Talk:H. P. Lovecraft

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/archive1

Contents 1 Women 2 The fate of Lovecraft's father? 3 Last sentence in this paragraph... 4 POV: Racism / Sexism / Class .. uh, ism? 5 phases 6 Books and such 7 Racism and plain English 7.1 Recent change 8 Added a bit on the background to the copyright issues 9 Redirect 10 Image of Cthulhu 11 Religion 12 Added a game: Eternal Darkness 13 Pruning again 14 Added link for Pictorial Bibliography 15 Copyright status 16 Cold-blooded 17 Help! 18 Racial attitudes and Cool Air 19 Revisions 20 Is it just me? 21 Arkham House 22 nonhuman influences on humanity 23 GA-rating 24 Copyright 25 GA Failure 26 Lovecraft's forbidden knowledge and its possible ΰβρις connections 27 Gothic Horror

[edit] Women

Women in Lovecraft's fiction are rare, and the few leading female characters in his stories often turn out to be agents of some evil, alien force.

In fairness, that happens pretty often with his male characters too :-)

Um, there aren't any leading female characters, are there? Oh, don't start the 'Lovecraft's sexist' thing with me, at least not until every femenist anti-male book is taken off the shelves. I'm just saying, the only woman who comes to mind in Lovecraft is the farmwife in "The Color out of Space", who didn't turn out evil so much as dead. -Anon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.52.221.60 (talk • contribs) 09:05, 14 March 2006.

No, Anon, there is not a single leading female character in Lovecraft's stories. In fact, I have yet to read a Lovecraft story that has a female character in it. - Star_9 11:22, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The only ones that leap to my mind are Asenath Waite ('Thing on the Doorstep'), Lavinia Whateley ('Dunwich Horror'), and Keziah Mason ('Dreams in the Witch-House'). Unless one wants to count Shub-Niggurath ;-) None are exactly sympathetic characters... --Calair 23:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)Φ

I would think it rather odd for a male author to write first-person as a female character. There is nothing wrong with doing so, but how often does that happen? As to the diabolical nature of women in his fiction, I'm not going to sugar-coat anything when I say it was probably not coincidence. Think of his female role-models, his ex-wife notwithstanding. I do not, however, think it is important to call so much attention to this fact. I am willing to say that I believe that he had no agenda to propagate his racial or sexist views. It could have been an entirely subconscious thing. So really, it can be valuable to study and observe the markings of his apparent moral 'flaws', but not to the point of marking his fiction as racist and\or sexist. Jehar 17:55, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why racist or sexist fiction has to be propoganda.--Prosfilaes 18:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, though I wouldn't even call Lovecraft's fiction rascist or sexist. The man arguably was, and that reflected in his fiction at times, but that does not bend the whole of his work towards the label of racist or sexist. Jehar 18:24, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

It would be interesting to examine Lovecraft's relationship to women in general. Even though though he was raised in a female household, and briefly married, women play almost no role in his literary universe. Then again, neither does sex, at least overtly. Mumblio 21:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The fate of Lovecraft's father?

The article states that Lovecraft's father died while hospitalised for general paresis. However, the introduction to a compilation I have here ("The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories", S T Joshi (Ed), Penguin Books) states that "Lovecraft was apparently told that his father was paralyzed and comatose during this period [in Butler Hospital], but the surviving medical evidence makes it clear that Winfield [his father] died of syphilis."

There is no source given for this claim, but neither is one given in the Wiki article. I wonder where one could verify which is the truth? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.19.111.67 (talk • contribs) 10:46, 22 September 2005.

Joshi and his gang of fellow biographers are pretty definite about implying that the cause for Winfield's death was syphilis, procured god knows where.--virinluster 18:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last sentence in this paragraph...

From the article:

"Shortly after, he attended an amateur journalist convention where he met Sonia Greene. She was Ukrainian, a Jew, and, having been born in 1883, seven years older than Lovecraft. They married in 1924, though Lovecraft's aunts were unhappy with the arrangement. The couple moved to the Borough of Brooklyn in New York City. He hated it. A few years later he and Greene agreed to an amicable divorce, and he returned to Providence to live with his aunts during their remaining years. Due to the unhappiness of their marriage, some biographers have speculated that Lovecraft could have been asexual."

That last sentence seems to jump out as rather peculiar and is not expanded on anywhere else in his biog section. I know nothing about Lovecraft so cannot appraise it as worthy of inclusion. As a casual reader, though, I'm left frowning. Anyone able to clarify/remove/rework it? --bodnotbod 06:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

The marriage may have been rather frigid but most likely not entirely asexual - Sonia Greene, Lovecraft's wife, made one or two tiny little candid remarks after his death that, after all, he was able to perform sexually, he just didn't like it all that much.--virinluster 18:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV: Racism / Sexism / Class .. uh, ism?

It has been discussed in depth in the white supremacy article and various others on the topic of racism, et al, that discussing such subjective matter for figures in history of this time period is moot.

Thus I call into question the POV of this articles dealing with it. 'racism', 'sexism', et al is covered numerous times through this article, which I believe, is pushing the point of view of contemporary observers who do not comprehend the cultural or sociological issues of the time.

Whilst I am not saying that to hold such iron clad views on the subject of race, class or sex is the correct thing to do, I am saying that I believe the individuals who have incessantly inserted these words seem to be pushing their own agenda / pov on the matter and not dealing with it in a holistic approach.

I thereby wish to recommend that we attempt to swing the article around to a more NPOV attitude. Any objections, contributions, addendums would be appreciated. Jachin 06:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see where the white supremacy article says anything like that. This article has to deal with the attitudes people have towards Lovecraft, and the attitude of Lovecraft. This article's discussion of Lovecraft's racism has gone through many editors who understand some of the cultural and socoiological issues of the time.

As much to the point, it's not like Lovecraft is the only author from the period still read. There are reasons why people call Lovecraft racist and not Carroll, Twain, Dickens, Verne or H.G. Wells. Lines like

"Ghosts," by Mrs. Renshaw, well illustrates the vague superstitions of the negroes, those strange creatures of darkness who seem never to cross completely the threshold from apedom to humanity.

(from the United Amateur, in the late 1910s or early 1920s) just aren't found in the writings of most people from the time. Other authors, if they were as racist, didn't feel a need to express it in their writings.--Prosfilaes 02:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I do not see a problem with discussing a common modern POV of Lovecraft's work. NPOV means simply recording all POVs (and clearly labelling them as such). It does not mean completely excluding any information that is POV. That there are many modern readers who are shocked at Lovecraft's various overt -isms is beyond dispute. They hold that POV, and the article needs to document that fact — clearly marked as such, of course.

In general, I see no particular problem with the NPOVness of the current article. Are there any particular passages you can draw our attention to? Kwertii 20:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I Really think everyone need to sit back and take a breather! Why are you all using your 2005 looking glass to judge some 80 year old books?? in that time the political correctness of our time didnt exist. Nonwhite (asians, africans, russians, and so on), Women, beggers, gypsies and people with "defects" (diabetes, epilepsy and such) where all seen as lesser races of the human race. That Lovecraft shared these views dont really make it special, it would if he didnt though. Many state that all are white in his books, well so were they in other classic novels, but that really dont prove much do it? in "the color purple" all actors are african and in "the last emporer" all actors are chinese, does that make them racist? Lovecraft was as most other white of that time a social racist nothing more and nothing less, but is there a need to mention it? no dont think so, just as little as it is need to mention his views on women as a lead character or hero, if we did we might as well start editing all autors (from all over the world) adding racist to their title if their books are older than 70 years or there is a all monoraced envioment (or if the evil has another color than the hero)... well lets just write racist on everyone in the writing and movie industry :o) Sneaking Viper 01:37, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me repeat again, Lovecraft's views were not typical. Go ahead and show me text from Dickens or Twain or Verne that reads like the quote I used above. There is a reason that Lovecraft is called as racist and any number of other authors of the same era aren't. Furthermore, we discuss Bertrand Russell's racism, despite the fact we're quoting from material of the same period. Mentioning one book or one movie doesn't show anything; you have to show a pattern.

