Happy Birthday, H.P. Lovecraft!
Aug. 20th, 2007 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldritchhobbitToday is the birthday of H.P. Lovecraft!
I've posted several things about Lovecraft in the past. Here are two lists I try to keep up to date:
* Audio version of Lovecraft's work currently available
* Neil Gaiman's writings inspired by Lovecraft's work
Some of my favorite Lovecraft sites include the following:
* The H.P. Lovecraft Archive
* Index of The Works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft
* H.P. Lovecraft’s Library
* The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
* "H.P. Lovecraft" by S.T. Joshi
The quote of the day comes from one of my favorite Lovecraft short stories, "The Shunned House." There are excellent pictures of the real house that inspired this story here and here, and additional information about the local history and lore (including an episode of alleged nineteenth-century vampirism) here.
From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent. Some times it enters directly into the composition of the events, while sometimes it relates only to their fortuitous position among persons and places. The latter sort is splendidly exemplified by a case in the ancient city of Providence, where in the late forties Edgar Allan Poe used to sojourn often during his unsuccessful wooing of the gifted poetess, Mrs. Whitman. Poe generally stopped at the Mansion House in Benefit Street - the renamed Golden Ball Inn whose roof has sheltered Washington, Jefferson, and Lafayette - and his favourite walk led northward along the same street to Mrs. Whitman's home and the neighbouring hillside churchyard of St. John's whose hidden expanse of eighteenth-century gravestones had for him a peculiar fascination.
Now the irony is this. In this walk, so many times repeated, the world's greatest master of the terrible and the bizarre was obliged to pass a particular house on the eastern side of the street; a dingy, antiquated structure perched on the abruptly rising side hill, with a great unkept yard dating from a time when the region was partly open country. It does not appear that he ever wrote or spoke of it, nor is there any evidence that he even noticed it. And yet that house, to the two persons in possession of certain information, equals or outranks in horror the wildest phantasy of the genius who so often passed it unknowingly, and stands starkly leering as a symbol of all that is unutterably hideous....
- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"
I've posted several things about Lovecraft in the past. Here are two lists I try to keep up to date:
* Audio version of Lovecraft's work currently available
* Neil Gaiman's writings inspired by Lovecraft's work
Some of my favorite Lovecraft sites include the following:
* The H.P. Lovecraft Archive
* Index of The Works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft
* H.P. Lovecraft’s Library
* The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
* "H.P. Lovecraft" by S.T. Joshi
The quote of the day comes from one of my favorite Lovecraft short stories, "The Shunned House." There are excellent pictures of the real house that inspired this story here and here, and additional information about the local history and lore (including an episode of alleged nineteenth-century vampirism) here.
From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent. Some times it enters directly into the composition of the events, while sometimes it relates only to their fortuitous position among persons and places. The latter sort is splendidly exemplified by a case in the ancient city of Providence, where in the late forties Edgar Allan Poe used to sojourn often during his unsuccessful wooing of the gifted poetess, Mrs. Whitman. Poe generally stopped at the Mansion House in Benefit Street - the renamed Golden Ball Inn whose roof has sheltered Washington, Jefferson, and Lafayette - and his favourite walk led northward along the same street to Mrs. Whitman's home and the neighbouring hillside churchyard of St. John's whose hidden expanse of eighteenth-century gravestones had for him a peculiar fascination.
Now the irony is this. In this walk, so many times repeated, the world's greatest master of the terrible and the bizarre was obliged to pass a particular house on the eastern side of the street; a dingy, antiquated structure perched on the abruptly rising side hill, with a great unkept yard dating from a time when the region was partly open country. It does not appear that he ever wrote or spoke of it, nor is there any evidence that he even noticed it. And yet that house, to the two persons in possession of certain information, equals or outranks in horror the wildest phantasy of the genius who so often passed it unknowingly, and stands starkly leering as a symbol of all that is unutterably hideous....
- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 03:36 pm (UTC)So great. Happy birthday, indeed, Mr. L. man. I think I'll listen to the CD reading of Reanimator you sent me a while back to celebrate. ;)
This is the most amazing list ever!
Date: 2007-08-20 07:57 pm (UTC)Not only was it vey cool, but worthy of me buying you a drink should we ever be at the same convention (doubtful but possible) at the same time.
Worst case scenario, vaklam buys you a drink and I pay him back.
Many thanks!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 08:15 pm (UTC)Re: This is the most amazing list ever!
Date: 2007-08-20 09:13 pm (UTC)Don't worry about the strange insanity; it will get better, and soon you'll only gibber and moan a little at odd times. ;)
Happy Birthday HP Lovecraft..........
Date: 2007-08-21 01:32 am (UTC)Re: Happy Birthday HP Lovecraft..........
Date: 2007-08-21 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-23 04:53 pm (UTC)I just want to thank you, because it's your fault I like H.P. Lovecraft's work ;) I didn't know much about him before I read a post of yours, and now I admire him a great deal!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 12:28 pm (UTC)Your post made my day. I'm so thrilled that you like Lovecraft now! And I am pleased and proud to take responsibility. :) Thank you.