By Jan B. W. Pedersen

Back Cover Text

This book offers a fresh perspective on the twentieth-century American weird fiction author H. P. Lovecraft and argues that the gentleman of Providence was a Romantic at heart. The book takes a philosophical approach and draws on Lovecraft’s essays, fiction and letters as well as poetry. Along the way, the reader is introduced to Lovecraft’s relationship with wonder, his aversion towards the cold light of reason, his teetotalism and his love of gardens, contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign and the beautiful. Also, the reader is privy to an exploration of Lovecraft’s wonder-evoking tropes, the idea of dark wonder and what he called the Dunsanian Conjuration.

Philosopher Jan B. W. Pederson is the author of Balanced Wonder: Experiential Sources of Imagination, Virtue, and Human Flourishing (2019). He teaches at University College Diakonissestiftelsen, Frederiksberg, Denmark and at Folkeuniversitetet, Aalborg, Denmark.

Contents

List of Figures

Foreword by S. T. Joshi

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 – On Lovecraft’s Lifelong Relationship with Wonder

Chapter 2 – Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Romantic on the Nightside

Chapter 3 – ‘Now Will You Be Good?’: Lovecraft, Teetotalism and Philosophy

Chapter 4 – Lovecraft’s Garden: Heart’s Blood at the Root

Chapter 5 – Weird Fiction: A Catalyst for Wonder

Chapter 6 – H. P. Lovecraft and the Dunsanian Conjuration

Afterword

Bibliography

Index

Bibliographic Information

H. P. Lovecraft: Midnight Studies. By Jan B. W. Pedersen. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang; 10 June 2024; ISBN-13 978-1-80374-307-3; hardcover, 172 pages.

Purchasing This Book

This book may be purchased in hardcover from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or directly from the publisher, Peter Lang.