In this first volume, Lovecraft’s prolific writings on amateur journalism are collected. Discovering the amateur press in 1914, Lovecraft immediately flooded the many small papers of his friends and colleagues with contributions discussing the nature, purpose, and future of amateur journalism. He also edited his own magazine, The Conservative (1915–23), filling it with additional essays. In these articles Lovecraft discusses such issues as the conflicting motives of the United Amateur Press Association and the National Amateur Press Association; the halcyon days of the amateur movement (1885–95); and the needs and betterment of the amateur cause. We read of bitter feuds with such individuals as William J. Dowdell and Graeme Davis; of Lovecraft’s exhaustive criticisms of amateur writing in his “Department of Public Criticism” and “Bureau of Critics” columns; and, most poignant of all, his touching affirmation of “What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other,” in which he concludes simply: “What Amateur Journalism has given me is – life itself.”

A Task for Amateur Journalists

Department of Public Criticism (November 1914)

Department of Public Criticism (January 1915)

Department of Public Criticism (March 1915)

What Is Amateur Journalism?

Consolidation’s Autopsy

The Amateur Press

Editorial (April 1915)

The Question of the Day

The Morris Faction

For President—Leo Fritter

Introducing Mr. Chester Pierce Munroe

[Untitled Notes on Amateur Journalism]

Department of Public Criticism (May 1915)

Finale

New Department Proposed: Instruction for the Recruit

Our Candidate

Exchanges

For Historian—Ira A. Cole

Editorial (July 1915)

The Conservative and His Critics (July 1915)

Some Political Phases

Introducing Mr. John Russell

In a Major Key

Amateur Notes

The Dignity of Journalism

Department of Public Criticism (September 1915)

Editorial (October 1915)

The Conservative and His Critics (October 1915)

The Youth of Today

An Impartial Spectator

[Untitled Notes on Amateur Journalism]

Little Journeys to the Homes of Prominent Amateurs: II. Andrew Francis Lockhart

Report of First Vice-President (November 1915)

Department of Public Criticism (December 1915)

Systematic Instruction in the United

United Amateur Press Association: Exponent of Amateur Journalism

Introducing Mr. James Pyke

Report of First Vice-President (January 1916)

Editorial (February 1916)

Department of Public Criticism (April 1916)

Among the New-Comers

Department of Public Criticism (June 1916)

Department of Public Criticism (August 1916)

Department of Public Criticism (September 1916)

Among the Amateurs

Concerning “Persia—in Europe”

Amateur Standards

A Request

Department of Public Criticism (March 1917)

Department of Public Criticism (May 1917)

A Reply to The Lingerer

The United’s Problem

Editorially

The “Other United”

Department of Public Criticism (July 1917)

Little Journeys to the Homes of Prominent Amateurs: V. Eleanor J. Barnhart

News Notes (July 1917)

President’s Message (September 1917)

President’s Message (November 1917)

President’s Message (January 1918)

Department of Public Criticism (January 1918)

President’s Message (March 1918)

Department of Public Criticism (March 1918)

President’s Message (May 1918)

Department of Public Criticism (May 1918)

Comment

President’s Message (July 1918)

Amateur Criticism

The United 1917–1918

The Amateur Press Club

Les Mouches Fantastiques

Department of Public Criticism (September 1918)

Department of Public Criticism (November 1918)

News Notes (November 1918)

[Letter to the Bureau of Critics]

Department of Public Criticism (January 1919)

Department of Public Criticism (March 1919)

Winifred Virginia Jordan: Associate Editor

Helene Hoffman Cole—Litterateur

Department of Public Criticism (May 1919)

Trimmings

For Official Editor—Anne Tillery Renshaw

Amateurdom

Looking Backward

For What Does the United Stand?

The Pseudo-United

The Conquest of the Hub Club

News Notes (September 1920)

Amateur Journalism: Its Possible Needs and Betterment

Editorial (November 1920)

News Notes (November 1920)

News Notes (January 1921)

The United’s Policy 1920–1921

What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other

News Notes (March 1921)

The Vivisector (March 1921)

[Letter to John Milton Heins]

Lucubrations Lovecraftian

News Notes (May 1921)

The Vivisector (June 1921)

The Haverhill Convention

News Notes (July 1921)

Within the Gates

The Convention Banquet

Editorial (September 1921)

News Notes (September 1921)

A Singer of Ethereal Moods and Fancies

News Notes (November 1921)

[Letter to John Milton Heins]

Editorial (January 1922)

News Notes (January 1922)

Rainbow Called Best First Issue

News Notes (March 1922)

The Vivisector (March 1922)

News Notes (May 1922)

[Letter to the N.A.P.A.]

