I Am Providence: The H.P. Lovecraft Thread 3 3

[OtherEric]

All things must pass, and with today's entry we reach the end of what I consider my vintage Lovecraft collection.  I'll have a couple more items over the next couple days as a sort of coda, but today we reach the last new Lovecraft story... or, actually, stories.

The Shuttered Room, published by Arkham House in 1959, with the last previously unpublished Lovecraft stories.

Somewhat surprisingly, there is actually a lot of new material in this volume, even disregarding the two "Posthumous Collaborations" by Derleth.  There are three stories getting their first professional publication:  "The Alchemist", "Poetry and the Gods" (with Anna Helen Crofts); and "The Street".

Next, there are four pieces of juvenilia published for the first time ever- "The Little Glass Bottle", "The Secret Cave, or John Lee's Adventure", "The Mystery of the Grave-Yard", and "The Mysterious Ship".  They're mostly interesting as curios, but Lovecraft could write better at age 8 than I probably could now.

Finally, there's the highlight of the book... "Old Bugs".  It's a minor, early work of Lovecraft's, but it's fully a Lovecraft story.  And it's the last one we'll ever get.

[asimovpulps]

6 hours ago, OtherEric said:

All things must pass, and with today's entry we reach the end of what I consider my vintage Lovecraft collection.

 

Sad to be nearing the end of the daily Lovecraft series. Thanks for sharing your collection @OtherEric! 

[IngelsFan]

9 hours ago, OtherEric said:

All things must pass, and with today's entry we reach the end of what I consider my vintage Lovecraft collection.  I'll have a couple more items over the next couple days as a sort of coda, but today we reach the last new Lovecraft story... or, actually, stories.

The Shuttered Room, published by Arkham House in 1959, with the last previously unpublished Lovecraft stories.

Somewhat surprisingly, there is actually a lot of new material in this volume, even disregarding the two "Posthumous Collaborations" by Derleth.  There are three stories getting their first professional publication:  "The Alchemist", "Poetry and the Gods" (with Anna Helen Crofts); and "The Street".

Next, there are four pieces of juvenilia published for the first time ever- "The Little Glass Bottle", "The Secret Cave, or John Lee's Adventure", "The Mystery of the Grave-Yard", and "The Mysterious Ship".  They're mostly interesting as curios, but Lovecraft could write better at age 8 than I probably could now.

Finally, there's the highlight of the book... "Old Bugs".  It's a minor, early work of Lovecraft's, but it's fully a Lovecraft story.  And it's the last one we'll ever get.

I love the phrase “Divers Hands”; it evokes an ancient feel. I first encountered the phrase in 70s Marvel comics, and it really fits well with HPL and his “collaborations”. I’ve enjoyed your daily Lovecraft posts and hate to see them come to an end. Thanks so much for this thread!

[OtherEric]

As promised, I've got a couple later items I wanted to include even if we're past what I consider the cutoff for truly vintage Lovecraft.  The first is this, the May 1960 issue of Fantastic, reprinting "The Challenge From Beyond", or at least Lovecraft's share of it.  I think this is the last time one of the major pulp/ pulp digests tried to present anything by Lovecraft as "lost"; and they make a point of the story having never been published in a professional magazine before.  But it also presents a fairly long essay by Sam Moskowitz, which despite the title actually discusses Lovecraft's impact on Science Fiction as distinct from Weird Fiction.  We've firmly passed into the era where Lovecraft is the subject of scholarship rather than just trying to locate and present the stories.

[OtherEric]

And here, as a final coda, are the last two volumes of Lovecraft's Selected Letters, published by Arkham House in 1976.  It took them over a decade to release all 5 books, they started in 1965.  I only have the last two volumes so far.  And while 1959 represents the end of Lovecraft's fiction, the Letters actually are a larger body of work than all his fiction put together by a very large amount.  Even the selected letters only cover a fraction of his surviving correspondence, which is itself a fraction of what he wrote.  Various other collections of his letters are still being released.

I've had fun posting my collection of vintage Lovecraft books here, while it's not as impressive a set as some others here have it's a pretty nice batch for six years work... I got the June 1936 Astounding back in July 2015.  And I started grabbing stuff at just the right time, prices are going crazy on a lot of the items here.  Hopefully I'll have some more items to post in a couple weeks... I'm making my first trip to KAYO books in San Fransisco in two years next week, and about 10 of the items I've shown originally came from them.  My thanks to everybody who has been liking my posts and saying they appreciated them!

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

Thanks for all the great posts Eric. I'll be in San Francisco in about a month and I'll have to check out that book store too!

[OtherEric]

5 minutes ago, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Thanks for all the great posts Eric. I'll be in San Francisco in about a month and I'll have to check out that book store too!

