Arcane Wisdom Press is Proud to Announce BLIND SHADOWS by James Moore & Charles R. Rutledge

 

Click on the cover art above for ordering information.

One of only 150 signed and numbered hardcover copies!

Coming in October. Reserve your copy now.

When private investigator Wade Griffin moved away from his hometown of Wellman, Georgia he didn’t think he would be back. Too many memories and too many bridges burned. But when an old friend is found brutally murdered and mutilated, nothing can keep Griffin from going home. Teamed with another childhood friend, Sheriff Carl Price, Griffin begins an investigation that will lead down darker paths than he could ever have imagined.

Soon Griffin and Price find that there are secrets both dark and ancient lurking in the back woods of Crawford’s Hollow. As Halloween approaches, something evil is growing near the roots of the Georgia mountains, and the keys to the mystery seem to be a woman of almost indescribable beauty and a dead man who won’t stay dead.

As the body count mounts and the horrors pile up, Griffin and Price come to realize that the menace they face extends far beyond the boundaries of Wellman and that their opponents seem to hold all the cards. But the two lawmen have a few secrets of their own, and one way or another there will be hell to pay.

Blind Shadows is a fast moving synthesis of high-octane crime fiction and horror. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen meet Spillane and Elmore Leonard. A Southern Gothic full of guns and monsters and hard boiled action.

 

Have People Went Insane?

This is a horror book blog, so beware as you read below.  It is graphic and disturbing.

Horror writers will be the first to tell you that what they imagine palls beside real-life horror. We will explore, Kolchak-like, some recent news.

Item: Miami Memorial Day weekend was rocked by a naked man eating an indigent man’s face off. Apparently drug-crazed, this man ditched his clothes, attacked another man on the side of a busy road, and began to bite the flesh from his face. Several tried to intervene with little luck, until a police officer shot the man twice and killed him.

Item: In March, a Japanese man claiming his right to become a eunuch underwent elective surgery to remove his penis, testicles,a nd scrotum. The flesh was frozen, and auctioned off. The man fileted and cooked his organs and flesh for $250 a plate (=$20,000). Apparently Japan, being an enlightened nation, cannibalism is not illegal.

Item: In this writer’s hometown of Lousiville, a Hatfield-McCoy event recently happened. In a matter of two days, 8 people were shot over a combined feud and social tribalism event. So convoluted, even the police are still sorting it out, jealousy and revenge roared through west Louisville culminating in multiple shootings and several homicides. The final occurred while police were still investigating previous shootings. As the father of a woman’s one-year old child lay dead, she wept and mourned. At that very moment, a second woman (pregnant) pulled a gun and shot her dead. Police, already on the scene, returned fire wounding and incapacitating her. Just senseless.

So whether this is a sign of the breakdown of Western society, random weirdness, or whatever, these are incredible stories even beyond the usual serial killer fodder. We seem to have become immune to internet stories of babies being cut from women’s wombs, beheading by terrorists, suicide bombers, and routine campus massacres. Saddam feeding people into wood chippers, or Idi Amin letting his crocodiles chow down on unwanted guests are so 20th century. What new and incredible horrors will compel us to action to begin to cure mental illness, and restore dignity to our everyday lives?

Horror needs to stay on the fiction page, not in our midst.

 

Wilum Pugmire Discusses the Mormon Church and Spirituality

 

Wilum discusses his leaving and coming back to the Mormon Church.

An interesting and inspiring look at the spirituality of one of today’s most influential and creative supernatural horror writers.

Misguided-Horror: “Ritual of the Giant Snails” Wreaks South-Florida Havoc.

Image from http://www.forestryimages.org showing the enormous size of the snail

Recently quite a ruckus was raised over illegally imported giant African snails into the area of Coral Gables, Florida. They may have come from one specific source.

