This second volume of Lovecraft’s collected essays is devoted to his writings in the realm of literary criticism. Lovecraft did not consider himself a literary critic by trade, but his essays are unfailingly acute and cover a surprisingly wide range. Early in his career, Lovecraft was unduly influenced by classical authority; but one felicitous product of this classical immersion is the authoritative essay, “The Literature of Rome” (1918). Lovecraft condemns free verse and simple spelling, and also devotes some attention to such neglected amateur poets as Lilian Middleton and Winifred Virginia Jackson. By the 1920s Lovecraft had discovered that weird fiction was his chosen field, and he produced such scintillating essays as “Lord Dunsany and His Work” (1922) and “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (1927), along with an essay on his friend Frank Belknap Long and a review of Clark Ashton Smith’s Ebony and Crystal. Late in life Lovecraft codified his grasp of weird literature by writing such trenchant pieces as “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction” (1933) and “Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction” (1934). One of his last writings, “Suggestions for a Reading Guide” (1936), is a comprehensive discussion of world literature. All texts are exhaustively annotated, with critical and bibliographical notes, by S.T. Joshi. 

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) has belatedly achieved universal recognition as the twentieth century’s premier author of supernatural fiction. Poet, essayist, philosopher, and man of letters, Lovecraft’s work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is widely available in numerous annotated editions. 

S.T. Joshi is a leading authority on Lovecraft and the author of an exhaustive biography, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996). He has prepared many annotated editions of Lovecraft’s fiction, poetry, essays, and letters, along with such critical studies as H.P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West (1990) and A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft (1996). He has also done critical and editorial work on Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, and H.L. Mencken.