Moreover, issues of interest should be covered in the article. If Lovecraft is percieved as racist, it is our obligation to respond to that in the article and explain the issues for the readers. --Prosfilaes 02:51, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I dont really see that extreme racism in Lovecrafts work, not if compared to Sax Rohmer and Doyle. (from Rohmer: "Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."—The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Doyle also often referred to asians as "the yellow peril or yellow menance" in Sherlock Homes). Dickens and Twain didnt share the ignorance of the common public, or at least in their books, they placed themself very neutral. And Verne, being a french scifi writer, was less intrested in races, however Nemo DID change from being a Polish to being a Hindu noble (british colony) not to a Zulu tribesman. i think you can always, if you have the desire, find racism in books, deliberate or undelibrate from the autor, do anyone here actually believe that Lovecraft politically and intentionally placed his racism in his text? Think of the context, the time and the atmosphere. its not like he can write in Shadows.. that the religion came from seattle or rome. He had to find some place that people didnt know much about (including himself) and hence he choose the South China Sea. For a small town citizen as Lovecraft (and many others in that time) asians and africans symbolized the different and strange, hence their role as evil was very easy to add, the same goes for most books from asia and africa, the white were the symbol of different and at times harsh rule, so white people are often pictured as evil there. Sneaking Viper 05:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Nobody is claiming that he was a propogandist for any cause; I fail to see why it's relevant whether or not he "politically" placed his racism or not. I'm not talking about the South China Sea; "vague superstitions of the negroes, those strange creatures of darkness who seem never to cross completely the threshold from apedom to humanity" is talking about people who had been in America and New England specifically almost as long as white people.--Prosfilaes 08:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

So in your view racial remarks about africans is racism but racial remarks about asians is not? i already made it very clear that white people in that time had a strong attitude about all non white. The Shadows over Innsmouth was a good example of that attitude, I know very well that racism flurished in the industrial age, but pointing out that one writer shared the views of many is a mute point. Since racism was so dominant in all countries (yes Africa, middleeast and Asia had their share of racism also) we might as well start adding that title to everyone. But i actually are quite suprised about your anger about the negroes remark and your indifference with the yellow peril remark. I always thought racism was wrong and horrible no matter if the target is black, white, yellow, blue, green or polka dotted. And by the way no, African slaves was not in America before long time after the europeans had driven the native americans back and claimed the country for them self. Sneaking Viper 08:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Funny, now you're putting words into my mouth that came out of yours. You claimed that it was all right because he was talking about distant Asians; he was talking about people who lived in the same city and had for centuries (ever heard of Crispus Attucks?) It's better to consider someone a peril than to consider them subhuman.

Why does this page have huge arguments on Lovecraft's racism? Do you think that everyone randomly picked Lovecraft to single out? Where there's smoke, there's fire. It's insulting to accuse everyone who thinks Lovecraft was particularly racist of being ignorant; many of us read books from that era. In a time of racism, he stands out. Perhaps he was just more vocal about his racism, but that statement stands out to me as a step beyond what most would have said at that time.

And by the way, the first African slaves were in the US in 1526 (c.f. History of slavery in the United States), prior to the first permanent European settlement in the US. --Prosfilaes 10:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I dont know why this argument is here either, I actually think we agree on that he and others had racist views, however it seems we disagree on the severity of his racism, no i do not think it is nice or ok that asians or africans are being talked down to/looked down upon, i just said that it was the times of that arrogant attitude and that it was to be expected, i however agree that the quote you came with is very strong and should even in that time have created a reaction but i doubt it would have since even researchers from that period came with similar demining outbursts.

I didnt know the African slaves that came on the first spanish ship, i knew the spanish brought alot of horses from europe that fled captivity and slaves from the caribbians and south america in the early times, but not from africa. Also Wikipedia is wrong, the first permanent settlement from Europe was in 700 by the Vikings :o) Sneaking Viper 10:50, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Prosfilaes, the quote you used doesn't seem to me to be insulting to black people. It looks familiar, but I can't remember exactly which story it's in, so I can't look to see what was said before or after the quote you used. However, in the quote given,

"Ghosts," by Mrs. Renshaw, well illustrates the vague superstitions of the negroes, those strange creatures of darkness who seem never to cross completely the threshold from apedom to humanity.

, the 'strange creatures' refers to the 'vague superstitions', not to the 'negroes'.

Secondly, I think it's worth remembering that these so-called themes are in his writing. We can't assume that he held any such belief dear to his heart at all, even if it's popular knowledge that most people of his age did. I know the current 'Race' paragraph does start out by making this distinction, for which I'm grateful, but it does end up presuming to know his mind from what he merely wrote.

Heavens To Betsy 10:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Superstitions "seem never to cross completely the threshold from apedom to humanity"? That seems a most unusual interpretation of that sentence. It's used in a review, not fiction. I wish Distributed Proofreaders could finish processing it for Project Gutenberg, but that will still take a while.

HP was not just an author of fiction; he wrote volumes of letters, where he expressed his personal opinion quite clearly. Even his fiction was not commercial fiction; given that he wrote what he wanted, I think it not unreasonable to think that what he wrote would come from close to his heart.--Prosfilaes 19:10, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

His racist tendencies seem to have influenced his pantheon as well... can anyone really say "Shub-Niggurath" without cringing? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.30.100.199 (talk • contribs) 23:20, 10 January 2006.

In an essay written by Robert Price called "Lovecraft's Artificial Mythology" (covered in 'An Epicure in the Terrible), he suggests that the name is probably based off of (or a tribute to) Dunsany's Sheol Nugganoth. Even if the similarity to "nigger" is not coincidental (odds are it is), it could be a reference to her being the "black goat of the woods with a thousand young", possibly used in a similar way to his black cat "Nigger-man".Cameron 23:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Heavens to Betsy, your using a false positve to make your argument regarding Lovecraft's beliefs. The facts show that both in his writings and in his personal letters of communication (Letter 648), Lovecraft held racist veiws. The fact that this is a negative trait will not disavow all of his works in the eyes of literary admirers, nor will it excuse racism's existence retroactively, but at the same time it cannot be 'ignored' for the sake of not smearing his image. Lovecraft was human, and therefore had personality flaws (obviously). Racism was one of them. It demeans any biography of him to ignore his faults, or attempt to retroactively spin the bad parts to the man for excusive purposes. -Loonster

Lovecraft was such a creep... Probably he did not stand out as much in his days, but still. I noticed it even when I was a teenager, reading one of his stories (can't remember the title) about some murderous, in-breed, inferior race of humanoids, dwelling below the peaceful rolling hills of some country, just waiting to devour its inhabitants. I mean, I was 14 and knew basically nothing, but even then it struck me that Lovecraft had some distorted, malicious, hideous perception of the world. But geez, that guy could write. He took his immense paranoia and hate and malevolence and put it into this brilliant little cosmos of nightmare and terror. Comparing him to, say, Stephen King is a little like comparing Adolf Hitler to Charles Manson, no offense meant, and in terms of maliciousness only! -- 790 06:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Don't think that's very relevant, but anyway. For reference, the story was "The Lurking Fear". --Sir Ophiuchus 00:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a registered user and thus can't contribute (I think) but this site http://www.noveltynet.org/content/books/lovecraft/H.%20P.%20Lovecraft%20-%20Dagon.pdf seems to authoritatively claim that Dagon was first published in 1919 in 'The Vagrant' and not in 1923 in 'Weird Tales' as claimed in the article. Perhaps someone could confirm/deny this with a third source? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.8.213.141 (talk • contribs) 22:37, 26 February 2006.