Dateline: Miami
The Miami Herald, David Ovalle, 11 March 2011

“Authorities are investigating a Hialeah man who allegedly smuggled illegal Giant African Snails into Florida and convinced his followers to drink their juices as part of a religious healing ritual.” The article continues to say that the snails, achatina fulica, grow to 10 inches long sometimes. The arrested man, Mr. Stewart (aka El Africano and Oloye Ifatoku), declared himself to be part of a sect known as Ifa Orisha. He seemed as surprised as anyone that harm came to anyone. The article was clear to distance the man from Cuban Santeria, traditional Yoruba, or Catholicism.

Coral Gables is about 10 miles away with the airport lying equidistant between the two locations. Coral Gables well remembers the mid-1960′s when three snails were sneaked in by a boy and then they were turned loose. IN a matter of months, giant snails were swarming porches, plants, doors, walls, and sidewalks. It turns out that there are no natural enemies of this snail, and it is as prolific as tribbles. Two gives you 100, and 100 gives a thousand, and a few thousand turns to millions with no solution other than to pluck them up and dispose of them a few at a time.

Back to Stewart and the Ifa Orisha, “orisha” is a type of spirit-deity as it might be understood in western mindsets, and ifa-orisha is a type of divination. Anyone who has heard the classic rendition of Desi Arnaz’ “Babalu” can feel the moving power of this type of ceremony. Stewart advocated, allegedly, slitting open the giant snails to drink their internal fluids. The fluids, however, contained rampant parasites making the followers deathly sick, and through investigation the medical and civil authorities discovered the details, and arrests were made for trafficking in illegal species.

The Miskatonic staff always keen of uncovering a horrific, yet magical, mystery set out on more research. While theoretically Ifa Orisha has to do with diving the intents of Olodumare another interesting turn was discovered. In Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere, Oyeronke Olajubu, Chapter 4 “Identity, Power, and Gender Relations in Yoruba Religious Traditions”, page 70 we find a portion of the (translated) poem:

… Obarisa gave Odu the snail fluid that was
Part of his diet
And Odu liked it and promised always to drink it …

This is contained in an important poetic oral tradition of the myth of Odu (a powerful woman), the wife of Orunmila (deity in charge of wisdom). The book’s author states that, usually in Yoruba, the snail fluid usually symbolizes “coolness and softness”, a female quality. Yet in this poem the reverse is seen where the snail fluid is food for a male deity (Obarisa).

Somehow the supposed priest, Stewart, has either misconstrued or miscalculated this or a similar mythic symbol. Taking this myth literally, and then substituting a mollusk that is not indigenous or used by the Yoruba (western Nigeria) people, great risk was taken needlessly. The snails were apparently smuggled in under his parishioner’s women’s clothing, and somehow they were turned loose. Coral Gables is once again infested by these snails. While perhaps sympathetic to this cult’s zeal, Santeria has not been quick to support such recklessness.

For those who have never experienced Arnaz’ “Babalu”, here he was in his prime … be prepared to be wow-ed.

In Short Supply and Two New Awesome Preorders

We are down to our last three copies of MEDUSA’S COIL AND OTHERS Volume II by H. P. Lovecraft edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

Some of H. P. Lovecraft’s most fascinating work came from a time in his life that he was forced, by economic survival, to ghostwrite, collaborate and revise the work of others in the field. Here Lovecraft Scholar S. T. Joshi collects the best of these revisions and collaborations in a two volume set to be published this year from Arcane Wisdom Press. Medusa’s Coil and Others is the second of these two volumes. This edition is painstakingly annotated, and includes an introduction and bibliography by S. T. Joshi. The book is a must for the Lovecraft enthusiast and scholar alike. This limited edition hardcover will be strictly limited to only 150 hardcover copies. They will be signed by Lovecraftian scholar S. T. Joshi and will be hand numbered on a custom signature sheet, featuring artwork by Zach McCain.

