The Weird Tale

The leading critic of supernatural literature here examines the roots of the "weird tale" (as Lovecraft called it) through detailed examinations of five "founding fathers" of the genre: Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, and H.P. Lovecraft. The result is a thorough study of the art, craft, philosophy, and aesthetics of an enduring genre of fantastic literature.

Literature & Fiction

Joshi, Author S T

History & Criticism

Wildside Press

The leading critic of supernatural literature here examines the roots of the "weird tale" (as Lovecraft called it) through detailed examinations of five "founding fathers" of the genre: Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, and H.P. Lovecraft. The result is a thorough study of the art, craft, philosophy, and aesthetics of an enduring genre of fantastic literature.

S. T. Joshi is one of the premier critics of supernatural fiction. His pioneering research on H. P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Ambrose Bierce, and other writers has set a standard of scholarship that few have equaled. In The Evolution of the Weird Tale--an informal follow-up to his earlier studies, The Weird Tale (1990) and The Modern Weird Tale (2001)--Joshi assesses a wide array of American and British supernatural writers of the past century or more, meticulously scrutinizing their weird work and gauging their place in the canon of horror fiction. Such American writers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries as W. C. Morrow, F. Marion Crawford, Robert W. Chambers, and Edward Lucas White come under scrutiny, as well as their British counterparts E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, and L. P. Hartley. Joshi includes substantial essays on Lovecraft and his disciples Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, and Frank Belknap Long. In a provocative section on contemporary writers, Joshi dissects the vampire novels of Les Daniels, the short stories of "Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling, David J. Schow and the school of splatterpunk, and the novels and tales of Poppy Z. Brite. All in all, Joshi has provided some of the most in-depth analyses of both classic and modern weird writers ever written.

The Evolution of the Weird Tale

Hippocampus Press

In its third printing, Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses, truly fulfils reviewers' comments it is a masterful professional debut collection from leading Australian weird literary figure, Leigh Blackmore.  The collection "establishes Blackmore as one of the leading weird poets of our time, fit to be mentioned with the likes of Bruce Boston, G. Sutton Breiding, Ann K. Schwader ..." -S. T. Joshi. "It belongs on the same shelf with August Derleth's Dark of the Moon and Lin Carter's Dreams from R'lyeh, to be treasured for its elegant lines, spooky sonnets, cosmic vistas, and, since Blackmore is a genuine poet and not just a pastichist, occasional departures from all expectations." -Darrell Schweitzer. "Magnifique! Sobresaliente! Mumtaaz! [Blackmore] definitely has the touch ..." -Richard L. Tierney.  Within are devotions to H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen, and paeans to the gods of Poetry. Wonderful poetry of fantasy, the supernatural and dark imagination abounds within this fine Antipodean collection. Sheila Merritt reflects, "In his evocative embracing of American horror authors ... poet Blackmore shows that writers' influences know no boundaries. Lands may separate, but literature unites."  Through their P'rea Press offerings, Blackmore and fellow Australian poet Kyla Lee Ward (The Land of Bad Dreams, 2011) are surely one with the international weird poetry universe.  Scott E. Green observes, Blackmore "has no hesitation to go beyond Lovecraft and sonnets in writing excellent poetry of the weird." Poetic forms represented include the sonnet, haiku, quatrain, and blank narrative verse. Donald Sidney-Fryer notes the collection's "Outstanding technical quality ... deeply felt and well-crafted poems."  The third reprint has an updated bibliography; includes the 2nd reprint's revisions by Blackmore, making these the definitive texts. The cover has fantastic new coloring by artist, Gavin O'Keefe, and the always superb interior book-designing of David E. Schultz. With a Foreword by US critic and scholar S. T. Joshi, and an introduction by the editors of P'rea Press, Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses' third printing is an essential acquisition for enthusiasts of weird and dark fantastic verse.

Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses

Blackmore, Leigh

Poetry

P'rea Press

Poetry readers and fantasy connoisseurs the world over have treasured "A Wine of Wizardry" and "The Hashish-Eater" for almost a century. Written by George Sterling in 1904 and Clark Ashton Smith in 1920 respectively, these poems have been the supporting lintel and threshold to a fantastic doorway of the imagination for generations of enthralled readers. Now at last there is a contemporary response to these masterworks from poets as diverse and distinguished as Richard L. Tierney, Bruce Boston, Alan Gullette, Leigh Blackmore, Michael Fantina, Wade German, Earl Livings, and Kyla Lee Ward. Their magnificent poems evoke the enduring, timeless qualities of Sterling's and Smith's masterpieces and rework the spell to enthral a new generation. "We seem to be in the midst of a renaissance of fantastic poetry, as the present volume attests. The poets in this book have found in their work the inspiration to weave a tapestry of weirdness that stands as a substantial contribution to the fantastic verse of our own time. Connoisseurs of poetry know what aesthetic pleasures are in store for them when they read vivid, meticulously crafted work such as is contained in this book." S. T. Joshi (author Supernatural Literature of the World, I Am Providence, H. P. Lovecraft: A Comprehensive Bibliography) "Inspired by George Sterling and Clark Ashton Smith, yet fueled by the twenty-first century talents of celebrated poets from both hemispheres, this collection of vintages has something for every rarefied taste. From hashish dreams to psychic expeditions through deep space-time, here are experiences not to be found elsewhere. Sip slowly, and revel in the flight." Ann K. Schwader (author Twisted in Dream, In the Yaddith Time, Wild Hunt of the Stars, Dark Energies) "A feast of fantastic verse, a special delight for Klarkash-tonians who need no further reassurance that the stately, cosmic tradition represented by such masterpieces as 'The Star-Treader' and 'The Hashish-Eater' is alive and well." Darrell Schweitzer (author Pathways to Elfland, Windows of the Imagination, Exploring Fantasy Worlds)

Avatars of Wizardry: Poetry Inspired by George Sterling's A Wine of Wizardry and Clark Ashton Smith's The Hashish-Eater

Smith, Clark Ashton

Sterling, George

S. T. Joshi has established himself as a leading critic and scholar of the weird tale. Having begun by studying the work of H. P. Lovecraft, Joshi has expanded his interests to include the entire range of horror fiction from such classics as Lord Dunsany and Algernon Blackwood to such contemporaries as Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, and Clive Barker. In this generous sampling of the reviews that Joshi has written in nearly thirty years as a critic, we find trenchant analyses of writers ranging from Arthur Machen, E. F. Benson, and Shirley Jackson to Peter Straub, Thomas Ligotti, Norman Partridge, and David J. Schow. Joshi also addresses such significant themes in horror fiction as the subgenre of dark suspense, the haunted house, Arkham House and its legacy, and the work of the small press. Of particular note is a lengthy section devoted to H. P. Lovecraft, including studies of an array of Cthulhu Mythos writings and detailed examinations of recent Lovecraft scholarship. Joshi's essays and reviews are enlivened with a pungent wit and literary flair that bring to mind the work of John Clute and Brian Aldiss. S. T. Joshi is the author of such works as The Weird Tale (1990), H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has edited or coedited such important reference works as Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia (2005) and Icons of Horror and the Supernatural (2006). His numerous publications have received the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Horror Writers Association Award, and the International Horror Guild Award.

Classics and Contemporaries: Some Notes on Horror Fiction (Hippocampus Press Library of Criticism)

The author writes:
This book began as an expansion of my essay, “H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West,” in The Weird Tale, but very quickly became something quite different, to the degree that the two works have little save the title in common. I have always been interested in Lovecraft the philosopher, and in my Starmont Reader’s Guide to Lovecraft (1982) I attempted a very compressed account of his philosophical views. To treat so complex a thinker as Lovecraft in a few pages was obviously untenable, even though I think those few pages at least convey the unity of his thought—perhaps better than this fuller study does. One reviewer, however, was correct in noting that I did not sufficiently integrate Lovecraft’s thought and his fiction, and I have now attempted to remedy the failing.
I am still not convinced that I have really written one rather than two books here. Does Lovecraft’s fiction really depend upon his philosophy? I wrestle with this question further in my introduction, but here I can note that I had great difficulty deciding upon the proper structure for this book. I deal with four principal facets of Lovecraft’s philosophy—metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and politics—in Part I, and those same facets as applied to the fiction in Part II. It might have made more sense to juxtapose the corresponding chapters of each part, but I finally determined that this would be both methodologically and practically unsound; methodologically for reasons explained in the introduction, and practically because it would fail to demonstrate the interconnectedness of Lovecraft’s thought and because in Part II I frequently rely upon conceptions expressed throughout the whole of Part I.

