Rare Sonia Greene Letter Comes to Light: Part 2

Above are glimpses of the 5 June 1953 letter from Sonia to Samuel Loveman announcing her desire to meet him as she traveled to New York.

Lovecraft's Legacy: 1959

The Macabre Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. Published by Ace Books. Copyright 1959, probable 1st or early printing based on the 35 cent cover price.
This has a great group of stories by classic horror authors - Thorp McClusky, Robert Bloch, John Martin Leahy, H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Burke, Donald Wandrei, Clark Ashton Smith, Zealia Brown Bishop, Robert E. Howard and Henry S. Whitehead.Apparently Thorp McClusky was a late 1930's mainstay of the pulps including Weird Tales. Many of the others were compadres of HPL. I located on the 'net a few mid-1920's tales of Leahy in Weird Tales.

Lovecraft's Legacy: 1964

In the 1960's HPL was still being reprinted with other eclectic stories.

MAY 1964 Vol. 1 No. 4, MAGAZINE OF HORROR AND STRANGE STORIES. About 5x7" in size digest. 130 pages. Includes: THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE BY H.P. LOVECRAFT, What Was It, by Fitz James O'Brien, Beyond the Breakers by Anna Hunger, The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling, Last Act: October by Tigrina, The Truth about Pyecraft by H.G. Wells, A Psychological Experiment by Richard Marsh, and A Dream of Falling by Attila Hatvany.

I'm at a loss to find anything on Tigrina, Atilla Hatvany, or Anna Hunger. Fitz James O'Brien is a well known author, as is H G Wells and Kipling.

Richard Marsh (1857-1915) was the pseudonym of the British author born Richard Bernard Heldman. He is best known for his supernatural thriller The Beetle, published in the same year as Dracula and initially even more popular. He began to publish short stories, mostly adventure tales, as "Bernard Heldmann," before adopting the name "Richard Marsh" in 1893.

The Picture In The House: An Essay

At All Hallow's Eve check out a cool essay on The Picture in the House. It starts, "My first introduction to H.P. Lovecraft was the story “The Picture In The House”." ... More.

Roger Martin Tudor's New Interactive CD: Part 1

Roger Tudor has made available a great new tool for Lovecraftian research and for pure enjoyment. I've just received my cd by Roger, and wow.

I know many of you are RPG savvy. This new resource is, as Lovecraft might have said, "the cat's meow". Intense. That's my first impression. Deep. Knowledgable. Well researched.


There are several sections all fully linked to hundreds (HUNDREDS) of sources to follow up on definitions of hard words, the behind-the-scenes meanings of allusions, and images of the eldritch gods and places and people Lovecraft discusses in his fiction. Dagon and Azathoth are featured.


There are also links to blogs, web sites, and video clips.

In a few more installments, I'll tell you much more about this. Roger should have copies available on ebay - or go to his site and inquire.

Announcement !

***
Update on 29 July 2007 ... 25 members and growing!! Join now!
***
*edit on 29 June 2007* 19 members have joined so far! Thank you!
***
I know, many of you want to participate in a forum board on Lovecraft. Chrispy just has not been able to master the intricacies of google forums etc. Therefore, I have a new plan and it will be a lot less painful for everyone.

I have set up a full office at Zoetrope. It will be filled with neat abilities and features, be 100% password protected, and from there you can springboard into any other horror or story office you wish.

All you need is an e-mail address!

Go to http://www.zoetrope.com/
Sign Up.
You will be given zoetrope e-mail access, which we fondly call z-mail.
Z-mail me and I will invite you to the office for immediate participation.

I'll leave this at the top of the posts for several weeks.

Rare Sonia Greene Letter Comes to Light: Part 1

Long after HPL was gone, Sonia and Loveman communicated. However, by 1953, we can see by this letter that they were not in close touch. It's hard for us to recall, or relaize, but in our days of IM and cell phones, most people still communicated by letters - snail mail. Yes, there were telephones, but state to state was long distance, and quite expensive. A dollar or two for a long distance call was quite expensive for folks who might only make $50 a week or so.

Cephalopod Update

Keeping abreast of all things Cthuluesque, here is the most recent giant squid sighting.

