Interview with S. T. Joshi

[Ningauble]

Yog Radio has an interesting interview with S. T. Joshi at

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/docs2/yog-radio-29.mp3

about 1:13:20 into the programme.

Among the interesting news I've heard so far is:

* Joshi is aiming to publish the unabridged text of his HPL biography (about 508 000 words) in two volumes in 2-3 years, probably through Necronomicon Press
* Lovecraft's surviving letters total about 4 000 000 words
* The REH/HPL correspondence will probably appear in early 2009 in two HUGE volumes

[j. d. worthington]

Thank you for the notice on this. I'll have to squeeze out the time to listen to that this evening; and I'm certainly looking forward to both the unabridged version of Joshi's bio and the HPL/REH correspondence, which (from what I've seen) was often extremely lively....

[pablo]

Great news, looks like I'll be waiting for that two-volume biography, even though I cannot!

Also, speaking of HPL's letters, how feasible is it to collect them all in book form? Of the numerous volumes already published, what percentage of the total do they total?

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by pablo

Great news, looks like I'll be waiting for that two-volume biography, even though I cannot!

Also, speaking of HPL's letters, how feasible is it to collect them all in book form? Of the numerous volumes already published, what percentage of the total do they total?

Of those still extant (some 10,000 or so iirc)... a very small percentage. The five volumes of Selected Letters together only has 930, and most of these are extensively abridged. (For example, a letter to the Kleicomolo of October 1916 that in the first SL volume is not quite 4 pages in length, takes up 16 pages of small print in the Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner.) And, of course, many of the same letters are reproduced in other volumes, albeit usually in less abridged (or unabridged) form. So the percentage of HPL's still-existing letters so far reproduced at all (abridged or otherwise) would probably be something less than 10% of the wordage....

[Ningauble]

Originally Posted by pablo

Great news, looks like I'll be waiting for that two-volume biography, even though I cannot!

And let's hope that there is a hardcover edition that's bigger than 250 copies!

Also, speaking of HPL's letters, how feasible is it to collect them all in book form? Of the numerous volumes already published, what percentage of the total do they total?

Rather small a percentage (the latest estimate I've seen is that about 10% of HPL's letters have survived, which would put the total number at anywhere between 6 000 and 10 000 letters). But a couple of mailings back, there was a notice in the EODapa that Hippocampus Press has plans for a complete series of HPL's letters, in 20-25 volumes. The forthcoming Lovecraft/Derleth letters should then be considered the first two volumes of this series. Let's just pray that the Hippocampus can pull it off!