By H.P. Lovecraft
Edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz

Back Cover Text

H. P. Lovecraft’s literary career ended very much the way it began—with amateur journalism. In 1914, he had entered the United Amateur Press Association and gained lifelong friends and a renewed will to live and write. In 1930, Lovecraft’s attendance of the annual convention of the National Amateur Press Association led to a renewed interest in the multifarious issues agitating amateurdom at that time.

Encouraged by a new colleague, Helm C. Spink, Lovecraft took on the role of poetry critic for the NAPA’s Bureau of Critics. Hyman Bradofsky, whose Californian allowed an unprecedented amount of space for lengthy contributions, persuaded Lovecraft to write numerous articles and to steer other amateurs in Bradofsky’s direction. Lovecraft then became embroiled in heated controversies and feuds, many of them revolving around the argumentative Ralph W. Babcock.

This volume also includes substantial letters to devotees of weird fiction, including Richard Ely Morse, Margaret Sylvester, John J. Weir, and a pair of brilliant weird artists, Virgil Finlay and Frank Utpatel.

As in previous volumes in this series, all letters have been meticulously edited and thoroughly annotated. The appendix includes a generous array of poetry by Morse along with other materials that shed light on all the issues discussed here.

Contents

• Introduction (25 pages)
• Letters (432 pages)
• To Richard Ely Morse (111 pages)
• With Helm C. Spink (141 pages)
• To Ralph W. Babcock (19 pages)
• To Hyman Bradofsky (79 pages)
• To Jennie K. Plaisier (2 pages)
• To Margaret Sylvester (34 pages)
• To Frank Utpatel (12 pages)
• To Virgil Finlay (14 pages)
• With John J. Weir (9 pages)
• Appendix (76 pages)
• H. P. Lovecraft
• Papers Issued since last Critical Report
• Papers on hand—since last Report of B. of Critics
• Some Current Motives and Practices
• Hyman Bradofsky [and Ralph Babcock]
• An Uplifting Head of Belles Lettuce
• Hyman Bradofsky
• [From Looking Back]
• Edwin Hadley Smith
• Babcock “Placed under Observation”
• Babcock “Asked for It”
• Babcock “Can’t Take It”
• Vincent Haggerty
• [Letter to the N.A.P.A.]
• Helm C. Spink
• Life on an Island
• Helm Spink Dismisses The Ideal
• Ernest A. Edkins
• [Defining the “Ideal” Paper]
• Ralph W. Babcock
• Our Ex-Presidents
• Our Ex-Presidents of the NAPA
• Don’t Call Him a Crook—Yes, But . . .
• Concerning Laureateships
• What Constitutes an Ideal Amateur Paper?
• In Memoria, Abner Bradofsky
• Events Backstage
• A Voice from the Grace
• Margaret Nickerson Martin
• History of the Babcock Administration
• Louis Kempner
• Babcock and Bradofsky
• Margaret Sylvester
• Night Peace
• Close the Cage
• Interlude
• [Letter to Weird Tales]
• Jennie Kendall Plaisier
• Butterfly Path
• Musings
• Parted
• Richard Ely Morse
• WINTER GARDEN
• [Untitled]
• I. Winter Garden: A Sequence
• Sterile Harvest
• Wind Song
• Crystal Moment
• Strange Land
• The Swan
• Year’s End
• II. The Tree of Night
• Epistle
• Song
• Two Beat at a Door
• The Rag-Tag Cloak
• Let the Blood Roar
• Full Moon
• III. Patterns for Tapestry
• Madman’s Song
• The Choice
• The Sea-King’s Daughter
• Down in the Orchard
• IV. Landscape with Figures
• Promenade d’Automne
• Unquiet Season
• Winter Morning
• The Hunt
• The Tree
• Moment
• V. Portraits and Impressions
• Passage for Flutes
• Exile
• Alien
• The Lady and the Poets
• Pantomime
• Maxwell Bodenheim
• Postscript
• Appendix to Winter Garden
• Letter in Autumn
• Letter to X
• Letter to D. G.
• Dark Garden
• Remembering
• Sonnet
• Mad Dream
• In Memoriam: H. P. Lovecraft
• Retreat
• Japanese Print
• The Realm of Illustrated Books
• Some Modern Book Illustrations
• Ebony and Ash
• Maurice W. Moe
• Fascinating English
• Glossary of Frequently Mentioned Names (9 pages)
• Bibliography (29 pages)
• Index (13 pages)

Bibliographic Information

H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to Hyman Bradofsky and Others. By H. P. Lovecraft, edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi. New York, NY: Hippocampus Press; 2023; 978-1-61498-408-5; softcover, 600 pages.

Purchasing This Book

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