 

Only one left in stock! THE GOLEM by Gustav Meyrink (Signed Limited Edition)

In the 1970s, the German psychedelic artist Helmut Wenske completed a cycle of twelve paintings based on Gustav Meyrink’s mystical classic, The Golem. For the first time these paintings are being published with the novel that served as their inspiration. Critic John Clute has written an introduction to the book, which uses Madge Pemberton’s hallucinogenic translation. Includes a photograph of Meyrink and other extras, including a bonus story.
In an oversize 8—12 format with printed silk panels on both the front and rear boards, head and tail bands, ribbon marker, and a two-color cloth slipcase. Each book is signed by John Clute and Helmut Wenske. Limited to 200 copies

•     Limited to 200 copies, each signed by John Clute and Helmut Wenske.
•     Introduction by John Clute.
•     Full color artwork.
•     Film stills and movie poster artwork.
•     Two bonus short stories.
•     Ribbon marker, head and tail bands, three-piece cloth construction.

 

Coming Soon, reserve your copies now.

 

TALES OF LOVE AND DEATH by Robert Aickman (Limited Edition) Import

Robert Aickman (1914-1981) is considered by many to be one of the finest exponents of the modern ghost story. Aickman himself referred to his tales as ‘strange stories’, for they are often open to more complex interpretations. His writing is subtle and poetic, presenting us with psychological and more material terrors.Tales of Love and Death (first published in 1977) is a collection of seven mature tales by this craftsman of the uncanny.

“Along with Walter de la Mare, Elizabeth Bowen and a few others, Robert Aickman belongs to the Chekhov school of the weird tale. Such writers recognise that stories don’t require pat endings. They don’t need to close with the snap of an O. Henry trapdoor, or the ironic twist of a Maupassant. A short story can actually convey a more haunting depiction of the human predicament by avoiding any kind of artificial conclusiveness. Life is messy, not neat; most problems are never clearly resolved, but only lived with; people act unreasonably for no apparent reason.” Michael Dirda, from the Introduction to Tales of Love and Death.

Contents: ‘Growing Boys’, ‘Marriage’, ‘Le Miroir’, ‘Compulsory Games’, ‘Raising the Wind’, ‘Residents Only’ and ‘Wood’.

Tales of Love and Death is a sewn hardback of 243+ xiii pages, printed lithographically, with silk ribbon marker, head and tailbands, and d/w.

Publication 28th May 2012
Cover artwork by Stephen J Clark of The Singing Garden.
ISBN 978-1-905784-45-5
Limited to 350 copies.

HANNES BOK: A Life In Illustrations (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

With over 450 pages, and a large, 8 × 12 size, this collection covers the entire artistic career of Hannes Bok. Painstakingly edited by Joseph Wrzos, with essays and memoirs on Bok by Ray Bradbury, Stephen Fabian, and many others, this book features over 600 illustrations. Many come from the pulps and pulp covers. Our color section features all of Bok’s known dustjackets and the largest collection of Bok paintings ever published, including many works that have never before been printed. Key works also feature detail views. Printed on heavy paper, with printed cloth panels, ribbon markers, and a printed cloth slipcase, the edition is limited to 200 copies for sale and is signed by most contributors. The book is printed using stochastic screening with five inks, resulting in unparalleled clarity and color reproduction.
This page is for the signed and slipcased edition, which is limited to just 200 copies for sale, and which will be shipping in August 2012. It is signed by Joseph Wrzos, Stephen Fabian, Bob Eggleton, Jill Bauman, Jason Eckhardt and Stephen Hickman. There are also signatures by Ray Bradbury and Hannes Bok, but these are facsimile, or printed, signatures. It is nice to have a Bok signature, and you will understand that due to his age and health, Mr Bradbury was just not able to sign and we felt it rude to even ask.

 

Bigfoot?

From Chewbacca the Wookie, to a chain of service markets (midwest), and even vegetables (Indiana), Bigfoot is a deeply ingrained part of our culture. We are so used to it, we have lost the roots of when it all started.

