S.T. Joshi

Author profile

born

June 22, 1958 in Pune, India

gender

male

website

http://www.stjoshi.org/

genre

Nonfiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Literature & Fiction

About this author

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Sunand Tryambak Joshi (b. 22 June 1958 in Pune, India) is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.

His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in de...more Sunand Tryambak Joshi (b. 22 June 1958 in Pune, India) is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.

His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.

Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.

At the time of writing, Joshi is working towards the publication of the collected poetry of Clark Ashton Smith and George Sterling, and Lovecraft’s Collected Essays.

In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.

Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.

In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.

Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, NY, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.(less)

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Books by S.T. Joshi

Average rating: 4.22 · 15,797 ratings · 975 reviews · 167 distinct works

	H.P. Lovecraft by S.T. Joshi, Jason C. Eckhardt (Illustrator) 4.31 avg rating — 106 ratings — published 1996 — 4 editions	My rating:
	American Supernatural Tales by S.T. Joshi (Editor), Various 3.86 avg rating — 91 ratings — published 2007 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Atheism: A Reader 3.73 avg rating — 63 ratings — published 2000	My rating:
	The Weird Tale: Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft 4.09 avg rating — 64 ratings — published 1990 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror 3.96 avg rating — 52 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	An H P Lovecraft Encyclopedia by S.T. Joshi, David E. Schultz 3.93 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 2001 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Modern Weird Tale 3.69 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 2001	My rating:
	The Evolution of the Weird Tale 4.12 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 2004	My rating:
	The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos 4.05 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2008	My rating:
	God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong 3.67 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2003 — 2 editions	My rating:

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Horror Aficionados : Which of H.P Lovecraft's stories should I start with?	26	54	Aug 11, 2011 12:57pm
Literary Horror: * What are you reading?	927	694	May 29, 2012 09:12am

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S.T. Joshi

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