It's easy for me cos I moved in with my mother, who is crippled with age and cannot live alone. Too, I am being supported by extremely generous Patrons who are paying me to stay home and write weird fiction full-time. I'm one of Ye Lucky Ones. & this is good, because I have now entered a new phase of extreme excitement about writing Mythos fiction, much of it inspir'd by my current reading of S. T. Joshi's THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS, which is affecting me just as Lin Carter's A LOOK BEHIND THE CTHULHU MYTHOS did thirty years ago -- filling me with an ache, a passion, to write Mythos fiction. And the new editions of Lovecraft's texts that have been publish'd over ye last few years have added fuel to this creative fire. I want my fiction to be inspired by LOVECRAFT -- not his imitators; & thus I am forever returning to Lovecraft's poetry & prose, reading it, studying it, relishing it as never before. The more I mature, the more I love HPL's work. As a Mythos writer, he is the inspirational font that never dries, into which I soak my wither'd brain for more and more nameless Baptism By Ichor!
Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> wilum pugmire Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > my full-time profession as a full-time Cthulhu
> > Mythos writer
>
> I suppose such a thing is just barely possible if
> one adopts a lifestyle similar to Lovecraft's own.
> Perhaps leaving out some of the luxuries he
> permitted himself, such as cheese.
LOL, and no ice cream, definitely no ice cream. Baked beans all the way. I imagine canned goods aren't quite as detrimental to one's health these days as they were in the 20s/30s, but still doesn't me strike me as a wise diet. Paraphrasing H. O. Fischer's statement to Leiber, "We need to get this man some fresh veggies."
Good luck to you Wilum, and let us know where we can read the results of your total Lovecraft immersion when they're available.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 24 Feb 09 | 06:00PM by Radovarl.
Wow... That's a boatload of errors. I'd probably have missed more than half of them on a casual reading, but others are obvious. I scanned through all 7 pages of the forum, and I'm dumbfounded. Even if many were already present in the text(s) the B&N volume was proofed against, some of them are pretty glaring and could/should have been caught anyway. Kudos to you for your thoroughness and dedication. I guess I'll be picking up the 2nd printing when it's released later in the year.
My personal fave was this one:
"23.22: us as navel prisoners. So] us as naval prisoners. So"
"Navel prisoners". That evokes quite an unpleasant image.
I'm going to my LoA right now to find the "silent stutterer" :). I think I skipped over "The Horror at Red Hook" (as I often do, not my favorite of his). I believe the LoA volume, correct me if I'm mistaken, has been through several printings already, so maybe they've corrected some of the problems by now.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 25 Feb 09 | 03:29PM by Radovarl.
Radovarl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow... That's a boatload of errors. I'd probably
> have missed more than half of them on a casual
> reading, but others are obvious. I scanned through
> all 7 pages of the forum, and I'm dumbfounded.
> Even if many were already present in the text(s)
> the B&N volume was proofed against, some of them
> are pretty glaring and could/should have been
> caught anyway.
I think that it is a case of combinations of worst possible alternatives coming together: Texts that were scanned ("unnarnable" is a classic OCR error), file formats that were changed (as when coöperate turns into co"perate), and on top of this very mixed proofing (some texts are perfect, others... aren't).
> Kudos to you for your thoroughness
> and dedication.
Thanks! Much appreciated!
> I guess I'll be picking up the 2nd
> printing when it's released later in the year.
Good idea! I will be getting an unspecified number for free for my services, but I'll most likely end up buying it for a lot of friends as well.
>
> I'm going to my LoA right now to find the "silent
> stutterer" :).
142.26-27. It's a dear old friend, that error. I have followed it from More Annotated Lovecraft over From the Pest Zone and Tales to The Fiction. In fact, the only post-Arkham-House-corrected-editions publication of the story that has the correct "strutter" is The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories.
> I think I skipped over "The Horror
> at Red Hook" (as I often do, not my favorite of
> his). I believe the LoA volume, correct me if I'm
> mistaken, has been through several printings
> already, so maybe they've corrected some of the
> problems by now.
I would be extremely surprised if they had corrected anything in that book. Several of the errors on my list you will find in Tales as well.