It seems to me that what disturbs people the most about Lovecraft's racism is how profoundly it affected his work, and how essential it is to his innovations. Lovecraft's concept of biological, scientific horror is pretty clearly a product of his racism. I think that in this day and age we don't like to acknowledge the fact that an author's racism can sometimes be the source of his greatness. Celine is another case in point. At any rate, I think we can appreciate the greatness without approving of the ideology.--ben-ze'ev 10:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't accept that at all. If anything, Lovecraft's (evident) racist views allowed him to take shortcuts - rather than describing a man's regression to savagery he could liken him to what he considered to be "savages". For example, all cultists mentioned in "The Call of Cthulhu" are "degenerate Eskimos", "hybrid spawn", "mongrels" or "negro sailors". That was lazy - Lovecraft could simply have detailed "civilised" man's regression instead, and in fact increased the horror (certainly in his worldview). "The Rats in the Walls", quite possibly his most horrific story, does just that. Also, "At the Mountains of Madness", arguably his most "biological, scientific" work, contains no racist references whatsoever. Therefore, I would conclude that Lovecraft obviously does display his racist tendencies in his work, but they act as shortcuts for him, rather than as inspiration. Sir Ophiuchus 22:10, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

"The Mountains of Madness" is a very late work. I would say that by that point that issue of biological horror had completely subsumed its racist origins. However, I don't think it could have reached that point had it not been developed over a decade of writing. Certainly, the racist inspiration fell away as Lovecraft's concepts became more fully developed, but I think they are fairly clearly inspired by his racism. I don't think they are shortcuts, or the sign of a lazy writer, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", for instance, which is also considered one of his best, is pretty clearly a fantasy of miscegenation. I think it is also important to note that Lovecraft was a fairly bizarre fellow who was not immune to paradox. He married, for instance, a Jewish woman, despite his antisemitism. Michel Houellebecq's essay, "Against the World, Against Life", makes a very good case for the importance of racism in Lovecraft's work. Check it out.--ben-ze'ev 08:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all, that relativist approach - Lovecraft was a racist in a time when many people were, so his racism doesn't stand out - quite frankly, just sucks - his racism would be, or is disgusting, anyway, and of course it can be judged from our modern day politically correct perspective, because we (like any age) are writing our history by our standards and moral norms - what else would we do? And, yes, he was an outspoken racist - it's just that he had very few opportunities to speak out that particular thing. The man was painfully isolated for the most part of his life - about all critics going into that detail note the point, Airaksinen does, deCamp does, even Joshi does: his deeds, his racist acts, just didn't have any consequences because his social world, his circle was painfully small. Sure, he had an immense circle of correspondents, and many of his letters are stupidly full of all kinds of racist slurs, but there was only a very, very limited circle of people that he had to justify his positions to in person, face to face, with no paper to mediate inbetween. He was not, to be fair, a rabid fanatic - in the final years of his life, he started travelling a lot, socialized a lot, went out to see and meet people - and in the process he certainly did soften up. Some time in the early 1930s, he started dropping his racist prejudices, if slowly, and there seems to have been some insight into the foolishness of his previous behavior. In short - he was racist to the same degree that he was egocentric.

As for his stories - when racist slurs occur in his stories, this is not Lovecraft speaking, of course. Most of these slurs happen along a rather dumb racial stereotyping - as far as humanity goes. The real conflict, the real tension is not between black and white, or white and asian: for that, he just doesn't explore that dimension of American history and culture thoroughly enough. The racial conflict that is productive on a narrative level is going on between humankind and aliens, humans and Old Ones, and Cthulhu and the gang don't care at all just what ethnic group they are wasting. --virinluster 20:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Lovecraft was pretty much undeniably racist, it's not hard to infer that from his work, and I don't think anyone is claiming that he isn't. However, he seems to get singled out for his racist views a lot more than many of his peers. As it was pointed out, his racist views appear more extreme than other writers of his time, but still by no means were they uncommon, just less often commended to written word. I admit that, as a fan of his work, I find how often and extensively his racist views are mentioned to be more of an attack of his character than a proper discussion of his work. I think, however, that the article does a good job discussing his views as well as putting them into the context of Lovecraft's era.

[edit] phases

The article divides HPL's work into 3 phases: macabre, dream cycle, and Cthulhu Mythos. According to scholarship, HPL himself referred to distinct phases within his work based on the writings of Dunsany and others, respectively. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.161.115.23 (talk • contribs) 21:36, 1 March 2006.

A lot of his dream cycle work is very obviously influenced by Dunsany, in any case. Sir Ophiuchus 17:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Influenced to a far lesser degree by Dunsany than most would think, as clearly explained by S.T. Joshi in his introduction of The Dreams in the Witch House.

[edit] Books and such

I just completed an edit [1], re-formatting the book, film, and radio sections. I removed Lovecraft's own work, as we cite it inline and have it referenced from this page on List of works by H. P. Lovecraft which is referenced in its own section on this page under Bibliography, there's no sense in having the major items 3 times, nor the minor items (those not referenced inline) twice. Besides that, it's just terribly long, and the page is already ureasonably long. I then merged all of the sections that contained work about Lovecraft into Works relating to Lovecraft, and did a small amount of copyediting on the entries (one documentary film was a real mess, and needed to be cleaned up. -Harmil 16:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Second edit relating to the above. There were sections below the bibliography that were part of the body of the article. I moved thos up above the "Survey of the work" so that now the sections are:

1. Biography
2. Background of Lovecraft's work
3. Lovecraft's influence in popular culture
4. Race, Class, and Sex
5. Survey of the work
6. Locations featured in Lovecraft stories
7. Bibliography
8. Works relating to Lovecraft
9. Adaptations
10. Further reading
11. External links

Which seems to me to flow a bit more the way WP:STYLE indicates. -Harmil 16:11, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