H.P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West

Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi's definitive annotated bibliography to works by and about H.P. Lovecraft.

H. P. Lovecraft and Lovecraft Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography.

Borgo Press

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born to a well-to-do family in Providence, Rhode Island. As a child, he revealed remarkable precocity in his early interests in literature and science. Ill-health dogged him in youth, rendering his school attendance sporadic; and in 1908 he experienced a nervous breakdown that rendered him a virtual recluse for several years. In 1914 he discovered the world of amateur journalism and began slowly emerging from his hermitry. He wrote tremendous amounts of essays, poetry, and other work; in 1917, under the encouragement from W. Paul Cook and others, he resumed the writing of horror fiction, and his career as a dream-weaver began anew. In 1921 Lovecraft met his future wife, Sonia H. Greene, at an amateur journalism convention. It was at this time that he began expanding his horizons, both geographical and intellectual: he traveled widely, from New England to New York to Cleveland; and he absorbed such literary and intellectual influences as Lord Dunsany, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Machen. In 1924 he and Sonia decided to marry, and Lovecraft moved to New York to pursue his literary fortune. But, as the first volume of this biography concludes, his metropolitan adventure would be bittersweet at best. S. T. Joshi's award-winning biography H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996) provided the most detailed portrait of the life, work, and thought of the dreamer from Providence ever published. But that edition was in fact abridged from Joshi's original manuscript, and this expanded and updated two-volume edition restores the 150,000 words that Joshi omitted and, in addition, updates the texts with new findings.

I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 1

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

As the second volume of S. T. Joshi's comprehensive biography of H. P. Lovecraft begins, we find Lovecraft dwelling in misery in a one-room apartment in Brooklyn Heights: his wife, Sonia, has had to move to the Midwest for work, and he must rely on the companionship of the Kalem Club, the informal band of friends in the New York area. In 1926, in part through the intervention of his close friend Frank Belknap Long, Lovecraft finally decided to return to his native Providence, Rhode Island, effectively ending his marriage. That return spurred the greatest spurt of literary creativity he would ever experience: in less than a year, such works as "The Call of Cthulhu," The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and "The Colour out of Space" would emerge from his pen, establishing Lovecraft as the leading weird fictionist of his generation. In spite of his increasing poverty, antiquarian travel occupied much of Lovecraft's time, and he gained an impressive knowledge of such oases of antiquity as Charleston, Quebec, St. Augustine, and Richmond. These voyages both renewed his connection with the past and infused his literary work, as such later tales as "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Shadow over Innsmouth" drew ever more profoundly upon his far-flung travels. Intellectually, Lovecraft evolved as well. Recent developments in science confirmed his materialism and his atheism, and the onset of the Great Depression gradually caused him to reassess his political and economic theory; he emerged as a moderate socialist and advocate of the New Deal. Late in life he became a giant in the world of fantasy fandom--a development that foreshadowed his worldwide fame in the decades following his early death.

I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 2

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Joshi, Author S T. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Joshi, Author S T

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Joshi, Author S T. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Weird Tale

The Weird Tale

The Evolution of the Weird Tale

Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses

Avatars of Wizardry: Poetry Inspired by George Sterling's A Wine of Wizardry and Clark Ashton Smith's The Hashish-Eater

Classics and Contemporaries: Some Notes on Horror Fiction (Hippocampus Press Library of Criticism)

H.P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West

H. P. Lovecraft and Lovecraft Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography.

I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 1

I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 2