By Robert H. Waugh
Back Cover Text
For more than two decades, Robert H. Waugh has been one of the most penetrating scholars of the
work and thought of H.P. Lovecraft. His earlier volume,
The Monster in the Mirror (2006),
contained a treasury of essays that displayed Waugh’s exhaustive knowledge of
Lovecraft’s work and his skill in placing Lovecraft in a broader literary context. This
new collection of essays cements Waugh’s reputation as a pioneering Lovecraft
scholar.
Among the contributions are studies of the influence of World War I on “The Rats in the
Walls”; Lovecraft’s relationship to his two late colleagues, Robert Bloch and Fritz
Leiber, as well as to such other writers as D.H. Lawrence, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and
Eugene O’Neill; the influence of Roman literature and history on Lovecraft; and the
sublimated eroticism of “The Thing on the Doorstep” and “Medusa’s
Coil.” All in all, this volume, containing several previously unpublished essays, displays
the inexhaustible depths of Lovecraft’s writing and Robert H. Waugh’s deftness in
probing its intricacies.
Contents
- Introduction
- Further Sorties
- The Blasted Heath in “The Colour out of Space”
- Lovecraft and Lawrence on the Hidden Gods
- “The Rats in the Walls,” The Rats in the Trenches
- The Hounds of Hell, the Hounds of Heaven, and the Hounds of Earth
- The Ecstacies of “The Thing on the Doorstep,” “Medusa’s Coil,”
and Other Erotic Studies
- Free Range
- Bloch and Leiber: the Siblings at War with Lovecraft, the Compound Ghost
- The Weird Historical Novel: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Case of Charles
Dexter Ward, and Other Historical Ventures
- “Hey, Yew, Why Don’t Ye Say Somethin’?” Lovecraft’s Dramatic
Monologues
- The Surreal and the Organic Imaginations: Lewis, Tolkien, and Lovecraft
- “An Exquisitely Low and Infinitely Distant Musical Note”: German Romantic Opera
and Lovecraft’s Aesthetic and Practice
- Filiations and Affinities
- Lovecraft, a Citizen of Rome
- Lovecraft Speaks French, in a Manner of Speaking
- Lovecraft and O’Neill: The New England Haunts
- In Swan Point Cemetery
- Works Cited
Bibliographic Information
A Monster of Voices: Speaking for H.P. Lovecraft. By Robert H. Waugh. New York, NY:
Hippocampus Press; 2011; ISBN 978-0-9844802-2-7 (softcover); 386 pages.
Purchasing This Book
This book may be purchased in softcover from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or directly from the publisher, Hippocampus Press.