Recently two books have rocked the Bigfoot world trying to convert the elusive ape-man back into the folklore myth from which it may have sprung. While each starts with slightly different origins, each pins the blame on two men: Ivan Sanderson and Roger Patterson. More specifically everything stems from a documentary movie created by Patterson.

Many individuals and organizations have sprung up in the 21st century convinced an elusive primate lives in a loosely tribal manner in the Pacific Northwest, and are dedicated to finding all traces left of this creature – usually known as Bigfoot. While tantalizing clues and verbal reports abound, the lack of substantial evidence has been devastating to the primate theory. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)

Michael McLeod’s book is thinner and somewhat more palatable, however Greg Long’s work will be briefly summarized. He sat out to determine exactly what Patterson was up to, plotted nearly every minute and every detail of Patterson’s life, and we can oversimplify the conclusion by stating that a combination of showmanship, excellent artistic ability, huge debts, and terminal cancer drove Patterson to fake a short movie clip of Bigfoot . For a brief time, Patterson’s film (circa Autumn 1967) was turned into a frightening documentary filled with high strangeness and adventure. A small group of entrepreneurs made a little profit, and a low budget fictional film The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) assisted to cement the legend in our culture. Long’s book was published by a press that is loosely affiliated with writers holding a highly skeptical viewpoint.

Long’s book, or at least its core skepticism, has been countered by respected authorities in scientific institutions, and popularizers of the primate theory notably Loren Coleman. To say that the subject is controversial is an understatement. In the fray, numerous hoaxers have muddied the water over the years.

Young McLeod bought into the Bigfoot story, but as he matured and entered a career as a photographer, he began to have doubts. Now a seasoned journalist, he noted the remarkable folklore aspects of the creature. Having been a childhood thrill, the Patterson film held great fascination for McLeod, and spends a great deal of the book discussing it. However, he goes one step beyond Long’s theory. He reviews mythic conventions of wild men back into the early 19th century, and places on the shoulders of Ivan Sanderson much of the creation of the modern Bigfoot story through Sanderson’s popular articles beginning shortly after the climb of Mount Everest had conjured up an Abominable Snowman.

Still, he is sympathetic to these men and never accuses Sanderson or Patterson of criminal activity. He does believe that Sanderson never met a good story he would not popularize and present in its most exciting and adventurous manner. Patterson then built upon Sanderson’s reputation, as well as other great outdoors men and adventurers. Too many individuals are listed to go into any more detail, but McLeod’s book is less investigative journalism than it is an eyeopening discussion of how sociology, psychology, and folklore can come together to create powerful myths from a few bits of myth and a lot of practical jokes played upon the more gullible.

Image from the Patterson film: A Bigfoot creature.

 

Bigfoot may exist, or it may not. However, McLeod’s book at a scant 186 pages presents some strong alternative arguments that cannot easily be shrugged off.

_____
These skeptical books make strong arguments against Bigfoot.

Anatomy of a Beast: Obsession and Myth on the Trail of Bigfoot, Michael McLeod, University of California Press, 2009

The Making of Bigfoot, Greg Long, Prometheus Books, 2004.

_____
The book below makes a very powerful scientific argument in favor of Patterson’s film showing it to be a real creature, as well as presenting additional solid evidence gathered over the years.

Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, Jeff Meldrum, BooBam Ventures, 2006. Meldrum’s credentials as a primate anthropologist are solid.

Loren Coleman has numerous books and resources discussing the validity of the primate theory.

Karl Edward Wagner’s Favorite Horror Novels

 

As I was looking through some of my old issues of THE TWILIGHT ZONE Magazines I came across a brief article that listed the great author, poet, editor and publisher Karl Edward Wagner’s favorite horror novels in the June/July 1983 issue.  I found the list to be both interesting and comprehensive. I know that after reading the list I’ve added several titles to my “must read” book stack and I think you will too. For example, R.R. Ryan is listed in every category and is obviously an author whose work I need to be more familiar with, and Frederic Brown is listed twice in the Non-Supernatural category. Even more surprising is that Manly Wade Wellman wasn’t found in the list and I know that Wagner was a big fan of his work publishing him twice under his outstanding Carcosa imprint

Wagner divided his choices for favorite horror novels into three categories. Supernatural Horror, Science Fiction Horror and Non-Supernatural Horror.  I hope you find the list below and interesting and informative as I did.

