j d worthington
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 9, 2006
- Messages
- 13,889
A while back I began writing a paper on this little piece, with the information I had at hand. Then along came S. T. Joshi's recent annotated edition of the first volume of HPL's revisions and collaborations, and one of the notes there caused me to realize I would have to revise certain portions of the paper rather heavily. Not a problem, really... when new information like this comes along, I do groan a bit at the work ahead, but then I tend to get quite excited about it all.*
Anyway, I contacted him and found that the information he had included came from long-time Lovecraft scholar Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., who has done enormous amounts of research on HPL's family, his amateur colleagues, and various other topics, and so I wrote to Mr. Faig asking where I might obtain the essays he had done on the topic. He very kindly sent me links to online versions... and then things went haywire for me for the past two months, and it was only tonight that I had a chance to read the darned things!!!!
At any rate, for those who are interested in even Lovecraft's minor works, there is a load of information in these pieces, including the full text of the "bit of vers libre" included in the story in truncated form... which was not by either author listed, but was apparently included without acknowledgment by HPL's collaborator (who was rather young at the time, and may not have realized this was a no-no). The entire poem is every bit as imagistically powerful as the bits quoted in the tale, and well worth reading for anyone interested in either beautiful verse or the weird or fantastic. Mr. Faig also included bits of the original author's (Elizabeth Coatsworth) other verses which may be of interest as well... and yes, I concur with him that HPL would most likely have found at least some of her work very congenial indeed.
So, as I said, for those interested, I suggest following the links below, and learning a bit more about this rather odd piece, and perhaps along the way enjoying some rather fascinating and macabre bits of fantasy to boot:
http://www.thefossils.org/fossil/fos341.pdf
(the essay begins on p. 4)
http://www.thefossils.org/fossil/fos344.pdf
(begins p. 2)
Anyway, I contacted him and found that the information he had included came from long-time Lovecraft scholar Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., who has done enormous amounts of research on HPL's family, his amateur colleagues, and various other topics, and so I wrote to Mr. Faig asking where I might obtain the essays he had done on the topic. He very kindly sent me links to online versions... and then things went haywire for me for the past two months, and it was only tonight that I had a chance to read the darned things!!!!
At any rate, for those who are interested in even Lovecraft's minor works, there is a load of information in these pieces, including the full text of the "bit of vers libre" included in the story in truncated form... which was not by either author listed, but was apparently included without acknowledgment by HPL's collaborator (who was rather young at the time, and may not have realized this was a no-no). The entire poem is every bit as imagistically powerful as the bits quoted in the tale, and well worth reading for anyone interested in either beautiful verse or the weird or fantastic. Mr. Faig also included bits of the original author's (Elizabeth Coatsworth) other verses which may be of interest as well... and yes, I concur with him that HPL would most likely have found at least some of her work very congenial indeed.
So, as I said, for those interested, I suggest following the links below, and learning a bit more about this rather odd piece, and perhaps along the way enjoying some rather fascinating and macabre bits of fantasy to boot:
http://www.thefossils.org/fossil/fos341.pdf
(the essay begins on p. 4)
http://www.thefossils.org/fossil/fos344.pdf
(begins p. 2)
