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Originally Posted by littlemissattitude This is probably a really amateur questions, j. d., but I'll ask it anyway: Are any of Lovecraft's letters collected?
The reason I ask is, I'm fascinated by people like Lovecraft who were voluminous letter writers, and when they are published they are interesting (to me, at least) to read. |
Ooops! Somehow I missed your post, LMA ... perhaps we were working on them at the same time. Yes, there are several collections of his letters: There's the 5-volume
Selected Letters from Arkham House, though I'm not sure which of these are currently in print; there are two volumes of letters put out by Night Shade Books:
Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei and
Letters from New York; a book of autobiographical passages compiled from his correspondence by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz,
Lord of a Visible World; a beautiful book compiled from the his correspondence with HPL by Willis Conover,
Lovecraft at Last (which often has photos of the letters, and various other things the two of them discussed, as well ... the main drawback if you're looking for the letters proper is that this has been edited in such a way as to make it a conversation between the two, using quotes from the letters for the purpose -- however, the exact source-letters are identified in an appendix); the complete extant correspondence between Fritz Leiber and HPL,
Writers of the Dark, edited by Ben J. S. Szumskyj and S. T. Joshi; and several books of correspondence from Hippocampus Press, two of which have been published, and others forthcoming. The two currently available are:
Letters to Alfred Galpin and
Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner; both of these also include selections of writings from each of the respective correspondents, as well. The forthcoming volumes include a book of his letters to James Ferdinand Morton, a close amateur colleague, a planned book of the complete correspondence (both sides) by Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, and one of both sides of the correspondence of HPL and August Derleth. And there are numerous other books that have smaller selections of his letters, as well.
Ummmm.... sorry you asked yet?
As noted, the problem with the
Selected Letters is the editing, which was often arbitrary and very odd, leaving out large portions of many letters (often some of the most illuminating passages, frustratingly); yet it is the most comprehensive selection of his letters available to date, and for all the faults, is full of fascinating reading. Lovecraft really was one of the great epistolarians, not only in quantity, but in quality; it has been argued for some time by many that his letters may, in fact, be his greatest contribution to literature, as they represent some of the finest letters written in the past two centuries. Ironically, it may, in the end, be for his correspondence -- the very thing which Lovecraft himself would not have chosen, as it viewed it as simply a means of discourse rather than formal literary composition -- for which he will be remembered by the scholars of the future.