President’s Message (November 1922–January 1923)

President’s Message (March 1923)

Bureau of Critics (March 1923)

Rursus Adsumus

The Vivisector (Spring 1923)

President’s Message (May 1923)

Lovecraft’s Greeting

President’s Message (July 1923)

[Untitled Notes on Amateur Journalism]

The President’s Annual Report

Trends and Objects

Editorial (May 1924)

News Notes (May 1924)

Editorial (July 1925)

News Notes (July 1925)

A Matter of Uniteds

The Convention

Bureau of Critics (December 1931)

Critics Submit First Report

Verse Criticism

Report of Bureau of Critics

Bureau of Critics Comment on Verse, Typography, Prose

Bureau of Critics (June 1934)

Chairman of the Bureau of Critics Reports on Poetry

Mrs. Miniter—Estimates and Recollections

Report of the Bureau of Critics (December 1934)

Report of the Bureau of Critics (March 1935)

Lovecraft Offers Verse Criticism

Dr. Eugene B. Kuntz

Some Current Amateur Verse

Report of the Executive Judges

Some Current Motives and Practices

[Letter to the N.A.P.A.]

[Literary Review]

Defining the “Ideal” Paper

 

Appendix

[Miscellaneous Notes in the United Amateur]

Official Organ Fund

[Untitled Note on Amateur Poetry]

[On Notes High and Low by Carrie Adams Berry]

A Voice from the Grave

 

This second volume of Lovecraft’s collected essays is devoted to his writings in the realm of literary criticism. Lovecraft did not consider himself a literary critic by trade, but his essays are unfailingly acute and cover a surprisingly wide range. Early in his career, Lovecraft was unduly influenced by classical authority; but one felicitous product of this classical immersion is the authoritative essay, “The Literature of Rome” (1918). Lovecraft condemns free verse and simple spelling, and also devotes some attention to such neglected amateur poets as Lilian Middleton and Winifred Virginia Jackson. By the 1920s Lovecraft had discovered that weird fiction was his chosen field, and he produced such scintillating essays as “Lord Dunsany and His Work” (1922) and “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (1927), along with an essay on his friend Frank Belknap Long and a review of Clark Ashton Smith’s Ebony and Crystal. Late in life Lovecraft codified his grasp of weird literature by writing such trenchant pieces as “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction” (1933) and “Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction” (1934). One of his last writings, “Suggestions for a Reading Guide” (1936), is a comprehensive discussion of world literature.

Metrical Regularity

The Allowable Rhyme

The Proposed Authors’ Union

The Vers Libre Epidemic

Poesy

The Despised Pastoral

The Literature of Rome

The Simple Spelling Mania

The Case for Classicism

Literary Composition

Editor’s Note to “A Scene for Macbeth” by Samuel Loveman

Winifred Virginia Jackson: A “Different” Poetess

The Poetry of Lilian Middleton

Lord Dunsany and His Work

Rudis Indigestaque Moles

Introduction [to The Poetical Works of Jonathan E. Hoag]

Ars Gratia Artis

In the Editor’s Study

[Random Notes]

[Review of Ebony and Crystal by Clark Ashton Smith]

The Professional Incubus

The Omnipresent Philistine

The Work of Frank Belknap Long, Jr.

Supernatural Horror in Literature

Preface [to White Fire by John Ravenor Bullen]

Notes on “Alias Peter Marchall”, by A. F. Lorenz

Foreword [to Thoughts and Pictures by Eugene B. Kuntz]

Notes on Verse Technique

Weird Story Plots

[Notes on Weird Fiction]

Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction

What Belongs in Verse

[Suggestions for a Reading Guide]

 

Appendix

The Poetry of John Ravenor Bullen

The Favourite Weird Stories of H.P. Lovecraft

Supernatural Horror in Literature

 

This third volume of Lovecraft’s collected essays presents his complete published writings in the realm of science, chiefly those of astronomy, but also including some essays on anthropology and folklore. Science was one of Lovecraft’s earliest interests, and he frequently testified that his discovery of astronomy at the age of 11 led to the formation of his distinctively cosmic vision. His first published work was a letter to the Providence Sunday Journal on a point of astronomy; shortly thereafter, he began writing two separate astronomy columns, for the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner (1906) and the Providence Tribune (1906–08), the latter containing hand-drawn star-charts. After a hiatus, he wrote an extensive monthly astronomy column for the Providence Evening News (1914–18), in which the dry recitation of astronomical phenomena for the month was enlivened by elucidations of the Greek myths behind the names of the constellations, discussions of important astronomical discoveries over the centuries, and snippets of Lovecraft’s poetry. His “Mysteries of the Heavens” is a compact survey of the entire realm of astronomy, written for the Asheville (N.C.) Gazette-News in 1915. As a whole, this volume displays Lovecraft’s devotion to science as the ultimate arbiter of truth and as the solid foundation of his cosmic voyagings in the realm of weird fiction.

