The article's author has edited an edition of H. P. Lovecraft's tales for Oxford University Press. I was so excited about that and had the book on pre-order. Then I read of the book and a review of it on S. T. Joshi's new blog, which reads in part:
"I am more interested in Luckhurst's editorial work. Since I don't have the book yet, I can only 'peek' into it from the Amazon site. Here I find that Luckhurst did not in fact use my corrected texts, but went back to the pulp magazine texts and made a few 'silent' corrections. What possible benefit could be served by this procedure? ..... For anyone, at this late date, to resurrect the butchered texts of AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS and 'The Shadow out of Time' from Astounding Stories is to commit an act of idiocy or insanity."
In the "Look Inside" feature at Amazon we can read most of Luckhurst's very fine Introduction and examine his Notes, which seem very good; and we can read his explanation for using the mutilated pulp texts--& his reasoning makes no sense whatsoever. Horrify'd, I cancelled my pre-order on Amazon; but then I went to AmazonUK, as the book has been published already in Great Britain, and read the reviews and wrote my own two-star review (based on the story texts that I was able to read on Amazon, which reveal that the stupidly edited text of "The Shadow out of Time" uses the choppy short paragraphing &c)--and when I saw that the book was instantly available there--well, it is almoft impossible for me to resist a new edition of H. P. Lovecraft--I order'd ye booke. S. T. has requested a review copy from the publisher, but may end up having to buy a copy. After he and I have both studied the book, he will come here and we will record a live discussion of the book on YouTube. I'm grateful that Oxford has publish'd an edition of Lovecraft--it is yet another sign of HPL's marvelous and expanding popularity--but.......
