Lovecraft, a look behind the "Cthulhu mythos" [Paperback]

Lin Carter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1975

James A. Bailey and P. T. Barnum first joined forces to produce a double show in 1881--a royal coupling--inaugurating the "Golden Age" of the American circus. This book details some of the activity leading up to that notable landmark in amusement history, particularly during the decade of 1871-81. Complete with notes, bibliography, index, and contemporaneous illustrations.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 189 pages
• Publisher: Panther (1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0586041664
• ISBN-13: 978-0586041666
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A LOVELY PB EDITION, January 2, 2010

By 

W. H. Pugmire "I never can be tied to raw, ne... (Sesqua Valley) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This is the edition of the book that I own, sent to me by a friend in Australia. It's rather rare, so I think this is an okay price. This is one of two books that inspired me to become a professional Cthulhu Mythos writer. Lin wrote most of it while August Derleth was still alive, and the book is tainted by Derleth's interpretation of the Mythos and H. P. Lovecraft. As a book about Lovecraft it has many flaws, and Carter's criticism of Lovecraft's striving to write weird fiction that was Literary Art really annoys me! Per example:

"Lovecraft was such a bundle of contradictions that he will be the despair of his eventual biographer. How does one deal with a man so quirky and changeful and perverse that within a month after selling his first story to WEIRD TALES, he turns around and writes a piece of snobbish idiocy to [Frank] Long such as the following: 'I am well-nigh resolv'd to write no more tales, but merely to dream when I have a mind to, not stopping to do anything so vulgar as to set down the dream for a boarish Publick. I have concluded, that Literature is no proper persuit for a gentleman; and that Writing ought never to be consider'd but as an elegant Accomplishment, to be indulg'd in with Infrequency, and Discrimination.' In that passage you have much of what I would call the worst of Lovecraft, his weakness and his folly: the absurd pretensions to gentility on the part of a man who had lived barely above the level of utter poverty for three years; the ludicrous self-delusion of thinking himself an 'artist' -- the snobbishness of spelling 'literature' with a capital L..."

I would whisper to Lin Carter's ghost that it was this "ludicrous self-delusion' of thinking himself a Literary Artist, and his striving to write works of fiction that exhibited the best of his abilities, that resulted in H. P. Lovecraft's eventual collection from The Library of America.

As a history of the Cthulhu Mythos up to the time of its publication, this is a fun wee book, entertaining if not very informative. For an excellent and very informative history of the Mythos, one must turn to S. T. Joshi's superb THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS, a book that explores the history beautifully, if some of its judgments of the fiction is a bit severe.