My Opinion as to the Lunar Canals

No Transit of Mars

Trans-Neptunian Planets

The Moon

The Earth Not Hollow

 

 

[Astronomy Articles for the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner]

The Heavens for August

The Skies of September

Is Mars an Inhabited World?

Is There Life on the Moon?

An Interesting Phenomenon

October Heavens

Are There Undiscovered Planets?

Can the Moon Be Reached by Man?

The Moon

[Untitled]

The Sun

The Leonids

Comets

December Skies

The Fixed Stars

Clusters—Nebulae

January Heavens

 

[Astronomy Articles for the Providence Tribune]

In the August Sky

The September Heavens

Astronomy in October

The Skies of November

The Heavens for December

The Heavens in January

The Heavens in February

The Heavens in March

April Skies

The Heavens in May

The Heavens in June

Astronomy in August

The Heavens for September

The Skies of October

The Heavens in November

Heavens for December

The Heavens in January

February Skies

The Heavens in Month of March

Solar Eclipse Feature of June Heavens

 

Third Annual Report of the Prov. Meteorological Station

 

 

Celestial Objects for All

Venus and the Public Eye

 

 

[Astronomy Articles for the Providence Evening News]

The January Sky

The February Sky

The March Sky

The April Sky

May Sky

The June Sky

The July Sky

The August Sky

The September Sky

The October Sky

The November Sky

The December Sky

The January Sky

The February Sky

The March Sky

April Skies

The May Sky

The June Skies

The July Skies

The August Skies

September Skies

October Skies

November Skies

December Skies

January Skies

February Skies

March Skies

April Skies

May Skies

June Skies

July Skies

August Skies

September Skies

October Skies

November Skies

December Skies

January Skies

February Skies

March Skies

April Skies

May Skies

June Skies

July Skies

August Skies

September Skies

October Skies

November Skies

December Skies

January Skies

February Skies

March Skies

April Skies

May Skies

 

[Science versus Charlatanry]

Science versus Charlatanry

The Falsity of Astrology

Astrology and the Future

Delavan’s Comet and Astrology

The Fall of Astrology

[Isaac Bickerstaffe’s Reply]

 

 

Mysteries of the Heavens Revealed by Astronomy

I. The Sky and Its Contents

[II.] The Solar System

III. The Sun

IV. The Inferior Planets

V. Eclipses

VI. The Earth and Its Moon

VII. Mars and the Asteroids

VIII. The Outer Planets

[The Outer Planets, Part II]

IX. Comets and Meteors

Comets and Meteors [Part II]

X. The Stars

[The Stars, Part II]

XI. Clusters and Nebulae

[Clusters and Nebulae, Part II]

XII. The Constellations

[The Constellations, Part II]

XIII. Telescopes and Observatories

[Telescopes and Observatories, Part II]

 

 

Editor’s Note to “The Irish and the Fairies” by Peter J. MacManus

Brumalia

The Truth about Mars

The Cancer of Superstition

[Some Backgrounds of Fairyland]

 

 

Appendix

Does “Vulcan” Exist?

Astronomical Notebook

[Astronomy Articles by J. F. Hartmann]

Astrology and the European War

[Letter to the Editor]

The Science of Astrology

A Defense of Astrology

Lovecraft’s Juvenile Scientific Manuscripts

 

This fourth volume of Lovecraft’s collected essays contains his complete travel writings, one of the most distinctive and heartwarming segments of his work. During the last decade of his life, Lovecraft devoted nearly every summer to extensive travels up and down the eastern seaboard, from Quebec to Key West, in search of antiquarian oases. He came to love the town of Charleston, South Carolina, second only to his native city of Providence, Rhode Island. His trip to Vermont in 1927, recorded in his essay “Vermont—A First Impression,” was instrumental in the writing of “The Whisperer in Darkness” three years later. “Observations on Several Parts of America” (1928) and “Travels in the Provinces of America” (1929) reveal, in a flawless replication of eighteenth-century English, his fascination with such locales as Philadelphia, Maryland, and Virginia. “A Description of the Town of Quebeck” (1930–31) is his single longest work, longer than any of his tales; it is printed here for the first time in a corrected text. Also included is the curious pseudo-travelogue “European Glimpses” (1932), ghostwritten for his ex-wife, Sonia, and a previously unpublished travelogue telling of his trip to the Fairbanks house (1636) and the Red Horse Tavern in Massachusetts.

The Trip of Theobald

Vermont—A First Impression

Observations on Several Parts of America

Travels in the Provinces of America

An Account of a Trip to the Antient Fairbanks House, in Dedham, and to the Red Horse Tavern in Sudbury, in the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay

Account of a Visit to Charleston, S.C.

