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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- Posted November 17, 2019
My Dearest Mother
In which HPL writes to his mother about his delightful visit to a gathering of amateur press friends for St. Patrick's Day, 1921. Sent a few weeks before her death, it's Howard's final extant letter to his mother.
Special thanks to our friends at the Brown University Digital Repository where they keep and digitally share with the public many of HPL's original manuscripts. You can see a thrilling ad for David Van Bush with Lovecraft's commentary here.
If you want to read some of Bush's books, you can find the one Lovecraft himself worked on here. And click here to read Practical Psychology and Sex Life.
Music by Troy Sterling Nies. Transcript by Olivier Decker.
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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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