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A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft
He was the premier writer of horror fiction of the first half of the twentieth century, perhaps the major American practitioner of this literary art between the time of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. Born into an upper middle class family in Providence, Rhode Island, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) had a lonely childhood, but read voraciously from his earliest years. He soon became interested in science and astronomy, and began penning stories, poetry, and essays in great profusion, publishing them himself when no other market was available. The advent of Weird Tales in 1923 gave him a small outlet for his work, and he attracted a large number of followers, with whom he exchanged literally tens of thousands of letters, many of them quite lengthy. A number of these young correspondents eventually became professional writers and editors themselves. Lovecraft’s fame began spreading beyond fandom with the publication of his first significant collection, The Outsider and Others, in 1939, two years after his untimely death.
S. T. Joshi, the foremost Lovecraft scholar in the modern era, has here produced the definitive critical guide to H. P. Lovecraft’s work. Every aspect of the master’s creative life and work is meticulously researched, examined, and placed in the perspective of his times. Copiously footnoted, A Subtler Magick will become a necessary addition to any student of Lovecraft’s fiction. Complete with Notes, Annotated Primary Bibliography, a comprehensive Annotated Secondary Bibliography, and detailed Index.
S. T. Joshi, the foremost Lovecraft scholar in the modern era, has here produced the definitive critical guide to H. P. Lovecraft’s work. Every aspect of the master’s creative life and work is meticulously researched, examined, and placed in the perspective of his times. Copiously footnoted, A Subtler Magick will become a necessary addition to any student of Lovecraft’s fiction. Complete with Notes, Annotated Primary Bibliography, a comprehensive Annotated Secondary Bibliography, and detailed Index.
360 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 1996
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About the author
S.T. Joshi
793 books452 followersSunand Tryambak Joshi 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.
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, New York, 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.
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.
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, New York, 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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 7, 2015
S.T.Joshi is one of the world's foremost experts on H.P. Lovecraft. I finally got around to reading this book on HPL's writings and philosophy and it's sent me back to the lantern-jawed one's collected works to re-experience many of my favorite weird tales. This is a fine scholarly work about a very bizarre man.
May 20, 2021
A fantastic early collection of essays by the world's foremost expert on him S.T Joshi. A fine read but most if not all have been reprinted in Joshi's recent collection Lovecraft and a World in Transition: Collected Essays on H. P. Lovecraft from Hippocampus press
November 14, 2010
In questo saggio è passata in rassegna l’intera produzione letteraria, saggistica ed epistolare di Lovecraft. L’approccio è un po’ pedantesco e univoco nelle interpretazioni e nelle letture (più imposte che) proposte, ma se ne possono trarre indicazioni fondamentali per avvicinare un autore spesso frainteso (per non dire mistificato).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews