Edited by Sean Moreland

Back Cover Text

H.P. Lovecraft, one of the twentieth century’s most important writers in the genre of horror fiction, famously referred to Edgar Allan Poe as both his “model” and his “God of Fiction.” While scholars and readers of Poe’s and Lovecraft’s work have long recognized the connection between these authors, this collection of essays is the first in-depth study to explore the complex literary relationship between Lovecraft and Poe from a variety of critical perspectives. Of the thirteen chapters included in this book, some consider how Poe’s work influenced Lovecraft in important ways, while others explore how Lovecraft’s fictional, critical, and poetic reception of Poe irrevocably changed how Poe’s work has been understood by subsequent generations of readers and interpreters. Addressing a variety of topics ranging from the psychology of influence to racial and sexual politics, this book also considers how Lovecraft’s interpretations of Poe have informed later adaptations of both writers’ works in films by Roger Corman and fiction by Stephen King, Thomas Ligotti, and Caitlin R. Kiernan. This collection is an indispensable resource not only for those who are interested in Poe’s and Lovecraft’s work specifically but also for readers who wish to learn more about the modern history and evolution of Gothic, horror, and weird fiction.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword: Poe and Lovecraft by S. T. Joshi
Introduction: Poe after Lovecraft, or Beyond the Flaming Walls of the World by Sean Moreland


1. “The Strangeness of My Heritage”: Lovecraft’s Poe and the Anxiety of Influence by Brian Johnson
2. The Call of Ligeia: Influence and Effect in Poe and Lovecraft by Dan Clinton
3. Tekeli-li!: Poe, Lovecraft, and the Suspicion of Sameness by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
4. Cosmic Horror and the Supernatural in Poe and Lovecraft by Michael Cisco
5. Descending Spirits: Ideological Implications of the Vertical Movements in Poe and Lovecraft by Juan L. Pérez-de-Luque
6. The Fiery Eyes: The Black Cats of Poe and Lovecraft by Robert H. Waugh
7. Lovecraft’s Poetry and Poe’s Poetics by Sławomir Studniarz
8. Rarebit Dreamers: The Poetics of Lovecraft, Poe, and Winsor McCay by Miles Tittle
9. Poe/Lovecraft/Corman: The Case of The Haunted Palace (1963) by Murray Leeder
10. “You Fancy Me Mad”: The Unreliable Narrator’s Defense in Poe, Lovecraft, and King by Alissa Burger
11. The Killing Crowd: Poe and the Deep Crime of the Media by Ben Woodard
12. “Not Like Any Thing of Ours”: Waking Poe and Lovecraft in Kiernan’s The Drowning Girl by Sean Moreland
13. Conversations among the Dead: Thoughts on Poe, Lovecraft, and Influence by John Langan

Afterword: The Tomahawk Man and the Gentleman from Providence by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Index
About the Contributors

Bibliographic Information

The Lovecraftian Poe: Essays on Influence, Reception, Interpretation and Transformation. Edited by Sean Moreland. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press; May 2019; ISBN 978-1-61146-240-1 (hardback) and 978-1-61146-242-5 (paperback); 276 pages.

Purchasing This Book

This book may be purchased in hardback from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, in paperback from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, or directly from the publisher, Lehigh University Press.