CAS (along with REH & HPL) is mentioned very briefly in Bob Curran's LOST LANDS, FORGOTTEN REALMS ... (New Page Books, 2007). Hyperborea and Irem are places noted in the book. Mentions are casual, but, hey, any press is good press.

JBP

I do not understand. Both Hyperborea and Irem are places from actual existing mythologies, and not the inventions of any author of fiction.

Curran was citing authors who set tales in such places. I only noted "the three" as relevant to this list.

JBP

I am touchy about this issue as S T Joshi has officially promulgated the fallacy that the legendary Irem, the City of Pillars, is something that Lovecraft made up. (As any reasonably educated person would know, it is mentioned in the ARABIAN NIGHTS, not to mention older Islamic literature.)

Where has Joshi written this?

In THE ANNOTATED H P LOVECRAFT.

Pretty bad. Both THE LOVECRAFT LEXICON and THE CTHULHU ENCYCLOPEDIA note the source of Irem as Arabic mythology. Wonder what happened with Joshi.

JBP

Sorry, that should be CTHULHE MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEDIA.

Quote:

Wonder what happened with Joshi.

There is a thread in this very forum that discusses the pros and cons of Joshi. In a nutshell, what "happens" with Joshi is that he over-extends himself, undertakes more work than he is competent to handle, given his lack of research assistants and other institutional support, and therefore makes blunders, sometimes quite spectacular ones.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> In THE ANNOTATED H P LOVECRAFT.

Where in The Annotated Lovecraft would that be? Since none of the tales in that book mentions Irem, it is difficult to find the relevant footnote.

There is a footnote on Irem in More Annotated Lovecraft; it describes Irem as an "ancient Arabian city, first mentioned in Lovecraft's tale 'The Nameless City'". However, I don't see this as an unambiguous statement that HPL came up with Irem. But I admit that its wording is a bit clumsy and could be taken to mean that "The Nameless City" is the first appearance of the name anywhere, instead of (as is obviously intended) its first appearance in a Lovecraft tale.

If The Annotated Lovecraft indeed says that Lovecraft came up with Irem, then it is a mistake that certainly hasn't been repeated anywhere else, and Joshi is still much better than for example L. Sprague de camp in this regard.

Quote:

Joshi is still much better than for example L. Sprague de camp in this regard.

Though I find good reason to criticize Joshi, on occasion, I want to be clear that, in my opinion, Joshi is better than de Camp in every regard, when it comes to biography and criticism.

Martinus Wrote:
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> There is a footnote on Irem in More Annotated
> Lovecraft

Yes, you are right, that is the one, of course. Thanks!

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> Martinus Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There is a footnote on Irem in More Annotated
> > Lovecraft
>
> Yes, you are right, that is the one, of course.
> Thanks!

Then we can certainly charge Joshi (or possibly Peter Cannon, since there are two annotators) with careless writing, but not with ignorance. More Annotated lovecraft appeared in 1999, three years after Joshi showed quite clearly in H. P. Lovecraft: A life that he is well aware of Lovecraft's Commonplace Book entry in which Lovecraft quotes Encyclopedia Britannica on Irem.

If that example (which I brought up here only because it was pertinent to the original post) does not satisfy you, I have many others.