 

I. The Thirteen Best Supernatural Horror Novels:

1.            Hell! Said the Duchess by Michael Arlen

2.            The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr

3.            Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers

4.            Dark Sanctuary by H.B. Gregory

5.            Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg

6.            Maker of Shadows by Jack Mann

7.            The Yellow Mistletoe by Walter S. Masterman

8.            Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

9.            Burn Witch Burn by A. Merritt

10.            Fingers of Fear by J.U. Nicolson

11.            Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven

12.            Echo of a Curse by R.R. Ryan

13.            Medusa by E.H. Visiak

 

II. The Thirteen Best Science Fiction Horror Novels:

1.            The Death Guard by Philip George Chadwick

2.            Final Blackout by L. Ron Hubbard

3.            Vampires Overhead by Alan Hyder

4.            The Quatermass Experiment by Nigel Kneale

5.            Quatermass and the Pit by Nigel Kneale

6.            The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck by Alexander Laing

7.            The Flying Beast by Walter S. Masterman

8.            The Black Corridor by Michael Moorcock

9.            Land Under England by Joseph O’Neill

10.            The Cross of Carl by Walter Owen

11.            Freak Museum by R.R. Ryan

12.            Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

13.            The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

 

III. The Thirteen Best Non-Supernatural Horror Novels:

1.            The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin

2.            Psycho by Robert Bloch

3.            Here Comes a Candle by Fredric Brown

4.            The Screaming Mimi br Fredric Brown

5.            The Fire-Spirits by Paul Busson

6.            The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr

7.            The Sorceror’s Apprentice by Hanns Heinz Ewers

8.            Vampire by Hanns Heinz Ewers

9.            Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind by Michael Fessier

10.            The Shadow on the House by Mark Hansom

11.            Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau

12.            The Master of the Day of Judgement by Leo Perutz

13.            The Subjugated Beast by R.R. Ryan

 

THE LIGHT IS THE DARKNESS by Laird Barron Trade Paperback

Reserve your copy of THE LIGHT IS THE DARKNESS by Laird Barron trade paperback and save 16% off the cover price!

We expect to be shipping this title in mid June.

Conrad Navarro is a champion of the Pageant, a gruesome modern day gladiatorial exhibition held in secret arenas across the globe. Indentured by a cabal of ultra-rich patrons, his world is one of blood and mayhem, an existence where savagery reigns supreme while mercy leads to annihilation.

Conrad’s sister has vanished while traveling in Mexico. Imogene, a decorated special agent for the FBI, was hot on the trail of a legendary scientist whose vile eugenics experiments landed him on an international most-wanted list. Imogene left behind a sequence of bizarre clues that indicate she uncovered evidence of a Byzantine occult conspiracy against civilization itself — a threat so vast and terrible, its ultimate fruition would herald an event more inimical to all terrestrial life than mere extinction.

Now, Conrad is on the hunt, searching for his missing sister while malign forces seek to manipulate and destroy him by turns. It is an odyssey that will send this man of war from the lush jungles of South America, to the debauched court of an Aegean Prince, to the blasted moonscape of the American desert as he becomes inexorably enmeshed within a web of primordial evil that stretches back unto prehistory. All the while struggling to maintain a vestige of humanity; for Conrad has gazed into an abyss where the light is the darkness, and he has begun the metamorphosis into something more than human

Nostalgia

art of Luke Radl from blog mymodernmet.com

Perhaps nostalgia is God’s sign that we are getting old. The other day I went through the house yelling, “I can’t find my glasses; where are my glasses?” My wife pointed out that they were propped up on my head.

I have turned into my parents and yearning for my youth.

