Well, folks, the wait is over (except for Boyd, whose copy hasn't been mailed yet--patience, mate!) By now most of you have received your copies of SELECTED LETTERS OF CAS. It is my hope that the publication of this material will have the same stimulating effect that the publication of Lovecraft's letters had on his study. In particular, note that there are at least three venues for scholarship on CAS to appear: one is S. T. Joshi's STUDIES IN WEIRD FICTION, which will probably resume publication as an annual; the next is a collection of scholarly/critical essays devoted to CAS (some reprint but mostly new) to be published in early 2005 by Hippocampus Press, edited by Yr Obt Servt; and a quarterly journal, LOST WORLDS, edited by myself and published by Seele-Brennt Publications (first issue out in February, featuring "The Face by the River" by CAS and "Eblis in Bakelite" by James Blish, along with a rebuttal by Donald Sidney-Fryer, plus some other material of interest to the lurkers at this website). So please, read the book, digest it, let its contents perculate in your fragile little minds--and then put it down on paper! 'Cause the only way we're going to get CAS where he should be is by building up a body of criticism of the same quality as that which friend Joshi built up HPL's rep.
Best, Scott Connors

Personally I don't get the point with analysing CAS and his work (although I sometimes fall into that trap), in the way Lovecraft has been analysed to death.
The only purpose as I see it with his work is to give the reader a non-rational and hightened sense of ecstasy, and perhaps inspiration to create beauty oneself. Analysations don't support that.

I enjoyed Lovecraft more before I had read all analysations and psychological studies of his person and work (and I am not sure he himself would have liked that), and annotation-crowded editions. It's distracting and draws attention away from his art. Now I only want to unprogram all that, and regain the innocense from before.

Analysing the person and his work doesn't improve ones reading-experience. The only thing that can improve it is to spend time in Nature among real life objects, such as meeting different animals and plantlife, looking at ancient buildings and other culture, studying the stars and planets.

Thanks for the thought provoking post. I can't say I completely agree but certainly empathises with the view.

There has been many case were my appreciation of an author has be enhanced by reading about him and in some case by reading literary analysis. I would distinguish biography from literary criticism. A lot of literary criticism is gris to the mill for academics; you can take any thing that is pretty and vital and analyze it untill it's a limp rag.

I agree that an artistic work should be able to stand on its own with out need for a reference to the author at all. Any well crafted piece should be able to be appreciated by readers from any time or place. However full understanding may well require knowledge of the time and place been written about. While I appreciated Orwell before I knew the allegory, Animal Farm has far greater resonance with reference to its time.


Biographys' and selected letters give a context to a work which I feel is important especially when dealing with material written in another time and or place than one self. It is however probably least important when dealing with writers who write fantastic fiction and science fiction; who are creating their own context or world view.

I don't think my enjoyment of an author has ever been diminished by reading literary criticism, but there has been a lot of it I wished I hadn't bothered with.

B.

I agree with most of what you say, especially about biographys and collected letters. I thought the introduction biography in SLCAS was very enjoyable and interesting to read and that it really helped me to better understand CAS's cosmic point of view. And the annotations after each letter are very helpful.

Literary criticism is another matter. I am split here. Some of it may be helpful, but generally my experience is that analysations draws the magic or mystery out of a story.
And a beautifully bound book of fine literature with editorial annotations in the beginning pages is annoying; in the least they should be put in the back of the book, or better yet, printed in a separate pamphlet. The book should only be a thing of beauty and lead attention to the stories themselves, and the editors step back into the shadows as much as possible, unless it is purely a student's book for universities and likewise, which most fantasy books aren't.

While I agree 100% with Ludde's appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of fine literature and that it is important to keep the "magic and mystery" alive, I can't help but feel that to exclude all critical analysis for the sake of personal satisfaction is an extremely narrow point of view. Nine times out of ten an author's fiction is presented separately from any critical analysis so that those who do not care for this criticism can avoid reading it. SLCAS is not a work of fiction, it is all about critical analysis. This book in intended specifically for those readers who want to learn more about the motivations and influences that enabled CAS to create his fantastic literature and art.
It should not lessen our appreciation of CAS to help the unelightened to appreciate him also. I personally want to see CAS more well known and his literary achievements recognized as the genius that I believe them to be, and agree with Scott that The Eldritch Dark is the perfect resource to recruit new talent for this critical research. In the big picture we will all benefit from sharing CAS with the rest of the world, ready or not.
-Ron

Ron has stated the case for SLCAS quite eloquently. I can only add the following: speaking for myself, the purpose of literary criticism is to share the reasons why I love a particular work of literature with others so that they might experience something similar. This necessitates the determination of why a particular work gives pleasure, along with the mournful task of reporting when something fails to give pleasure (and why). Academically, this approach is considered somewhat naive, but that's why I'm not an academic: I saw years ago that once you get to the postgraduate levels one becomes more involved with various theories of literature that soon eclipse the works they are supposed to explicate, becoming instead radical utopian schemes that attempt to change Humanity through Orwellian convolutions (perhaps "perversions" is the more accurate term) of the language, as witnessed by the whole "PC" movement on campuses today. Best wishes, Scott

I am with Ron and Scott on this. I enjoy well-written critical introductions, annotations, and critical articles, because they help me appreciate aspects of the author's work I may not have noticed otherwise. Introductions that do little more than state, "I know this guy and he writes good" or "All of these stories kick ass!" seem worthless to me. If I have a desire to read about the author's work, and not just this publication itself, I want to know what it is about this book that sets it apart and/or the milieu in which it was written. Nor do even the longest, most complex critical assessments necessarily detract from the works they accompany. Even in books with such a heavy editorial presence as the Norton Critical Editions, the author's words are still present without adulteration--nothing compels me to follow those numbers to the foot of the page or the back of the book. Just because the critical apparatus is present does not mean I have to read it every time I take the book off the shelf; it is there to read or ignore as the mood hits me. Finally, knowing that someone who had a deep knowledge and appreciation of the work labored to make the text accurate and provide glosses to words or concepts the author's audience would have taken for granted, which have long since been lost to time, offers some consolation to those of us frustrated by the compromises many authors have had to make between the work they envisioned, or even completed, and what they were forced to offer the public during their lifetime.

Arthur Machen laments that he dreamed in fire, but worked in clay. Many authors dreamt and worked in fire only to have their work well-nigh extinguished by the mud through which it was dragged by editors and associates more interested in commerce or contemporary mores than art. Scholarship and criticism can often recapture the spark originally intended to bring such creations to full, flaming life.

Jim