MONTEREY, Calif. (25 July 2007) - Jumbo squid that can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds are invading central California waters ... the Humboldt squid - or Dosidicus gigas - can change its eating habits to consume ... "... a new, voracious predator set up shop here in California ..." said the study's co-author, Stanford University researcher Louis Zeidberg.

```shudder```

The full story in comments.

Report From Kappa Alpha Tau

Lovecraft would be alternately repulsed by the supernatural credulity and amused by the purring cat.

***

Oscar has supposedly predicted, accurately, many deaths at a hospital ... in .... Providence, Rhode Island !! Oh, my.

Full Story posted in comments.

CSM: Cthulhu Magazine Closes

This seen online (here).

CSM officially announces closure.

Amidst gnashing of teeth and tears of woe from the paid audience, St. Michael, creator and publisher of CSM, announced at a secret press conference that Cthulhu Sex Magazine would be closing after the next issue, Issue 14, Volume 3. "We started this magazine to mainstream amazing artwork and fantastic writing that wasn't in the public eye," said the surreally good-looking man, "and over the last nine years, we have achieved that goal." To back up his statement, a video presentation offered fun facts, including national distribution to multiple major chains, mentions in major international magazines and papers, and common usage as an example in non-promotional articles and blogs. "We'll miss our contributors and readers," St. Michael continued, "but we've decided to get out while the getting is good and use this shared experience to catapult into new and greater experiences." He went on to assure subscribers that they will receive compensation of undelivered issues in the form of books from Two Backed Books, the CSM imprint of Raw Dog Screaming Press. He also informed faithful readers of CSM that many of the writers they have come to know and love would be published through Two Backed Books. The CSM website will continue to operate as will the CSM MySpace page. St. Michael intimated that there might be a new experience at the webpage in the works.
--6/28/2007

Rare Etchings and Odysseys: Lovecraft's Legacy from 1987

1987 Etchings & Odysseys #10.

Includes (see comments for the full text of Table of Contents)

A Song of the Werewolf Folk Robert E. Howard pm
Clark Ashton Smith: Emperor of Dreams
Ashtoroth Armas T. Salminen
Great Cthulhu Armas T. Salminen
Destiny [2] Brian Lumley
The Spectacles in the Drawer Thomas Ligotti
Lord Dunsany and Lovecraft R. Alain Everts

Interlude: Cthuluesque Jokes

Forum-mate, Arne, has ferreted out these yucks. (If you'd like to join the forum, see directions in blog post above.)

So Nyarlahotep pops across to the library where Cthulhu's actually a bit more rugose and squamous then usual. And he says, what's up?

And Cthulhu says "Rl'yeh fthagn, ahem! Blimey! Sorry, phlegm. Bit ill, actually."

So Nyarlahotep rubs three of his pseudopods together and says, "I have just the thing!"

And he leads the mighty Elder One across the non-Euclidean town sqaure, down a dodgy back alley, where an eldritch couple of debt collectors are lurking.

And Nyarlahotep says: "Here's that sick squid I owe you."

... "Waiter! Waiter! There's a dead squid in my soup!"
"It's not dead, Sir. It's just dreaming."

... Man 1: "Have you seen that odd monkey-looking fellow Arthur around lately?"
Man 2: "Jermyn?"
Man 1: "No, I think he was Portuguese..."

... Arne found them here.

21st Lovecraftian Connection: Ethan Haas and JJ Abrams

Roger Tudor has found and discusses allt he links to this bizarre phenomenon. Check it out Here. Wicked!

The great war of the gods will come upon the earth; the fires and terror of their rule will return for a time, but the children of the gods may be thus prepared, themselves aware and powerful…they may stand along side the gods not as equals, but as allies, feared and ready.

Read More.

Blog discussion and opinions on Sonia Greene

Casper Kelly found this fascinating and vigorously debated and opinionated blog entry and comments. One aspect is whether Sonia deserves her own Wikipedia entry, whether she was worthy of literary respect in her own right, and the controversy over the myth that she dated Aleister Crowley.

Go there now.

Brief Note on Lovecraft's Spelling

