In addition to his classics of horror fiction, it is estimated that Lovecraft wrote 100,000 letters — or roughly 15 every day of his adult life — ranging from one-page diaries to seventy-page diatribes. Perhaps 20,000 of those letters have survived, in the hands of private collectors and at the John Hay Library in Providence.
In each episode of this podcast, we'll read one of these letters (or part of it) and then discuss it. In his letters HPL reveals an amazing breadth of knowledge of philosophy, science, history, literature, art and many other subjects, and forcefully asserts some highly considered opinions (some of which can be upsetting).
And of course his letters offer a fascinating window into his personal life and times. Although we've been working with Lovecraftian material for over 30 years, we still find interesting new things in his letters, and while we don't claim to be experts we look forward to sharing them with a wider audience.
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RSS Feed- Episode 19
- Posted March 1, 2020
The Worst Anthropologists in the World
The second of two parts, in which HPL and Robert E. Howard discuss a number of issues of the day. They opine about the Massie Affair, an incident in the Hawaiian Islands which proved a magnet for many of America's ugliest racial views.
Warning: this episode includes awkward discussion of racism.
Music by barbarian fighter Troy Sterling Nies. Our thanks to Hippocampus Press for their two-volume series A Means to Freedom: the Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
If—like Lovecraft—you would like to have a copy of the complete Necronomicon, then be sure to check out the ongoing work of our dear friend Christian Matzke, and maybe even support it, at his Patreon page.
Pictured at left are Thalia Massie, flanked by her mother, Grace Fortescue, and her husband, Lt. Thomas Massie, posing with attorney Clarence Darrow (far left), their fellow defendants, and the High Sheriff Maj. Gordon Ross, after they have served their one hour of punishment for the murder of Joseph Kahahawai. Pictured at right are the five men the Massies and Mrs. Fortescue falsely accused of attacking Thalia: Kahahawai, Horace Ida, David Takai, Henry Chang and Ben Ahakuelo. This article provides a better explanation of the Massie Affair than we do.
Here is the complete movie from 1932 that HPL mentions having recently seen: Law & Order. About six minutes in you can get an early cinema view of the Vasquez Rocks, a popular filming location that appeared in several episodes of the original Star Trek, among many other movies and TV shows.
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The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is an international organization for fans of the author H.P. Lovecraft. The Society produces motion pictures, audio dramas, musical projects, publications, prop replicas and much more - all of which take Lovecraft’s creations to a whole new level. Our motto is "Ludo Fore Putavimus" (We Thought It Would be Fun).
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