The Letters

[Tinsel]

Actually I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the letters among Lovecraft and Howard. I see that there were some good questions asked on the introduction to Howards horror stories. Now this would serve my purpose, since these guys were good at what they did, although I have n4ot read many of Howards stories yet. I am in for the purchase as long as it including Howard's letters, just to let S.T.4 Joshi know since he does everything these days, everybody else is handicapped.

 

[w h pugmire esq]

Actually I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the letters among Lovecraft and Howard. I see that there were some good questions asked on the introduction to Howards horror stories. Now this would serve my purpose, since these guys were good at what they did, although I have n4ot read many of Howards stories yet. I am in for the purchase as long as it including Howard's letters, just to let S.T.4 Joshi know since he does everything these days, everybody else is handicapped.

Lovecraft's letters are absolutely fascinating! The two volumes of his correspondence with Robert E. Howard sold out quickly and now commands a high price, but there are two soft cover editions of Lovecraft's letters still available from Hippocampus, and two of the volumes published by Arkham House are still available from them. And we have many more volumes to look forward to, and eventually, I think, all of the known correspondence will be sold as CD disc through Hippocampus, and that will be amazing!!!

 

[dask]

Anyone by chance know the titles for the volumes still in print?

 

[w h pugmire esq]

Anyone by chance know the titles for the volumes still in print?

Arkham House still has copies of Selected Letters III and Selected Letters V, both extremely wonderful, and III is my very favorite of the series, really excellent. Hippocampus Press has Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner which along with HPL's lletters has poems by Kleiner, poems by HPL addressed to Klein, essays on Lovecraft by Kleiner and other bits. And Letters to Alfred Galpin, which includes many letters and many works by Galpin. Both of these Hippocampus editions also have great introductions by editors Joshi & Schultz. Other editions of Lovecraft's letters may be found at Abe's Books or Amazon, but ye prices are sometimes absurd.

 

[Tinsel]

I see. It is rare. They didn't want to do a reprint. If that CD has everything, than that would be the way to go, why not, especially when I get a newer monitor in a year or two, but I'll quickly check the Sony Store as well, they at least have all the main titles including the night in the museum, I think it was called...and which I have...but it is locked up.

 

[j d worthington]

The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions (Night in the Museum was the film with Ben Stiller... quite a different critter....)

That CD would not have Howard's side of the correspondence, Tinsel, which is what you expressed an interest in. However, the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press also has three volumes of his letters out (if they are still in print); so you may want to look into getting those. Also, the sheer task of editing all of HPL's extant correspondence is going to take considerable time, as this would be something in the neighborhood of 10,000 letters, if I remember correctly (the estimate of his actual output was something around 80,000 to 100,000, most of which are, sadly, lost)....

Wildside Press also has Writers of the Dark, which includes HPL's letters to Fritz and Jonquil Leiber; and you may be able to find a reasonably priced copy of Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei, or Letters from New York, both of which were issued by Night Shade Books. (The links below give you some options; and the one to Night Shade itself shows there is a trade paperback edition of the first of these two available as well.)

Letters Vol. 1: Mysteries of Time and Spirit [NSB70] : Arkham Bazaar, The Bazaar of the Bizarre ... Lovecraft, Cthulhu, Poe, Movies, DVDs, Gifts

Letters Vol. 2: Letters from New York [NSB71] : Arkham Bazaar, The Bazaar of the Bizarre ... Lovecraft, Cthulhu, Poe, Movies, DVDs, Gifts

Night Shade Books: Lovecraft, H. P. - Letters Vol. 1: Mysteries of Time and Spirit

 

[dask]

Got them written down in my notebook. Many thanks to you both.

 

[Tinsel]

I don't know enough about these authors writing yet in order to lead me to purchase the letters at so high a price. One would think that they would be popular and reproduced.

Anyway, I will read more of the stories and I suppose I will forget the letters unless by some miracle they are still around.

Oh yeah, I am rereading "The Call of Cthulhu". It was not bad. So I will continue that now.

 

[J-WO]

10,000 letters? That's got to be a record of some kind, surely?

 

[j d worthington]

Almost certainly. According to estimates I've seen, if his existing correspondence were published in the usual format, it would dwarf even the collected correspondence of Horace Walpole or other notables in sheer volume. Nor, as has been addressed elsewhere, is it mere bulk; Lovecraft's letters are among the richest examples of the form I've seen, fascinating on many levels, full of information on a number of topics, fascinating discussions, wit, humor, fancy, story fragments, dreams, warm human feeling, and simply a wonderful experience to read. Even his pricklier attitudes (such as "race") are at very least expressed in a manner consistent with his other rhetorical abilities, and therefore certain to provoke controversy and argument; while the vast bulk of his correspondence is as rich and complex as his fiction....

 

[J-WO]

Even for people with no interest in his stories, HPL's letters are a formidable document of the early 20th century.

We'll probably never see their like again. Forums and Email have their benefits--speed, ease of access, the opportunity to meet people you didn't even knew existed (Serendipity is the Net's greatest charm)--but we've surely lost something with the end of the epistolary age. Handwriting for starters.

 

[j d worthington]

Even for people with no interest in his stories, HPL's letters are a formidable document of the early 20th century.

We'll probably never see their like again. Forums and Email have their benefits--speed, ease of access, the opportunity to meet people you didn't even knew existed (Serendipity is the Net's greatest charm)--but we've surely lost something with the end of the epistolary age. Handwriting for starters.

Ummmm... have you ever seen a reproduction of HPL's writing...?

 

[J-WO]

You know, I can't says that I has. Bet its all elegant and spidery.

 

[j d worthington]

It didn't begin that badly, but over the years it became increasingly cramped and crabbed. L. Sprague de Camp commented that reading his handwriting was something that, "like hanging", you can get used to....

If you can find a library copy of either de Camp's biography or the Selected Letters volumes (especially the first), you can see for yourself some examples of full pages of his letters.

I cannot, at the moment, find any examples of his letters on the 'net, but the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society has a typeface which is based on scans of his letters to Willis Conover, so if you can find more than few lines of that, it may give you an idea... the same font is used, incidentally, as the headers for the pages of Black Wings....

You can also find examples of his holograph manuscripts in the Lovecraft issue of Books at Brown....

As for a sample of what his letters could be like, the H. P. Lovecraft Archive has a couple of sample letters:

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/letters/1919-12-11-glm.asp

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/letters/1927-11-27-cas.asp

 

[w h pugmire esq]

the sheer task of editing all of HPL's extant correspondence is going to take considerable time, as this would be something in the neighborhood of 10,000 letters, if I remember correctly (the estimate of his actual output was something around 80,000 to 100,000, most of which are, sadly, lost)....

I think, actually, that the transcribing (if not editing) of the vast majority of the letters has already been accomplished. This is something I sure hope I remember to ask S. T. about when I interview him tomorrow. Thus, a CD of the complete extant correspondence could probably be something that could happen much sooner than the actual publication of the letters in volumes.

 

[j d worthington]

I think, actually, that the transcribing (if not editing) of the vast majority of the letters has already been accomplished. This is something I sure hope I remember to ask S. T. about when I interview him tomorrow. Thus, a CD of the complete extant correspondence could probably be something that could happen much sooner than the actual publication of the letters in volumes.

That is possible, yes. However, as I recall, even as they stand, there are some few things which it has been felt best to edit out of the letters before publication for possible legal reasons of one kind or another. I may be mistaken on this, but I vaguely recall some concern about, if not living people (I don't believe any of HPL's correspondents, or those he would be commenting on, are still living at this point), those near to them... a point of consideration of which I think HPL would have approved. However, this may no longer be something to take into account, in which case this could indeed happen much, much more quickly than publication in volumes (which was projected to take as long as... what was it?... twenty to twenty-five years or so?).

I, for one, would certainly welcome a collection (electronic or otherwise) of his entire extant correspondence....

Oh, yes, and another little quote (or set of excerpts), from a letter of his to Rheinhart Kleiner, dated 7 March, 1920, which gives some hint of what Lovecraft himself was like:

About your stagnation & melancholy -- I shall have to give you a lecture when I get hold of you next summer!![...] I hope your recent state is merely one of transition from the idealism of youth to the realism of middle life, when the thinker realises that there is no such thing as ideal happiness & ceases to strive after illusions so empty & unreal. Solid bourgeois contentment -- with the settled conviction that wild pleasures are too rare, elusive, & transitory to be worth seeking -- is the best state of mind to be in.[...] To enjoy tranquillity & to promote tranquillity in others, is the most enduring of delights. Such was the doctrine of Epicurus, the leading ethical philosopher of the world. If one's interest in life wanes, let him turn to the succour of others in a like plight, & some grounds for interest will be observed to return.[...] That I have been able to cheer here & there an aged man, an infirm old lady, a dull youth, or a person deprived by circumstances of education, affords to me a sense of being not altogether useless, which almost forms a substitute for the real success I shall never know. What matter if none hear of my labours, or if these labours touch only the afflicted & the mediocre? Surely it is well that the happiness of the unfortunate be made as great as possible; & he who is kind, helpful, & patient, with his fellow-sufferers, adds as truly to the world's combined fund of tranquillity as he who, with greater endowments, promotes the birth of empires, or advances the knowledge & civilisation of mankind. Thus no man of philosophical cast, however circumscribed by poverty or retarded by ailment, need feel himself superfluous so long as he holds the power to improve the spirit of others.

-- Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, pp. 184-85

 

[J-WO]

Just read that letter to Galpin. Wow. So that's where the Statement of Randolph Carter came from!

 

[Ningauble]

(which was projected to take as long as... what was it?... twenty to twenty-five years or so?)

I don't think it was quite that long -- I think it was 20-25 volumes, but so far, Hippocampus Press has managed two volumes a year, so if we're lucky it might take 10-12 years or maybe a little more.

 

[j d worthington]

I don't think it was quite that long -- I think it was 20-25 volumes, but so far, Hippocampus Press has managed two volumes a year, so if we're lucky it might take 10-12 years or maybe a little more.

That may be it, and I may have got my figures turned around (wouldn't surprise me at all). That being the case, assuming I survive that long -- well, and long enough to finish reading and enjoying them -- that's fine with me....

J-WO. Yep, it is indeed.... Several of his tales had their origins in little germs from his dreams, from the central idea of the bas-relief in "Call of Cthulhu" to the idea of the strange swineherd in "The Rats in the Walls"... though in most cases, these underwent considerable alterations before reaching their final form. Only very rarely was something directly incorporated into a story without some major changes. One other example I can think of is the narrator's spirit floating over the city in "Polaris"... an that particular tale's originating dream is recounted in one of Lovecraft's letters to Maurice Winter Moe, discussing the importance of differentiating between the real and the unreal, and on the truth or falsity of religion....