A little humor for HPL fans: "The Calls of Cthulhu" BillFlis 21:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I find it interesting that Lovecraft's work has not adapted particularly well to film. One would think that the visual nature of his style would be well suited to cinema. With the exception of his influence on designers like HR Giger, Lovecraft seems to have had remarkably little direct impact on the horror film genre.--ben-ze'ev 08:25, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't find that too astonishing... how would you model an "undescribable horror" in papier-mache, let alone a polygon model? ;-) --790 10:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Good point. When Lovecraft really goes over the top he is often quite sparing in visual details. Maybe his type of horror is impossible outside of literature.--ben-ze'ev 06:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect - that is just not the case. You don't even need to delve into splatter horror stories like "Herbert West - Reanimator" (which was one direct influence on the movie scene. The eponymous Brian Yuzna-movies have been quite popular, I think.) to find very explicit and gory horror in his work. Lovecraft made quite a programmatic use of physical nausea (in fact, his use of nausea was the subject of a rather interesting dissertation over here in Germany, some 10 years back, or so), spilling blood, slime, and so on, rather deliberately - just think of, among others, "The Thing on the Doorstep", where Asenath is dissembled into a pool of ooze, or "The Dunwich Horror", with another oozy finale, or "The Picture in the House", where you have a good dose of parodied cannibal violence, or - you get the idea. He was not reluctant about that. As for his influence in cinematography - legendary director Roger Corman was heavily influenced by Lovecraft's works, and Robert Bloch's ("Psycho") rendering of Norman Bates may be (or so I believe) a quaint reference to Lovecraft who used to be Bloch's mentor for a while and whose oedipal problems have been retold again and again.--virinluster 18:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

While it is true that many of his stories would be difficult to take to film (though someone with a good imagination might do a decent job), there are some that would work perfectly. I am currently reading through his works on Wikisource, and I think that "The Temple" would not only work on the screen, it would be great! One of those classic WWI submarine stories, but with a supernatural touch and a sort of twist ending. A bit like Sphere (novel), I guess. There are a few of his stories (from what I've read so far, starting from the first he wrote) that just seem poorly written. I think "The Green Meadow" was more or less a waste of ink. But others are very well done, including the first one: "The Beast in the Cave". All in all, I'm enjoying his works, and some of them are surprising and fairly eerie, but I have yet to be truly scared. I am only up to "The Temple", though. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 04:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, this one always seems to work for a scare. Procure a copy of The Rats in the Walls, proceed to a dilapidated old building at night, then sit and read. CABAL 12:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Racism and plain English

I don't particularly object to the content of recent additions, but the expression is almost impenetrable. This reads more like a doctoral thesis than an encyclopaedia intended for the general public, and it really bloats this section out of proportion to the others. Any possibility of a more user-friendly rewrite? --Calair 00:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

No offense, but we are dealing with a man who used "shew" instead of "show" and favored the word "eldritch" over all others. I'd say the language is fairly in keeping with its subject.--ben-ze'ev 08:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Following that principle, much of the English Wikipedia should redirect to other languages. I hesitate to ponder what James Joyce's article would look like.--Prosfilaes 17:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Much like the average Wikipedia article, I should think And Cryptography would be even worse ;-) --Calair 01:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

A good point. Can one really do justice to James Joyce without recourse to sophisticated language? Perhaps we should simply write that Lovecraft was an odd fellow who wrote horror stories. That should be easily comprehensible to the hoi polloi.--ben-ze'ev 02:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, the standard practice of the elitist. If you can't communicate clearly, blame the reader. If they can't plow through whatever dense unclear writing the author chooses to dump on the page, then they aren't worthy of understanding the text.--Prosfilaes 03:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

As it happens, the article James Joyce is decidedly more readable than the 'Racism' section of this one. It's not perfect, but despite having no great familiarity with Joyce's life or works, I can read through the entire thing (excepting direct quotes from Joyce) without once going "Huh?"

I can't say the same of sentences like this:

But, from a deeper perspective, the theme of "bad blood" actually serves to highlight Lovecraft's starkly elitist and Traditional philosophy of the rise and fall of civilizations as the amorphous, cultureless, soulless rabblement undermines the fragile achievements and structures of the outnumbered creative race, sending mankind into greater engrossment in the disorganized impulses of mindless matter and what Lovecraft terms "primitive half-ape savagery".

I'm reasonably familiar with HPL's work. In fact, although I'd argue with some of the specifics of that sentence, the basic idea it expresses is one that I was already aware of. But it's so unwieldy that it still took me two or three readings to figure out what the idea was it was expressing. I can only guess how obscure it would be for some poor soul who came in here without having already read the stories it's attempting to describe.

Obscurity might be forgivable where it adds information that can't be expressed any other way; I don't expect any adequate explanation of general relativity or income tax to be understandable by everybody. But that sentence could have been made much more readable without sacrificing any information. Some of its failings:

• Obscure word choices. Google suggests that 'rabble' is about 250-350 times more commonly used than 'rabblement', and it means the same thing. Choosing the latter might make sense if one was an author trying to add an archaic flavour to a story, but it's not appropriate to an encyclopaedia.

• Ambiguous structure. The sentence is presumably intended to be parsed as "the theme highlights Lovecraft's philosophy, in which (civilisations rise and fall as the rabble undermines the creative and sends mankind into savagery etc.)", but there are at least two other ways it could be parsed:

• "While the rabble undermines the creative, sending mankind into savagery etc., the theme of "bad blood" highlights Lovecraft's philosophy about the rise and fall of nations."
• "Lovecraft's philosophy about the rise and fall of nations involves the rabble undermining the creative. The theme of "bad blood" highlights this, sending mankind into savagery etc."

The only way to figure out how it's supposed to be parsed is to read the whole thing and then go back over it, using context to figure out that two of those readings don't make sense.

• Padding. We're all guilty of it at one time or another, but when the sentence is already hard to parse this just exacerbates things. Do we really need peacock phrases like "from a deeper perspective", or that superfluous "actually"?

• Unhelpful wikilinking. The link to Traditional (which redirects to Tradition) doesn't help the reader make sense of this sentence; my guess is that the author was thinking of the Traditionalist School, linked earlier in this section, but the link doesn't go there; it just adds an irrelevant distraction.

--Calair 04:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

It strikes me as an unattributed quote, or something attempting to approximate HPL's own writing style. Perhaps this can be clarified?--ben-ze'ev 10:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

That's an impressive analysis of what's wrong with the passage, but more impressive would be an edit that fixes those problems. Nareek 13:01, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

It's on my to-do list; if nobody beats me to it, I'll sit down and rework the section one of these days. But the work that'd involve is enough that I thought it better to test the waters here first. --Calair 14:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

After much thought, I decided that it would make more sense to talk about the themes Lovecraft writes about, and work the issue of race into that. I tried to transplant most of the crucial bits from the old "Race, class, and sex" section, but some got snipped. In particular, I left out references to the Traditionalist School because it wasn't clear to me that there really was much of a parallel to Lovecraft here. By my understanding, the Traditionalist School holds that mankind has been steadily declining from the beginning, whereas HPL's work generally shows a past just as terrible and inhuman as the future; likewise, while Traditionalism holds that Christianity and all other "authentic religions" are true, Lovecraft's picture of the universe doesn't leave a lot of room for benevolent gods with the interests of Mankind at heart. Relevant passages, in case somebody wants to work on them:

Lovecraft's conservative ideology toward what he considered a societally promiscuous, flattening and decadent modernity bereft of all quality expressed many of the underlying philosophical assumptions of the Traditionalist school of philosophy, sharing special intellectual affinities with the esoteric revolutionary conservative Julius Evola.

