other points.


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The seller (epegana) states:


LETTER FROM L. SPRAGUE de CAMPto ROY A. SQUIRES re: H. P. LOVECRAFT BIOGRAPHY


In 1975 L. Sprague de Camp's book- "LOVECRAFT: A Biography" - was published by Doubleday. De Camp never knew Lovecraft and did not come to his fiction until ten years after the author's death - "I read the Science Fiction magazines and was not a reader of 'Weird Tales'. De Camp however was a tireless researcher intensively researching for two years and was fortunate enough to contact many of HPL's friends & associates by letter, telephone, and face-to-face in some instances, gaining a firsthand familiarity now lost to us. Publisher, bibliographer, friend to Clark Ashton Smith and one of Sonia Greene Lovecraft's last friends, Roy A. Squires was approached by de Camp for copies of HPL's letters to Clark Ashton Smith.
Squires declined; copies of these letters are currently being assembled & transcribed at Brown University.
This letter of one-and-a half pages is signed in full by de Camp.When the book appeared in 1975 it was panned by Lovecraft devotees because of de Camp's criticisms, conclusions and "amateur psychological analysis" of HPL's work habits, his lifestyle, his personality & unusual upbringing. If you've read S. T. Joshi's bio, you'll find variant approaches, conclusions & information in de Camp's book that deserves your attentions. If you're an HPL enthusiast you can come to your own conclusions.The scan is intentionally incomplete, but the letter is complete to the winner.

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