You'll need to make an appointment, but they're pretty good about scheduling them.  And it's very worth the effort... In addition to the Lovecraft items, I've gotten PKD's first published story in Planet Stories, Merry-Go-Round in Oz 1st with dust jacket, and Ace Double D-15 Junkie, and tons of other pulps, vintage paperbacks, and underground comix.  PM me if you need contact info for them.

[OtherEric]

On the wall of a sandwich shop in SF.  I always forget there was a band that named themselves after Lovecraft:

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

4 hours ago, OtherEric said:

On the wall of a sandwich shop in SF.  I always forget there was a band that named themselves after Lovecraft:

Cool I have a pile of postcards from these Bill Graham productions; I’ll have to see if any have the HP Lovecraft band!

[OtherEric]

Just picked this up from Borderland Books in San Francisco.  The Curse of Yig by Zealia Bishop, it collects the three revisions Lovecraft did for her.  Published in 1953 in an edition of 1217 copies.  

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

On 7/2/2021 at 5:59 PM, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Cool I have a pile of postcards from these Bill Graham productions; I’ll have to see if any have the HP Lovecraft band!

I looked through all those postcards this morning and no sign of an HP Lovecraft! Too bad as I must have over fifty different cards. These were all found left at a house my wife's Dad bought in the Sunset district in the seventies; left behind by someone who must have picked them up in the record stores of the day as none of them have a stamp. Here are a few scans anyway as they are kind of fun! There is an amazing amount of rock history in these cards; what a Golden era for concert goers.

@Robot Man Bob thought you would like to see the Alfred E. Neuman riff!

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by 50YrsCollctngCmcs

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

1 hour ago, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

I looked through all those postcards this morning and no sign of an HP Lovecraft! Too bad as I must have over fifty different cards. These were all found left at a house my wife's Dad bought in the Sunset district in the seventies; left behind by someone who must have picked them up in the record stores of the day as none of them have a stamp. Here are a few scans anyway as they are kind of fun! There is an amazing amount of rock history in these cards; what a Golden era for concert goers.

@Robot Man Bob thought you would like to see the Alfred E. Neuman riff!

 

It's hard to see in the far right picture but one of the venues listed for purchasing tickets was a store called Middle Earth at 852 Stanyan close to Haight. Must have been an old head or record shop.

[Robot Man]

On 7/1/2021 at 11:16 AM, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Thanks for all the great posts Eric. I'll be in San Francisco in about a month and I'll have to check out that book store too!

Kayo Books is a must stop when visiting the Bay Area. 

[Robot Man]

6 hours ago, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

I looked through all those postcards this morning and no sign of an HP Lovecraft! Too bad as I must have over fifty different cards. These were all found left at a house my wife's Dad bought in the Sunset district in the seventies; left behind by someone who must have picked them up in the record stores of the day as none of them have a stamp. Here are a few scans anyway as they are kind of fun! There is an amazing amount of rock history in these cards; what a Golden era for concert goers.

@Robot Man Bob thought you would like to see the Alfred E. Neuman riff!

 

Wow, what a score and treasure trove of rock history! I have a large box full myself. Mostly LA and SF venues. Some are now quite valuable. 

I have the Alfred E Neuman one. Just one more great piece of unusual Neumania. 

[Robot Man]

Speaking of the band HP Lovecraft. I dug into my vast vinyl collection. I actually have an original copy of their only album. They were only together from 1967-1969. Formed in Chicago but quickly moved to the Bay Area. 

Haven’t heard it in probably 40 years. Played it today. Kind of a downer. Perfect if you love the darkness of this author. 

[Book Guy]

They had two LPs. This and HPL II. They did a cover of HIGH FLYING BIRD that I liked, as I recall.

[asimovpulps]

Let's keep the party going. Here's a fun issue which is one of only four Lovecraft covers. From what I've gathered from fellow boardies (thanks as always @OtherEricfor the knowledge), this is a bit of a tough find:

Weird Tales May 1942 (Canadian) with Shadow Over Innsmouth cover (originally printed in January 1942 US WT). Really nice copy too, very happy to add it to the collection! Just missing that 1924 Houdini issue of the 4 HPL covers now

[Sarg]

I can't believe they replaced Hannes Bok's superb interior illustration with those ridiculous Deep Ones. 

[asimovpulps]

6 hours ago, Sarg said:

I can't believe they replaced Hannes Bok's superb interior illustration with those ridiculous Deep Ones

Yeah I'm having trouble tracking down who did the interior art for the Canadian version, and for that matter why they wouldn't have kept the Bok illustrations... naive guess is that it involved 

The cover art was done by Edmond Good and seems more true to Bok's interpretation.

[OtherEric]

Only one Lovecraft item from KAYO today, and it’s a minor one. Still fun: