Re: "I Am Providence" - S.T. Joshi's expanded/unabridged Lovecraft Biography (2 vols.)
Posted by:
Jojo Lapin X (IP Logged)
Date: 22 October, 2010 02:14PM
Absquatch Wrote:
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> It still boggles my mind that Joshi could not (or
> did not try to) get a university press to publish
> this full-scale biography of Lovecraft, instead of
> a small-time player such as Hippocampus. Granted,
> if an academic imprint had published the
> biography, the price would still be absurd, but at
> least the print run, though small, would not be
> "limited" . More important, there would be better
> than the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell that
> public and academic libraries would purchase the
> book, make it available, and preserve it. Ah,
> well....
As you may or may not be aware, university presses do not typically pay their authors anything. Not that I imagine he will become wealthy from whatever deal he has with Hippocampus, of course---but I think that sort of thing makes a difference for people who do not have an academic job that pays them to do research. I could make additional remarks on whether it really is a good idea for scholarship of this nature to be undertaken by amateurs rather than academics, but I have found that my ideas do not go down well with pulp fandom, where a sort of anti-establishment, grass-roots attitude is cultivated. As I wish to be friends with everybody, I shall therefore leave it at that.