An Account of Charleston, in His Majty’s Province of South-Carolina

A Description of the Town of Quebeck in New-France, Lately added to His Britannick Majesty’s Dominions

European Glimpses

Some Dutch Footprints in New England

Homes and Shrines of Poe

The Unknown City in the Ocean

Charleston

 

Appendix

A Descent to Avernus

Sleepy Hollow To-day

 

This fifth and final volume of Lovecraft’s Collected Essays mines a rich vein of his philosophical writings. A lifelong student of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and other branches of philosophy, Lovecraft early declared himself a forthright materialist and atheist. Here he defends his views in numerous controversies with colleagues. Such essays as “Idealism and Materialism—A Reflection” and the In Defence of Dagon essays outline the essentials of Lovecraft’s philosophical thought, including such issues as free will, the improbability of theism, and cosmic pessimism. In his later years, the problems of politics and economics came to the forefront of his attention. In the essays “Some Repetitions on the Times,” “A Layman Looks at the Government,” and the unpublished “The Journal and the New Deal” Lovecraft vigorously argues for a moderate socialism to relieve the widespread unemployment brought on by the Depression. The problem of art in the modern age also concerned Lovecraft, and in the unpublished essay “A Living Heritage: Roman Architecture in Today’s America” Lovecraft condemns modern architecture as an inherently ugly product of sterile theory. This volume also contains Lovecraft’s autobiographical essays, including the delightful “A Confession of Unfaith,” describing his shedding of religious belief, and the piquant “Cats and Dogs,” in which cats stand as symbols for the abstract beauty of a boundless cosmos.

Philosophy

The Crime of the Century

The Renaissance of Manhood

Liquor and Its Friends

More Chain Lightning

Symphony and Stress

Old England and the “Hyphen”

Revolutionary Mythology

The Symphonic Ideal

“Editor’s Note” to “The Genesis of the Revolutionary War” by Henry Clapham McGavack

A Remarkable Document

At the Root

Time and Space

Merlinus Redivivus

Anglo-Saxondom

Americanism

The League

Bolshevism

Idealism and Materialism—A Reflection

Life for Humanity’s Sake

[In Defence of Dagon]

Nietzscheism and Realism

East and West Harvard Conservatism

The Materialist Today

Some Causes of Self-Immolation

Some Repetitions on the Times

A Layman Looks at the Government

The Journal and the New Deal

A Living Heritage: Roman Architecture in Today’s America

Objections to Orthodox Communism

 

 

Autobiography and Miscellany

The Brief Autobiography of an Inconsequential Scribbler

A Confession of Unfaith

[Diary: 1925]

[Commercial Blurbs]

Cats and Dogs

Notes on Hudson Valley History

Autobiography of Howard Phillips Lovecraft

In Memoriam: Henry St. Clair Whitehead

Some Notes on a Nonentity

Correspondence between R.H. Barlow and Wilson Shepherd of Oakman, Alabama—Sept.–Nov. 1932

In Memoriam: Robert Ervin Howard

Commonplace Book

Instructions in Case of Decease

[Diary—1937]

[Notes for Stories]

[Notes to “Medusa’s Coil”]

[Notes to At the Mountains of Madness]

[Notes to “The Shadow over Innsmouth”]

[The Round Tower]

[The Rose Window]

Of Evill Sorceries Done in New-England, of Daemons in No Humane Shape

[Notes to “The Shadow out of Time”]

[Notes to “The Challenge From Beyond”]

[Miscellaneous Lists and Notes]

[1] Catalogue of Prov. Press Co.

[2] [Catalogue of Works (1902)]

[3] [Postal Expenses]

[4] Old Farmer’s Almanacks Wanted by H.P. Lovecraft

[5] [Notes on Clothing Stores]

[6] [Works Desired by H. Warner Munn]

[7] [Works of Weird Fiction]

[8] Tales by H.P. Lovecraft

[9] Basic Books for a Weird Library

[10] [Remembrancer]

[11] [List of Amateur Papers]

[12] [Possible Collections of Tales]

[13] [Magazine Addresses]

[14] [List of Individuals to Be Sent “The Battle That Ended the Century”]

[15] [List of Correspondents to Whom Postcards Have Been Sent]

[16] Suggested Recipients for Dragon Fly Outside Memb. List of NAPA

[17] Fungi from Yuggoth and Other Verses

[18] [Notable Stories in Recent Issues of Weird Tales]

[19] “Little Magazines”

[20] [Worthy Stories in Recent Issues of Weird Tales]

[21] [Pronunciation Guide]

[22] Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

Weird &c. Items in Library of H.P. Lovecraft

 

 

Appendix

[Advertisement of Revisory Services]

[Advertisement in the New York Times]

The Recognition of Temperance

[Advertisement in Weird Tales]

[Biographical Notice]

Preface [to Old World Footprints]

[E’ch-Pi-El Speaks]

Robert Ervin Howard: 1906–1936