But, from a deeper perspective, the theme of "bad blood" actually serves to highlight Lovecraft's starkly elitist and Traditional philosophy of the rise and fall of civilizations as the amorphous, cultureless, soulless rabblement undermines the fragile achievements and structures of the outnumbered creative race, sending mankind into greater engrossment in the disorganized impulses of mindless matter and what Lovecraft terms "primitive half-ape savagery". The Horror at Red Hook (1925) especially reveals Lovecraft's pessimistic understanding of what he considered the fallen, dysgenic state of modern civilization and documents the intrusion into contemporary America of "hellish vestiges of old Turanian-Asiatic magic and fertility cults" and a "frightful and clandestine system of assemblies and orgies descended from dark religions antedating the Aryan world...appearing in popular legends as Black Masses and Witches' Sabbaths". The narrator reflects dramatically at the conclusion of this tale of infra-human degenerative corruption set in modern multiracial New York: "Who are we to combat poisons older than history and mankind? Apes danced in Asia to those horrors, and the cancer lurks secure and spreading where furtiveness hides in rows of decaying brick."

I tried to work the relationship between individual "bad blood" (e.g. Arthur Jermyn") and decline of civilisations into the rewrite, but I left out most of the rest. --Calair 04:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent change

Can someone review the recent edits[2] and my modification[3]? I'd like to see a full citation for the letter in question, and confirmation that the conclusions drawn were POV, and not the conclusion of some external Lovecraft authority. Thanks! -Harmil 06:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Googling finds that quote attributed to HPL in part 2 of a three-part document on a white-supremacist site: [4][5][6].

The compiler, 'A. Trumbo', seems to be an advocate of white supremacy and holds Lovecraft up as a supporter of those ideals (while lamenting his failure to acknowledge Slavs as fellow Aryans, go fig); he gives his source for the letters as Arkham House's 1965 "The Selected Letters Of H.P. Lovecraft". Assuming for the sake of argument that Trumbo is indeed quoting verbatim from Lovecraft's letters, I'd still be happier if somebody could check that the context hasn't been misrepresented.

If the quote checks out, it should probably be moved to near the top of the subsection, which mentions HPL expressing racist views in his correspondence. --Calair 11:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added a bit on the background to the copyright issues

I added a note regarding Lovecraft's choice of Barlow as executor of his literary estate to provide some additional background on the confusion regarding copyrights. If Barlow had been older when Lovecraft passed or if an attorney had been placed in charge, a proper estate could have been established to preserve Lovecraft's copyrights. Of course, whether that would have been good or bad for Lovecraft's writing is a matter of conjecture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cosmoline (talk • contribs) 03:18, 16 May 2006.

[edit] Redirect

"The Rats in the Walls" redirects here. As far as I'm aware, none of the other titles of Lovecraft's stories do so, and also there is almost no information about The Rats in the Walls. This is especially annoying since there is an explicit link to "The Rats in the Walls" in the List of works by H. P. Lovecraft. It would be far preferable to leave it as a stub or even an invitation to create a stub. Quendus 16:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

A small article on The Rats in the Walls has been put up now and the redirect removed. It is open to emendations, as it was only written as a temporary solution.

[edit] Image of Cthulhu

Can anybody procure that pencil sketch image of Cthulhu that floats around the internet and in the Del Rey books? I think it would fit nicely into the Cthulhu Mythos section of the article.--Mikepope 07:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you describe it in more detail, like the pose Cthulhu is in? It'd make searching a lot easier. CABAL 07:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It's the one in which Cthulhu (his majesty!) is sitting on a miniature monolith or column like the one described in the first pages of "The Call of Cthulhu". He looks as if he's sulking (or waiting!). I have it in a Del Rey book, and I think I've seen it on the internet a few times...--Mikepope 20:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wait... Lovecraft's original sketch? CABAL 23:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

That's the one. Should we put it in the article, or is it not necessary?--Mikepope 03:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That depends. What's the copyright status on Lovecraft's original works? CABAL 05:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I haven't the slightest clue. I just thought it would go well with the article.--Mikepope 04:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not an answerable question under American law. If a work by George Washington was first published in 1999, it'd still be under copyright. It depends on where and when it was first published.--Prosfilaes 16:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

That specific picture was never actually published, but has been floating around with absolutely no copyright status for the longest time. Likely, it is copyright H.P. Lovecraft himself. I assume it would be alright to put it on the page, due to its lack of any real copyright. --Jesse Mulkey 17:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

But it was in "the Del Rey books", so it was published. If it were never published, it would still be under copyright until 2007, 70 years after HPL's death.--Prosfilaes 05:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. I checked my four Del Rey books. There are images in "The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness," but they are the creations of a one John Jude Palencar. The image I was describing for the article DOES NOT appear in the Del Rey books (my fault in assumption). I hope this helps, because that sketch (however elementary) is a must have for this article, I think.--Mikepope 05:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

You may be able to make a fair use case. Adam Cuerden ^talk 02:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

Did Lovecraft have a religion? If he did, what was it? Any answers would be appreciated.

According to one biography and a website dedicated to him, he was nominally brought up a Christian (protestant, I believe) in Rhode Island. He eventually married a Ukrainian Jewess for a (very) short time. Later in life, I think it is safe to say he disavowed all faiths and was a non-committed atheist or at least an agnostic. Either way, religion, at least in his adult years, was not very important to him. It is important to note, however, that he DID NOT believe in the strange faiths and religions of his fiction, as some may portend.--Mikepope 02:07, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Update. Another website makes no mention of any religious faith at all in the household.--Mikepope 02:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, Joshi's footnotes in one of the collection quotes a letter where Lovecraft claims to be an agnostic in theory and an atheist in practice. JöG 19:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

As for Joshi - it should be noted that he himself is quite an active and prominent spokesperson of atheism, and his work is usually related to that in some way or other. That's not necessarily a bad thing but - in his biographical works on Lovecraft (that is, in basically all his works), he tends to overstress the importance of Lovecraft's atheism to some extent, trying to turn him into an atheist spokesperson, as well, which is, ah well, kind of odd. For all we know about it (even from Joshi`s work), Lovecraft's atheism was more like a personal unfaith, that is, he didn't have much of an atheist agenda to forward.--virinluster 18:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Robert M. Price has an interesting essay about Lovecraft's spirituality--arguing that his "Cosmicism" is an essence a (nontheistic) religious feeling, even if Lovecraft would not have defined it that way. It's in The Horror of It All, I believe. Nareek 18:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added a game: Eternal Darkness

I addedd Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Reguiem to the Lovecraft-inspired videogames. The game, only available for the Nintendo GameCube, has many references to the man and his work, for example: the main goal of the game is to prevent that interstellar gods will devour Earth in their eternal darnkness. For more, see the trivia-section on the page of the game.--83.118.94.73 13:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Kid's got a point. Why was it deleted? --Soetermans 13:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Can't comment as to why it was deleted, but I missed this comment on the discussion board and re-added a day or 2 ago. Maybe it doesn't/Didn't fit in well with the rest of the article? It doesn't take a lot of space to mention, so if "trimming the fat" was the idea, there are other places that could be done. I dont think it would do much as a seperate article, though a lot of the other sub-subjects in this article could warrent seperate articles. RickO5 23:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

There is already a whole article on the Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture, which contains a section on Lovecraftian video games. Eternal Darkness is already there. Nareek 23:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pruning again

I've yet again gone through and pruned some material that belonged on Lovecraftian horror and Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture. My first edit was too agressive: I deleted the whole adaptations section. I've restored that, but it does bring up the point that we eventually need to move even the adaptations into their own article.... -Harmil 04:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This article is getting a bit too long. I think video games, etc. could go in a list stub or a totally separate article.--Mikepope 06:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added link for Pictorial Bibliography

http://mysite.verizon.net/hplovecraft/ Hodgson 19:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright status

According to the Sonny Bono copyright term extension act page, the length of time is the life of the author plus 70, or 95 if it is a work of corporate authorship. Lovecraft's works are authored by an individual, so wouldn't that cause the copyrights to expire in 2007 (or to have already expired under the 1976 act) regardless of whether they were registered or not? Ken Arromdee 15:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's wrong. You didn't link to the page, so I don't know whether it's incorrect there or you misunderstood it. Prior to 1978, copyrights in the US were x years from publication, with a required registration and renewal. After the Bono extension act, works published on or after 1978 were life+70, but works published before that are now a flat 95 years, unless they were American works and had already fell out of copyright.--Prosfilaes 20:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's the link:Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. It doesn't say that life+70 applies only to post-1978 work; rather it says that life+70 applies if it is not corporate authorship. From what you're saying, the article does seem wrong.