My parents nostalgia: Clark Gable movies, Betty Grable pinups (va-voom!), Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and the Andrews Sisters.

My nostalgia: Walking to the drug store. No not those big box CVS and Walgreens. My “drug stores” were small shops owned by real pharmacists who graduated with the dream to own a store with a milk shake machine, magazines, greeting cards. No drive thrus. They delivered the pills to your home when you didn’t feel well.

When we called the drug store we picked up the phone and if someone else was talking (it was called a party line) we interrupted and said ‘when you’re done I want to call the drug store’. Oh, and back then there was only one phone company!

Most of the time, though, my Mom and Dad walked with me the several blocks to the drug store to see what new comic books or science fiction magazines were out. Sometimes if I looked carefully at the rack of paperback books (for 50 cents) there would be – shudder – a horror paperback with Alfred Hitchcock’s or Boris Karloff’s picture on it.

I still recall when next to the Batman and Superman comics I loved there was a new comic. It was called “Fantastic Four”. I think that was in 1962 when I was almost six years old. How exciting those guys were in their flying cars.

Then sometime in late 1963, I noticed an issue of “The Amazing Spiderman”. While I never wanted to be bit by a radioactive spider, I immediately decided I wanted to be a chemist. 16 years later I got my college degree in chemistry.

Sometime in 1973 I think I got my first $79 calculator (which added and subtracted, multiplied and divided!).

A real SR-10! It weighed a pound or more, but I thought I had Star Trek level technology!

Years before that I had become addicted to the monthly science fiction magazines: Analog, Amazing, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and others. The cover paintings were almost always about other worlds, strange creatures, and of other times and places. My English teacher taught me standard vocabulary by day, and these magazines taught me a very different vocabulary by night. I learned about parsecs, and trajectories, and time warps, and polysyllabics like socioeconomics, astroarchaeology, and Hari Seldon’s psychohistory. Inside their pulpish pages was a frequent bewhiskered writer named Isaac Asimov. If Peter Parker gave me the dream, Asimov gave me the substance of being a scientist. I read his science articles so many times the flimsy pulp paper began to fall apart.

The 1960′s are long gone. I began that decade with my first haircut – a crew cut I believe. Later I was allowed to crow it so I could have a part in my hair. Radical, yes, but allowable.

It would be no easier to describe the 1960′s to you as it would be to fathom the days of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. The movies invented the term technicolor, but we were the ones who wore it.

By the end of the decade, I personally had white bell bottoms, a large chrome buckle, and an vivid orange turtleneck. Yes, and I wore a peace symbol necklace. And I was one of the conservative dressers. It was a “colorful era” to say the least. My parents felt toward me as I now feel toward droopy pants and tattered jeans. (Did I mention that I have become my parents?)

I suppose what brings this all to the top of that aging quagmire – my brain, is finding a fifty cent copy of March 1987 Amazing Tales at the used book store. Could that really be 25 years old? aieeee! In that issue was a fiftieth anniversary commemoration of Lovecraft’s death. Looking through it at Steve Fabian and George Barr’s art made me long for those days. The cover was spectacular.

Look at it. All Lovecraftian, tentacular, murky, Fabaianesque, weird, and wonderful!

Inside it was chock full of stories from now classic writers.

It even included an art gallery!

Though it had F Paul Wilson, Richard Lupoff, Ferdinand Fegg, Robert SIlverberg, and Darrell Schweizer on Lovecraft, the scariest thing seemed to be the $1.75 price tag to me. Yes, showing my age again. It would cost $7.95 today, maybe, but I still remember 12 cent comic books and fifty cent magazines. As I picked up my 50 cent museum piece, I wondered if someone had died or gotten sick and this magazine was sold off. How long had they treasured this in a closet or box? How many more were at the bottom of a city dump? The last place one would find a copy would be in a library!

I am old enough to remember when a library was a place you could read a book or do research. I can’t tell you the horrible stories where someone took a $150 valuable and collectible horror book to a local library – austensibly so some young reader could actually read it – and only to come back a few days later to find it selling for $2 on the sale table.