Now that I've had a few minutes to reflect, I recall being confused by the "silent stutterer" in the past and just putting it out of my mind and forging onward. I never could figure out what it was supposed to mean (or if an error, how it should have read). "Silent strutter" makes much better sense, thanks!
Martinus Wrote:
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> I would be extremely surprised if they had
> corrected anything in that book. Several of the
> errors on my list you will find in Tales as well.
Almost makes me want to hang it all and just go back to my tattered, trusty old Del Rey paperbacks from the '80s (still have them). They were good enough when I first encountered HPL, and evidently they're still about par for the course..
I also checked out the Barnes & Noble website, to see if they have a release date posted the next printing (they don't). I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how much resellers are asking for the few available copies. $75 for the cheapest, up to $89! I should've ordered a half dozen back in November, and sold a few to defray the cost of my Centipede edition, LOL.
Part of what has me all on-fire-Lovecraft is listening to all six if the DARK WORLDS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT volumes from Audio Realms -- really wonderful readings by Wayne June -- BUT, ye texts are quite corrupt. Imagine my nameless horror, upon listening to him read the final sentence in "The Haunter of the Dark," to hear this:
"I see it--coming here--hell-wind--titan blue--black wings..."
Titan "blue"!! Sadder still, Audio Realms have decided to give Grandpa the P.C. treatment, and in "The Rats in the Walls," Nigger-Man is renamed "Black-Man"!! I shall listen to-night for ye silent stutterer!
Radovarl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Almost makes me want to hang it all and just go
> back to my tattered, trusty old Del Rey paperbacks
> from the '80s (still have them). They were good
> enough when I first encountered HPL, and evidently
> they're still about par for the course..
Good heavens, no! Just look at the first line of chapters 3 and 4 of the section "An Antecedent and a Horror" of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". Del Rey has been lovingly reprinting that particular error -- consistently -- since the early 1970s, at least. And that's just ONE thing.
>
> I also checked out the Barnes & Noble website, to
> see if they have a release date posted the next
> printing (they don't). I couldn't believe my eyes
> when I saw how much resellers are asking for the
> few available copies. $75 for the cheapest, up to
> $89! I should've ordered a half dozen back in
> November, and sold a few to defray the cost of my
> Centipede edition, LOL.
Dammit, I should have ordered more -- especially considering how far the Krona has fallen compared to the USD in the past few months.
Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good heavens, no! Just look at the first line of
> chapters 3 and 4 of the section "An Antecedent and
> a Horror" of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".
> Del Rey has been lovingly reprinting that
> particular error -- consistently -- since the
> early 1970s, at least. And that's just ONE thing.
Okay, I've read them and confess that I cannot find the errors. Here's the first sentence of section 3 of Chapter Two (An Antecedent and a Horror) in my copy (evidently the same text as the 1971 Ballantine edition):
"By the autumn of 1770 Weeden decided that the time was ripe to tell others of his discoveries; for he had a large number of facts to link together, and a second eye-witness to refute the possible charge that jealousy and vindictiveness had spurred his fancy."
....AH! Never mind, I've got it. The section breaks are significantly different in the LoA edition than in the Del Rey.. I think you were referring to the first line of section 2 of the Del Rey, which is 3 of LoA (1st Del Rey, then LoA, below):
"By the autumn of 1770 Weeden decided that the time was very sudden, and gained a wide notice amongst..."
"In 1776 came the final change in Joseph Curwen. It was very sudden, and gained wide notice amongst..."
For cryin' out loud, how do these things happen? I of course noticed that the Del Rey version was nonsensical when I first read it, but what's a body to do?
> "By the autumn of 1770 Weeden decided that the
> time was very sudden, and gained a wide notice
> amongst..."
>
> "In 1776 came the final change in Joseph Curwen.
> It was very sudden, and gained wide notice
> amongst..."
>
Yup, that's the one... Lovingly preserved by Del Rey in the US and Grafton in the UK... I discovered the same kind of error in The King of Elfland's Daughter by Dunsany, and a friend of mine has tracked it as far back as at least the Ballantine edition of 1969. I had to ask a friend with access to the 1st ed. for the right line. Terribly annoying.