Anyway, what about this: Under the Copyright Act of 1976, works were life+50, or 75 for corporate. Lovecraft died in 1937, so under the 1976 act, his works expired in 1987. 1987 is prior to 1998, so I calculate that they had already fallen out of copyright by the time of the Bono act. Ken Arromdee 21:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It also says "The act also affected copyright terms for copyrighted works published prior to January 1, 1978, increasing their term of protection by 20 years as well." It's certainly less than clear. As for the 1976 act, all of his works were published under older copyright acts, and got 75 years since publication, plus an additional 20 by the Sonny Bono act. --Prosfilaes 06:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

That's why Sonny Bono was one of history's greatest monsters. Nareek 11:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

With life+70, Lovecraft's works expire at the end of 2007. With 95, his works from 1923-up expire starting in 2018. If his works are eligible for 75 years under the 1976 act, then they're eligible for 95 years under the Bono act, and the 95 years overrides the life+70. So nothing expires until 2018, and the article shouldn't say they expire in 2007. Ken Arromdee 17:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed a bit of speculation about how Lovecraft's work probably isn't covered as a "work for hire". Either we know for sure, and we cite a source, or we don't speculate. Anything else is OR. -Harmil 19:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I should also point out that a comprehensive review of copyright terms in an article about a single author is horribly misplaced and almost certain to become drasically out of date over time. -Harmil 19:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The following site contains a copyright message http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/a.asp - "Please note that Lovecraft's fiction is still considered to be under copyright by Arkham House, and any texts presently available on the web without their consent are in violation of that copyright.". I don't know if it got any legal ground or is just some standard legal threat thingo. --220.244.61.150 19:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cold-blooded

I remember as a child hearing that Lovecraft suffered from a rare disease that meant he was "cold-blooded" to some degree. A search online suggests that this was poikilothermism. Does anyone know if that was in fact true?

This from http://experts.about.com/e/h/h/H._P._Lovecraft.htm "Lovecraft was frequently ill as a child and was said by his biographer (L. Sprague de Camp) to have suffered from a rare disease known as poikilothermism, the result of which made him always feel cold to the touch."

Hmm... CABAL 12:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help!

Please take a look at the Necronomicon, Abdul Alhazred and The Dunwich Horror pages if you get a chance--it's one of those special WP problems.Nareek 19:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Never mind--the problem has gone away, at least temporarily. Nareek 21:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Racial attitudes and Cool Air

It certainly seems like the function of the paragraph about "Cool Air" and Mountains of Madness is to mitigate Lovecraft's prejudices by citing groups that he didn't have a racial hatred for. If that's not the purpose, good, because that would be silly, but it's not clear to me what the point is otherwise. I don't think anyone presumes that because a person is prejudiced they're uniformly prejudiced against all groups outside their own.

In any case, "Cool Air" is a poor example of Lovecraft privileging "class over race". The description of Doctor Munoz stresses that he is "a man of birth...high-bred...[of] superior blood and breeding." He makes a point of stressing that the character is much more "Celtiberian" than "Moorish." If this is the best example to make the point that Lovecraft wasn't always so concerned about genetics, it seems like a point worth leaving out. Nareek 10:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Mini-rant, not particularly directed at you: one of the weaknesses of Wikipedia is that articles often get written as a sort of poorly-disguised debate. Somebody wants to present HPL as racist, so they add facts that point in that direction; somebody else wants to argue that he was just a product of that time, so they add 'he was no worse than his contemporaries' material, and so on. I'm not a big fan of this, because even if everything included is verifiable it ends up producing a very one-dimensional article. It produces plenty of 'pro and con' points (if, often, poorly structured) but very little on anything that doesn't directly play to one of those two sides, because neither side has reason to add that sort of stuff.

I don't think the material in Mountains of Madness is terribly persuasive in either direction, but it certainly shows up the complexity of his attitudes. Here is a man who frequently characterised non-Anglo races as less than fully human - often suggesting alien blood as part of that inhumanity - and yet he was willing to acknowledge a race of bug-eyed monsters as essentially human. That may not fit neatly into a "no he wasn't a racist/yes he was" model of article-writing, but surely it sheds a considerable amount of light on his ideas of race and 'humanity', which are important to his work. (IMHO, the contradictions are just as important to a biography as the extremes; if we were writing about the Earth's geography, we wouldn't just focus on Tibet and the Marianas Trench.)

As for "Cool Air", note that in Lovecraft's vernacular 'breeding' and 'high-bred' were terms likely to refer to upbringing & class rather than to genetics. (Note e.g. fourth definition here, which was a lot more common in Lovecraft's day - I think more so in the British usage he was fond of than in standard US usage.) He certainly does make excuses for Munoz' ancestry, but without the advantage of 'breeding' it's hard to believe that the pro of 'mostly Celtiberian' would outweigh the con of 'partly Moorish'; after all, HPL's quite happy to damn other characters for very small amounts of ancestral 'taint'. I think it's another example of Lovecraft's attitudes towards race being less clear-cut than they might at first appear, but given the ambiguity of 'breeding' it may not be worth the confusion. --Calair 02:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I've re-added that material, with some modifications that hopefully will make the above a little clearer (and acknowledging the 'Celtiberian' bit). If the "Cool Air" mention still seems weak, I won't object if it's removed again, but the fact that he cut Elder Things more slack than many branches of his own species says a great deal about how he viewed the concept of 'race'. --Calair 23:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I dunno--there's a lot of white racists who will tell you that Asians are inherently more intelligent than Europeans--it doesn't make them any less racist. The making of fine distinctions between and within various groups is a pretty common theme for the thoughtful eugenicist--whereas this paragraph still seems to suggest that these kind of beliefs mitigate Lovecraft's racialism at least a bit. Nareek 03:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not seeing how it suggests that, unless one starts with the assumption that everything in this section must be either pro- or anti- Lovecraft, which I don't accept. Given that this section already goes into a fair bit of detail about who he was prejudiced against - it acknowledges derogatory remarks against Italians, Poles, Mediterraneans, Afro-Asians, Jews (two examples given), and 'negroes' (four examples), as well as singling out 'Aryans' for exultation - it hardly seems disproportionate to acknowledge some nuance within his racism.