Why?

“Oh, we have to sell all these books to raise money to keep the library open.”

Dear Lord, the world has gone over the edge!

So, excuse me, sometimes I have to retreat back into nostalgia and antiquarianism. Oh the old world had plenty of devils and demons, but like in Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein, those ancient monsters seem a little less scary than the ones today.

Hippocampus Press SALE! Up to 70% Off.

Today we are putting one of our favorite publishers titles on sale. Here you can find over 70 titles at 40% to 70% off cover price. And remember that all orders in the US no matter what size the order will cost only $5 in shipping. So stock up on some great genre fiction and nonfiction.

Click the Hippocampus icon below to see all the Hippocampus Press titles we have on sale at Miskatonic Books.

About Hippocampus Press:

Founded in 1999, Hippocampus Press specializes in classic horror and science fiction with an emphasis on the works of H. P. Lovecraft and other pulp writers of the 1920s and 1930s. Working closely with the leading scholars in the field we offer unique, high-quality, affordable editions of these important works.

Hippocampus Press founder Derrick Hussey says, “I met S. T. Joshi in the mid-1990s and began to work for him as a volunteer typist on various projects. I soon joined the Esoteric Order of Dagon, an amateur press association devoted to H. P. Lovecraft. Joshi later remarked to me that if I cared to start a small press, he would give me permission to publish his annotated version of the Lovecraft essay ‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’. I fairly leapt at the chance and began the process of forming Hippocampus Press.”

 

Below are just a few of the fantastic publications from Hippocampus Press on sale at Miskatonic Books.

AN EPICURE IN THE TERRIBLE: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honor of H. P. Lovecraft (Trade Paperback) Edited by David E. Schultz & S. T. Joshi

When An Epicure in the Terrible first appeared in 1991, commemorating the centennial of H. P. Lovecraft’s birth, it was hailed as a significant contribution to Lovecraft studies. Its thirteen original essays, along with a lengthy biocritical introduction by S. T. Joshi, contained penetrating work by leading authorities in the field. Among them were Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.’s pioneering study of Lovecraft’s parents; Jason C. Eckhardt’s analysis of Lovecraft’s heritage as a New England Yankee; and Donald R. Burleson’s treatment of the key theme of “touching the glass,” epitomized by “The Outsider.”

Other essays in the book deal with such topics as the theme of isolation in Lovecraft’s fiction (Stefan Dziemianowicz); Lovecraft’s cosmic imagery (Steven J. Mariconda); Lovecraft’s progression from a macabre writer to a cosmic writer (David E. Schultz); and Lovecraft’s “artificial mythology” and its development (Robert M. Price). Essays by Peter Cannon, Robert H. Waugh, R. Boerem, Norman R. Gayford, and Barton L. St. Armand round out the volume.

This paperback edition presents these perspicacious essays to a new readership, and shows the richness and complexity of H. P. Lovecraft’s writing-writing that is destined to endure for centuries. Citations to Lovecraft’s work have been updated to reflect newer and more accurate editions that have appeared since 1991, and some of the essays have been revised in other particulars.

 

A WEIRD WRITER IN OUR MIDST edited by S. T. Joshi (Trade Paperback)

It is well known that H. P. Lovecraft was virtually ignored by the mainstream literary community in his time, being known only in the tiny worlds of amateur journalism and fantasy fandom. And yet, it is surprising how much comment on Lovecraft appeared in various venues, both obscure and prominent, in his own time and just shortly after his early death in 1937.

This volume gathers, for the first time, a wide array of early criticism of Lovecraft, including poignant obituaries by such friends as Walter J. Coates and Hyman Bradofsky; early attempts to analyze Lovecraft’s work by such writers as Rheinhart Kleiner and Frank Belknap Long; voluminous discussions of Lovecraft’s tales in the letter columns of Weird Tales and Astounding Stories; an abundant selection of criticism from the fan world of the 1930s and 1940s, including articles by August Derleth, P. Schuyler Miller, and Francis T. Laney; and reviews of the first Arkham House books of Lovecraft’s work by Will Cuppy, T. O. Mabbott, Vincent Starrett, William Rose Benét, and many others.

