Lovecraft Chronicles - Softcover

Cannon, Peter H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0972854533 ISBN 13: 9780972854535

Publisher: Mythos Books, 2004

Synopsis

An alternative history in the form of memoirs looks at the life of H.P. Lovecraft from the viewpoints of three people.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In the years following H. P. Lovecraft's death in 1960, few of his friends and admirers were moved to write down their personal impressions. This may have been in part because HPL outlived so many of his colleagues. One can only wonder what intimates such as W. Paul Cook or Robert Barlow might have penned had they not preceded him to the grave.Perhaps others felt they had little more to add to the already ample public record of a successful author. Then, too, the appearance soon after his passing of August Derleth's brilliant critical survey and L. Sprague de Camp's definitive biography seems to have discouraged younger scholars from pursuing Lovecraft studies.Now, in one volume, Peter Cannon has scraped up three hitherto unpublished memoirs, each focused on a critical stage in Lovecraft's career. Though HPL was most comfortable in male society, two out of the three selections are written by women: Clarissa Stone's account of his early literary triumphs, and Leonora Lathbury's memoir of his time in England. Even Robert Pratt's brief view of Lovecraft in his last days spotlights Lyda Arco Long, the outspoken bride of HPL's “favourite adopted grandson,” Frank Belknap Long.While offering few surprises to the Lovecraft aficionado, these disparate reminiscences amount to an incomparable portrait sure to revive interest in an author unjustly neglected in recent decades.

From Publishers Weekly

Horror legend H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) wasn't much of a ladies' man, as anyone knows who's read his ex-wife Sonia Davis's poignant account of their brief, doomed marriage. In his first novel, an episodic alternative history in the form of a memoir anthology, Lovecraft scholar and PW Forecasts editor Cannon (Lovecraft Remembered) sympathetically explores his subject's vexed relationships with three women. Lovecraft gets the best of two (fictional) female admirers—a spunky teenager and a Barbara Pym–ish spinster, each of whom serves as his secretary—but meets his match in Lyda Long, the real-life bride of his old pal and fellow pulp writer, Frank Belknap Long. Along the way Lovecraft publishes a story collection (which never quite happened in actuality) and realizes his dream of visiting England, where he meets renowned fantasist Arthur Machen. Those familiar with Cannon's chronicle of the Longs in their old age, Long Memories, won't be terribly surprised by the tragicomic denouement. The three first-person narrations, sepia-toned portraits in words, exude period atmosphere and expertly capture Lovecraft's complex character. Borrowing giddily from Stella Gibbons, Charlotte Brontë and George Gissing, Cannon extends and reinvents his life in ways sure to amuse (and provoke) serious Lovecraftians. Jason C. Eckhardt's illustrations complement the text perfectly.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Mythos Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0972854533
• ISBN 13: 9780972854535
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192
• Illustrator: Eckhardt Jason C.