I came across an old HP Lovecraft book in my family’s library.
Its pages are browned and delicate, crisp words stamped into each with precision.
It lost its jacket in years gone by and its cloth binding is scuffed in places.
A musty smell clings to the pages, reminding one of the dark corners of forgotten book shops or those of old libraries where knowledge waits to be known once more.
In holding it, one feels privy to forbidden knowledge, that Lovecraft wrote down the secrets that we forgot and is willing us to remember.
If you want your own, they are surprisingly affordable. It isn’t a first edition, just a second printing from later that year.
Published in 1945, it followed Lovecraft’s death by eight years. The introduction, by August Derleth and dated October 1944, tells of Lovecraft’s growing fame, which came only after his death.
The introduction lists the anthologies published to date, the last being mentioned as “[t]he Selected Letters of HP Lovecraft remain to be published after the war.”
HP Lovecraft haunted the streets of Providence by night, a tall, quiet figure gathering inspiration from the shadows and dark places that the rest of us shy from. Will you join him?
- Al
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