Forum-mate, Roger, noted this. See his terrific Lovecraft web site here.

Just one (very pedantic) point that I've noticed in American reviews of Lovecraft. The section, "S.H. [Sonia] is urging me to take it up if it definitely materialises" is followed by [sic] which means the editor is noting the author's error. However, this is not an error on Lovecraft's part because, being the Anglophile that he was, he frequently, in his stories and other writings, spelled words in the English rather than the American way.

Here is the example he quotes from my artice on Lovecraft's "He".

He relates, "Henneberger ... has in mind a new magazine ... 'right in my line', and he wants to know if I would consider moving to Chicago to edit it! My gawd, Pete, bring the stretcher! It may be a fliver, but S.H. [Sonia] is urging me to take it up if it definitely materialises [sic] ... She would be willing to move at any time, for the milinery world of Chicago...". In the same breath, Lovecraft decides, "such a break from the Colonial scenes would be a little short of tragic; and big though the proposition would be ... I would not consent ...". That was basically that. ... * H.P. Lovecraft, Letters From New York, ed. S.T. Joshi and David E. Scultz, 2005, Night Shade Books, isbn 1892389371, p.47

Interlude

OK, Chrispy is a sucker for cephalopod jokes.

David Niall Wilson: New Mythos Story On-Line

His Mythos story is Here

David is a veteran professioanl writer, and it's exciting that he's willling to share his work with the horror communtiy like this. Please support him! And Apex!

Visit David Niall Wilson's website - Here.

And his blog - Here.

As temptation it starts...


Darkness -- and the Light by David Niall Wilson

The surface of the lake gave new and deeper meaning to the term ‘placid.’ The water was so still, and so dark, that the very absence of sound and motion drew images from deep within Jonathan’s mind that were anything but peaceful.

More.

May 1934 Fanzine, Fantasy Magazine

The MAY 1934 issue of the fanzine FANTASY MAGAZINE (formerly SCIENCE FICTION DIGEST), Volume 3 Number 3, featuring:

The Return to Venus (short story) …………….Rae WINTERS
Special Announcement…………….
The Earth Guard (poem) …………….
The Planet Prince
Donald Wandrei…………….Interviewed by Julius SCHWARTZ & Mortimer WEISINGER Scientific Hoaxes…………….Julius SCHWARTZ & Mortimer WEISINGER
Spilling the Atoms…………….with RAP
Fallacies of Science Fiction…………….Thos. S. GARDNER
Scientificuriosities…………….Milton KALETSKY
The Skylaugh of Space…………….Omnia
The Science Fiction Eye…………….Julius SCHWARTZ
The Vortex World (5-part novel, conclusion) …………….Raymond A. PALMER
The Outpost (poem) …………….H. P. LOVECRAFT
Book Review…………….
Service Department…………….
The Ether Vibrates…………….Mortimer WEISINGER
The Editor Broadcasts…………….
Book Review…………….
Future City…………….Clay FERGUSON, JR.
COSMOS – Chapter 12…………….J. Harvey HAGGARD

Supplement
Editorial Director, Conrad H. RUPPERT
Managing Editor, Julius SCHWARTZ
Associate Editor, Mortimer WEISINGER
Literary Editor, Raymond A. PALMER
Scientifilm Editor, Forrest J. ACKERMAN

700th post !! Hurrah!!

Thank you, Gentle Readers. Your erudite comments and your many e-mails to me have been a blessing. Some of you have been extra kind to read my stories and essays at +The Horror Library+ and elsewhere.

This time, I want to alert you to a german language blog. Once again, my forum-mate Arne has done excellent research to feret this blog out. It has amazingly rare images of HPL (see image above).

Go there now.

Mr. Peabody's Last Lecture

Cark Reiner in a Rod Serling Night Gallery Episode. What more could one say?

Thank you, Arne, for uncovering this one.

As always, one never knows how long an internet video link will hold out, so get this one while you can.

Alleged 1933 WPA film of Lovecraft !! Or is it ??

My Forum mate, Arne found this video. Thanks, Arne!

In our discussions at the Forum (see announcement above) we feel there is a stroing lieklyhood this si a clever forgery, but you can be the judge.

WPA was the Works Progress Administration. In the midst of the Great Depression, Roosevelt's administration made jobs that fit a person's natural work talents. Writers and directors were employed to collect folklore and make films and images of notables.

Please view the video and leave a comment as to your impressions.