American Writers (One Hundred Pages at a Time)

H. P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series 6: Episode 4: Letters August-November 1930

In this podcast, I talk about the letters H. P. Lovecraft wrote to his friends and colleagues in the autumn of 1930. Topics include: "The Whisperer in Darkness, Quebec, Lovecraft's fictional world-building, witches, and the importance of dynamite in horror tales.

H. P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series 6: Episode 3: Letters February-August 1930

What do dinosaur bones, "clock-slavery", Charleston, and Hart Crane have in common? They all are discussed in H. P. Lovecraft's letters in 1930 (specifically February through August). I talk about this and more in this episode of this podcast.

H. P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series 6: Episode 2: Letters November 1929-February 1930

H. P. Lovecraft's letters from the winter of 1929-1930 were written around the time he wrote "The Mound". So we should not be surprised to see him reflecting on civilizations, art, and geography. These letters also speak to his thoughts about erotic art. Highlight is a massive letter to Woodburn Harris.

H. P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series 6: Episode 1: Letters July-November 1929

So we are back to the "Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft" in this episode. Features correspondents include Maurice Moe, Elizabeth Toldridge, and James Ferdinand Morton. Topics include poetry, lost cultures, and machine culture

H. P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series 5: Episode 28: The Electric Executioner

In this second revision of a Adolphe de Castro story, "The Electric Executioner", we explore the supernatural power of electricity in a Mexican setting. A fun story, worth checking out. 

H. P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series 5: Episode 27: The Last Test

"The Last Test" is by Adolphe de Castro, as revised by H. P. Lovecraft. I rather liked this story, with its exploration of deep history and hidden traditions. It is framed as a story about experiment and outbreak in the prison, although the truth is much more chilling.

H.P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series5: Episode 26: The Thing in the Moonlight

So this story is based on a dream, detailed in a letter by Lovecraft to Donald Wandrei in 1927. Wandrei later revised this account into a the published story "The Thing in the Moonlight".

Episode 453: Henry James: Confidence (2)

The second and final part of my review of CONFIDENCE by Henry James. This puts an end to this series on James' early novels.

H. P. Lovecraft Book Club: Series 5: Episode 25: Two Black Bottles

This short story, "Two Black Bottles", was written by Wilfred Blanch Talman, with an assist by H. P. Lovecraft. While not one of the revisions that is mostly done by Lovecraft, let's read it anyways. It is a pretty good story. Published in WEIRD TALES in 1927

Episode 452: Henry James: Confidence (1)

Like THE EUROPEANS, CONFIDENCE is a light and somewhat comedic novel about Europeans in America or Americans in Europe, or something. Another early novel by James that I found underwhelming but still probably worth checking out.