And yes, it's true that many racists do acknowledge virtues in certain groups other than their own, but there's very little consistency on that front (see my comments above about the white-supremacist who embraces Lovecraft as one of his own while lamenting his misguided prejudices against Slavs). Why leave readers to guess at what exceptions Lovecraft might have made (and for what reasons) when we have documentable examples? --Calair 03:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

do you want to rewrite lovecraft's prose or what? Quadro 00:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the paragraph's opening line, "However, his antipathy to other races admitted some exceptions", is very well established by what follows, and it seems to me to actually make the rest of the paragraph seem more out-of-place. While one might argue (fruitlessly) about whether Englishmen and Spaniards are of "the same race" or not, Lovecraft's mention of Celtiberian roots seems to clearly indicate his primordial Aryanness. On the other hand, Lovecraft's sympathy for the Elder Things doesn't seem to have much to do with racism at all. For sure, he apparently did not dislike everything was different from him, just the actually existing races of people.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 05:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revisions

I'm thinking about starting an article about Lovecraft's revisions, and I'm wondering what to call it. Lovecraft's revisions? Lovecraft's revision stories? Lovecraft's revision tales? H. P. Lovecraft's revisions, and so on? Or just Revision stories or Revision tales? Those might be most useful in terms of linking. (Don't think Revisions would work by itself.) Any thoughts at all would be welcomed. Nareek 04:26, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking about his ghost-writing efforts? If that is the case, wouldn't Lovecraft's "Revisions" be a... somewhat more accurate term? CABAL 11:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned about scare quotes as being POV--they seem to suggest, "Here's what people call them, but they're wrong to call them that." I'm leaning toward H. P. Lovecraft's revisions, which seems to be the most common way they're referred to. It would be good to have a name that worked well for linking--as in "'The Mound' is one of H. P. Lovecraft's revisions, stories he ghost-wrote under other people's bylines." Does that work? Nareek 21:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is it just me?

Or does he look a bit like tall Liverpool and England forward Peter Crouch in the picture?

No, I think you have a point! :-) Angmering 19:13, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arkham House

"With the demise of Arkham House, however..."

Erm, unless someone's putting up a well constructed smokescreen, Arkham House is still very much in the publishing business. Their website is still up and running, has a copyright date from 2006, and you can still order new books from the website and from Amazon. Additionally, the article on Arkham House makes no mention of them going out of business, while here, everthing related to them in the "survey" section is written in the past tense, as if they had. Perhaps it means that Arkham can no longer can claim that they're the only ones publishing "definitive" editions? If so, it would be a lot clearer just to say that.

I think it also might be worthwhile to devote a couple more lines of text to explaining the history of the various editions of Lovecraft's work, i.e. the posthumous editing and the various different texts that it led to. As it stands now, the article talks about definitive editions, without really explaining what made them definitive, and why several different publishers seem to have definitive editions! The situation is as confusing as the copyright issue, so whats there right now isn't really adequate. I thought I'd broach the subject here before I went in and started editing. Gershwinrb 11:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

If Arkham House is still in business, we should definitely take out anything that suggests that they aren't!

I'm wondering, though, if we shouldn't have a separate article called H. P. Lovecraft collections or some such. First, this article is way too long and needs to have some of what's already in it spun off. Second, there's articles like Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft about various collections--there's four of them in the Category:H.P. Lovecraft short story collections category--that seem a little uninformative on their own, but might be more interesting grouped together. (I also envision moving sections like The Dunwich Horror#Anthology.) What I have in mind is something of a parallel article to Cthulhu Mythos anthology. Does this make any sense? Nareek 12:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] nonhuman influences on humanity

In this section it mentions that in The Shadow Over Innsmouth Robert Olmstead, the narrator, had no direct contact with a Lovecraftian monstrosit, only the cultists. This is not true as he sees Deep Ones in clear view and it causes him to faint. Amy thoughts about this? It should be stricken I think. Capeo 18:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

He not only has contact with Lovecraftian monstrosities, he is one himself! Nareek 18:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Precisely, so should we ammend this? Any other opinions?Capeo 20:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA-rating

This is a strong, well-researched article, but needs one more copyedit, I think. Nearly there!

• The opening paragraph is somewhat weak - I've read a fair bit of Lovecraft, and whilst it's accurate, it doesn't seem to encapsulate his work very well. It would be useful to, perhaps, mention him as inventor of the Cthulhu mythos, and mention one or two of the major themes of his writing here.

• Some sentences are very oddly phrased, for instance, the second sentence of "Shortly after, he attended an amateur journalist convention where he met Sonia Greene. Born in 1883, she was of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry and seven years older than Lovecraft." - The second sentence is very overloaded, and has an unusaual structure.

• Disjointed thoughts: "Lovecraft's aunts may have been unhappy with this arrangement, and, although initially enthralled, Lovecraft himself came to intensely dislike New York life." This relates back to the previous sentence, and would work better, with less repetition, if attached to the previous sentence written something like "...moved to New York, which may have upset Lovecraft's aunts. Lovecraft himself was initially enthralled, but came to intensely dislike New York life."

• In regards to the previous, is this speculation on Lovecraft's aunts from a cite? A reference would be useful.

• Too many conjunctions: "A few years later he and Greene, who by this time had already been living separately, agreed to an amicable divorce, which was never fully completed, and he returned to Providence to live with his aunts during their remaining years." This sentence is far too long. Cut it and others like it, into pieces.

• Poor comma use. There's a lot of grammatically incorrect commas, for instance "Lovecraft's stay in New York came to be marred by financial difficulty, because his efforts to find employment failed." A comma indicates a pause in speech, and there should be no pause between "difficulty" and "because". Lots of similar examples.

• It is not necessary to use full sentences in parenthetical notes. "(This is the address given as the home of Dr. Willett in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.)" would work better as "(the address given as the home of Dr. Willett in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.)"

• Odd word order: "Despite his best writing efforts, however, he grew ever poorer." should be "However, despite his best writing efforts, he grew ever poorer." or even better, "However, despite his best writing efforts, he grew ever poorer and was forced to move to smaller and meaner lodgings with his surviving aunt."

• The death of his aunt is hinted at, but never mentioned.

• Disorganised paragraphs: "Despite his best writing efforts, however, he grew ever poorer. He was forced to move to smaller and meaner lodgings with his surviving aunt. He was also deeply affected by Robert E. Howard's suicide. In 1936 he was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine and he also suffered from malnutrition. He lived in constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937 in Providence."

• This sentence is only comprehensible to people who know the information already: "Some critics see little difference between the Dream Cycle and the Mythos, often pointing to the recurring Necronomicon and subsequent "gods"."

That's my notes up to the point where I stopped. Factually, you have a strong, very workable article. Do a couple more copy-edits, leave a message on my talk-page, and hopefully you'll get that GA within a week. Adam Cuerden ^talk 02:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, looking at the reason this lost FA status, I'm surprised that important biographical knowledge of his father like "When Lovecraft was three, his father became acutely psychotic at a hotel in Chicago, Illinois where he was on a business trip and was brought back to Butler Hospital in Providence, where he remained for the rest of his life." was removed. It is an overloaded sentence, but it worries me that facts are being removed when the problem was poorly-written sentences, particularly a fact so very relevant to a horror writer. Adam Cuerden ^talk 02:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

I think the copyright section is also wrong. I raised the 70-plus-life question myself above, but I believe the answer was that the 70-plus-life limit in the US (and the 50-plus-life limit in the 1976 act) only apply to works created after those acts, so Lovecraft gets the 95 years, period. This is all original research, anyway. We need an external source which says that 70-plus-life might apply to Lovecraft, and I don't think there are any. (On the other hand, there *are* external sources for the claim that Lovecraft's works might be out of copyright because of lack of registration.) Ken Arromdee 17:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

If Lovecraft's copyrights were properly renewed under the old act, then they would last for 95 years after the first publication; if they were not renewed (and there seems to be no evidence that they were), then they're in the public domain. See "Duration of Copyright: Provisions of the Law Dealing with the Length of Copyright Protection" from the U.S. Copyright Office. Nareek 19:34, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Correct. Either they expired some time ago because they were not renewed, or they last 95 years and don't expire for a while. In neither case do they expire in 2007, and the whole 2007 section ought to go from the article. Ken Arromdee 21:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to add--this is not OR, this is a law that we actually have to understand and apply so that WP doesn't violate copyright. It's like saying it's OR to determine whether a statement is libelous or not. Nareek 21:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the parallel. There are two types of OR that matter here: original research that appears in an article, and original research that doesn't appear in an article itself but influences how we edit that article.