Compiled by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Lovecraft’s life and work, this volume sheds unique light on the faint wisps of recognition that Lovecraft received during and just after his lifetime—recognition that would become universal and worldwide with the passing of decades.

REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS DARKLY: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Trade Paperback)

Reflections In a Glass Darkly is the first book on J. Sheridan Le Fanu to cover classic and new scholarship and criticism of Le Fanu. The volume will be a welcome and long-overdue source-book for fans, scholars and students of horror fiction, Anglo-Irish and Victorian literature, and the history of the weird tale.  Assembled by a Le Fanu “dream team” of three top editors of the scholarly online journal Le Fanu Studies, it is the only such book available. An introduction, notes, and an index are provided. As an added bonus, a variety of portraits of Le Fanu himself are reproduced, many for the first time.

 

 

TEMPTING PROVIDENCE by Jonathan Thomas (Trade Paperback)

Jonathan Thomas follows up the critical and popular success of his collection from 2008, Midnight Call and Other Stories, with this new and substantial volume of weird tales long and short. The title story is a marvelous evocation of Providence yesterday and today, with much for the ghost of H. P. Lovecraft to dislike in the way his city has evolved. Providence is the setting for several other tales—tales that introduce us to such anomalies as a Lord of the Animals who seems to have an inexplicable sympathy with our four-footed friends, and a man whose quest for an extremely rare psychedelic album leads to something much stranger . . . In these twelve stories, Thomas fulfills the promise of his earlier work and shows that he has become one of the leading figures in contemporary supernatural horror.

“Myth and archetype, as well as the influence of masters of the Gothic tale, seep in from the groundwater in Jonathan Thomas’s world, but the landscape is wholly his own. The stories amuse, challenge, and unsettle.”—From Sherry Austin’s Foreword

“I found [‘Tempting Providence’] by Jonathan Thomas unexpectedly charming (if it’s permitted to describe a horror tale as charming), not least in its evocation of old Providence . . . It certainly brought back memories of my own wanderings around the city in the ’60s, the same ‘wistful daydreams’ his hero engages in, the sense that, if only HPL hadn’t died so young, he might still be renting rooms in one of the neighborhood houses and enjoying a sundae or an evening stroll.”—T. E. D. Klein

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE by Thomas Ligotti (Trade Paperback)

“The Conspiracy against the Human Race sets out what is perhaps the most sustained challenge yet to the intellectual blackmail that would oblige us to be eternally grateful for a ‘gift’ we never invited.”
–From the Foreword by Ray Brassier

“The Conspiracy against the Human Race is renowned horror writer Thomas Ligotti’s first work of nonfiction. Through impressively wide-ranging discussions of and reflections on literary and philosophical works of a pessimistic bent, he shows that the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination. The worst and most plentiful horrors are instead to be found in reality. Mr. Ligotti’s calm, but often bloodcurdling turns of phrase, evoke the dreadfulness of the human condition. Those who cannot bear the truth will pretend this is another work of fiction, but in doing so they perpetuate the conspiracy of the book’s title.”
–David Benatar,
author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence; Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Thomas Ligotti is one of the foremost authors of supernatural horror literature. In this genre, he has been classed with Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. His works include Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, My Work Is Not Yet Done, and Teatro Grottesco. Ligotti lives in Florida.

Ray Brassier is a member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He is the author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (Palgrave Macmillan 2007).
Contents

Foreword

• Introduction: Of Pessimism and Paradox
• The Nightmare of Being
• Who Goes There?
• Freaks of Salvation
• Sick to Death
• The Cult of Grinning Martyrs
• Autopsy on a Puppet: An Anatomy of the Supernatural
• Notes

Book is in new unread condition.