The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft - Softcover

Lovecraft, H P

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1614980705 ISBN 13: 9781614980704

Publisher: Hippocampus Press, 2013

Synopsis

The publication in 2001 of The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft was a landmark. For the first time, all of Lovecraft's 500 or more poems-including hundreds of Christmas greetings, untitled poems, fragments, and poems embedded in his published and unpublished letters-were gathered in accurate texts, with critical commentary and full bibliography. Since that time, a dozen or more poems or poetic fragments have been discovered by scholars and researchers, and this new edition prints these items along with several other works of interest. Poems that Lovecraft revised for various authors are included, along with (where extant) the original poems that served as the basis for the revisions. The original versions of poems by Ovid, Horace, and other classical poets that Lovecraft translated are provided. And the commentary and bibliography have been thoroughly revised and updated. It can well be said that this second edition of The Ancient Track is the definitive collection of Lovecraft's entire poetic output. It has been edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Lovecraft and the editor of Lovecraft's collected fiction, revisions, essays, and letters.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Several Lovecraft poetry volumes have appeared over the years, notably Arkham House's Collected Poems (1963), but here at last is an attractive, scholarly edition that collects every known scrap of verse from the cosmic Yankee's pen. Joshi, author of the definitive biography, Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and editor of the corrected texts of HPL's fiction, has sensibly divided the book thematically: juvenilia, fantasy and horror (a relatively small portion of the whole), occasional verse, satire, seasonal and topographical, amateur affairs, politics and society, and personal. Since Lovecraft's models date no later than his beloved 18th century, his poetry as such (the bulk of it written in his amateur journalist phase, before he hit his stride as a horror writer) contributes nothing to the advancement of the form. With their archaic diction and references to obscure colleagues, some poems are well-nigh unreadable (here Joshi's notes are especially helpful), but Lovecraft's sense of humor (virtually absent in his fiction) surfaces in many lighter poems that require no annotation, while his more serious verse reveals much about his Anglophilic and conservative social and political attitudes as a young man. Also included are Alfredo; A Tragedy, HPL's one play, and a section of fragments, along with a chronology and an index of titles and of first lines. This is an essential tome for every self-respecting Lovecraftian, if for few others.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hippocampus Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1614980705
• ISBN 13: 9781614980704
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 606
• Editor: Joshi Author S T