Wikipedia:No original research is only concerned with the former type. The latter (which I'll call "meta-OR") is not addressed there, and is probably a necessary part of Wikipedia. Indeed, great big chunks of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are founded on meta-OR. The example you suggest, determining whether a statement in an article is libellous, might well be original research if it involved producing our own interpretations and/or synthesis of original sources, but it would be meta-OR.

If the article says "John Smith is a moron", and somebody on the Talk page says "From combining sources A & B, I think that statement's libellous and should be removed", that's meta-OR. If the article says "From combining sources A & B, we can see that 'John Smith is a moron' is a libellous statement", that's ordinary OR & hence inappropriate.

We are obliged to follow the law, and that means we have to form an idea of what's legal, even if meta-OR is involved. But that obligation does not extend to telling article readers how to comply with the law. (There are some articles that do just that, but nobody is obliged to include that content, and they're still not expected to go to original research to produce that information.)

If this article were quoting large chunks of HPL's work, determining their copyright status would be an important & necessary piece of meta-OR (and the Talk page would be the place for it). But absent such quotes, it's ordinary OR. Put it this way: if the whole section on HPL's copyrights was erased from the article, what law would be we in danger of violating? --Calair 02:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

My understanding of WP policy is that you aren't supposed to link to copyright-violating pages--e.g., pages that have unauthorized text of still-copyrighted works. So in order to follow policy we have to be able to understand and apply copyright law. If we have to be able to do that, how can we then say that doing that same thing in an article is forbidden original research? I mean, I do understand the difference between backstage and onstage, but it also seems like pretending that we can't understand a law that we have to understand in order to properly do our work seems like playing dumb.

The analogy with libel law is, you make a judgment on an edit whether it's libelous or not. If it may be libelous, you take it out, and if it's not libelous, you leave it in. So your understanding of the law affects the article. Your understanding of copyright law affects whether you include a link or not--but it shouldn't affect your discussion of copyright within the article?

I'm not suggesting adding anything to the article--just keeping the stuff that's there currently that reflects our best judgment as to what sources say the law says. Nareek 05:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Your understanding of copyright law affects whether you include a link or not--but it shouldn't affect your discussion of copyright within the article? Yes, that's what I'm saying. (Or almost - I would prefer to phrase it as "but that understanding should not be offered to the reader within the article, except where it comes directly from sources that satisfy WP:Verifiability".)

There are two distinct issues here: accuracy of the article, and compliance with relevant law. An article can be inaccurate without breaking the law ("the sky is green") and it can be illegal without being inaccurate (linking to a page that violates copyright). Either of these things is bad, but they're different types of bad, and so they're handled in different ways. (WP:OR and WP:Verifiability are concerned with keeping articles accurate, WP:Copyright & various others with legality.)

Inaccurate comments on a talk page are much less of a problem than the same level of inaccuracy in an article (excepting when they give rise to inaccurate articles or illegal content, of course). So it's not necessary to stomp on 'original research' in that context as it is on an article page, and a certain amount of meta-OR does make it easier for editors to obey the law. No, this is not the same standard of reliability as is applied to article content, but article accuracy and legal compliance are different issues and there are all sorts of reasons why different standards might be appropriate.

In the end, WP:OR is very clear on what goes in an article: "...any facts, opinions, interpretations, definitions, and arguments published by Wikipedia must already have been published by a reliable publication in relation to the topic of the article... "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article." I think that says pretty clearly that we should not be volunteering our own legal interpretations within the article except inasmuch as they match those of citeable sources. If this seems like a bad policy, that should be argued on the policy's talk page rather than here. --Calair 15:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you're probably right. Fortunately there are sources that can be cited on the issue of Lovecraft's copyrights. Nareek 19:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Yep, and much of the section is in that form already (citing Joshi and Ruber, that sort of thing). There are only a few little bits in there that I'd consider OR. --Calair 02:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Failure

I'm afraid I'm only allowed to put an article on hold seven days, and, as none of the points above have been dealt with, not even sentences I pointed out as problematic. Hence, I fear this article, well researched as it may be, fails the readability requirement of GA. Please fix it up and resubmit: I'm a huge fan of Lovecraft and want to see him re-reach FA. Adam Cuerden ^talk 03:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

=="Necronomicon (1994), three short films based on Lovecraft stories ("The Rats in the Walls", "Cool Air", "The Whisperer in Darkness")."

None of the short films resemble The Rats in the Walls in any way

[edit] Lovecraft's forbidden knowledge and its possible ΰβρις connections

Ok, I acknowledge that it was a bit hasty on my part to connect H.P.'s characters with the concept of ΰβρις with no source at hand to sustain it, but I guess some other asserts in this article are essentialy factual, lacking a minimum of critical references about Lovecraft stories. I'am basically pointing out to the Themes section. DagosNavy 11:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that there is way too much original research in this article--particularly in the Themes section. It's true that your point about hubris is not any more OR than a lot of other stuff already in there--but I'm hoping to keep the article from becoming more unsourced. Nareek 12:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gothic Horror

Just wondering whether we should assign Lovecraft to the genre of Gothic fiction. If we add up the supposedly unique Lovecraftian blend of Horror+Fantasy+Science Fiction doesn't that add up to 'Gothic Horror'? He was certainly very well read on the subject as his book 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' proves.Colin4C 19:49, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that Gothic horror was the kind of horror that Lovecraft was reacting against, trying to replace the stock supernatural props (ghosts, vampires, werewolves) with more modern terrors. Judging from "Supernatural Horror in Literature", at any rate, Lovecraft saw the Gothic as something other than what he was doing. I see that Lovecraft is mentioned in passing in the Gothic fiction article but his inclusion there seems poorly justified. Nareek 22:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the trouble is that most Lovecraft fanatics have never read much of the older Gothic fiction and vice versa. The science-fiction element in Gothic Horror was present from the time of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1819), it was not an invention of Lovecraft, and the resemblances between Lovecraft and Poe (another who mixed science-fiction with horror) are enormous. I am not convinced by perennial claims that every new horror trend on the block has outmoded the Gothic. Gothic has been proclaimed dead and outmoded so many times (starting circa 1800) but everytime fails to lie down in the grave. Also I have seen Lovecraft stories included in anthologies of Gothic fiction, such as 'The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales'. Colin4C 09:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

No one, least of all Lovecraft, would deny that he was indebted to writers who came before, Poe in particular. But if everything is Gothic, then nothing is Gothic. Nareek 12:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)