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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 16:34:01 GMT -5
I've been diving into A Means to Freedom whenever I can. Right on, Hun! A very informative and affordable resource for anyone interested in Robert E. Howard. Within AMtF, one finds some of REH's most interesting letters. Rather than perusing, as some do, a couple of Conan yarns and then doing posthumous mind-reading on Howard--and then attempting to use that superficial reading as a springboard for their own agenda--those interested in delving deeper into REH's attitudes and opinions should start with A Means to Freedom. There really is no substitute for it. Since it also contains Lovecraft's replies, there is much-needed context provided that even the Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard doesn't give. I still dive into A Means of Freedom, on the odd occasion. A truly fascinating read. Hopefully, I'll hunt down the Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard and the Index & Addenda in the near future
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Post by deepermagic on Feb 7, 2018 9:58:15 GMT -5
Right on, Hun! A very informative and affordable resource for anyone interested in Robert E. Howard. Within AMtF, one finds some of REH's most interesting letters. Rather than perusing, as some do, a couple of Conan yarns and then doing posthumous mind-reading on Howard--and then attempting to use that superficial reading as a springboard for their own agenda--those interested in delving deeper into REH's attitudes and opinions should start with A Means to Freedom. There really is no substitute for it. Since it also contains Lovecraft's replies, there is much-needed context provided that even the Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard doesn't give. I still dive into A Means of Freedom, on the odd occasion. A truly fascinating read. Hopefully, I'll hunt down the Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard and the Index & Addenda in the near future I'm about midway through the second volume. It is fascinating. Lovecraft, for all of his creative genius, is often torturous to read through. He seems to say a paragraph's worth of information in 40 pages. But I slog through it because the context of his letters pays dividends when reading Howard's reply. And in contrast to Lovecraft's letters, I can't get enough of Howard's. His writing just sparks and catches fire, regardless of the topic.
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Post by deuce on Feb 12, 2018 11:12:14 GMT -5
Yet another instance of HPL and REH bouncing story ideas off each other before things got sidetracked by the "civ vs. barb" debate... "I found your remarks on witch-craft highly interesting. It was not until a few years ago that I realized that such a cult really did exist in former times--discovered this by reading an article by Joseph McCabe on the subject. Your comments threw a good deal more light on the subject. A wealth of fiction could be written about it--especially about the time that European civilization seemed on the verge of crumbling before its insidious undermining. You are probably right in believing that the New England witch-craze was caused by members of the cult--probably trying to revive the old ways in the New World."-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, October 1930Joseph McCabe wrote an entire book, a large portion of which was concerned with historical witchcraft:
www.unz.com/print/McCabeJoseph-1929/
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Post by deuce on Feb 16, 2018 13:36:19 GMT -5
"No doubt the French excel us in many phases of literature. The point is that personally I can’t endure much of the stuff. After wading through a few chapters, my teeth get on edge and I am aware of an almost overpowering desire to spring from my chair and kick somebody violently in the pants. That is all but Voltaire. I get a big kick out of that lousy old bastard. English poetry is probably the highest form of English literature. But my favorite writers, both of prose and verse, are British or Americans. They are A. Conan Doyle, Jack London, Mark Twain, Sax Rohmer, Jeffery Farnol, Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, R.W. Chambers, Rider Haggard, Kipling, Sir Walter Scott, Lane-Poole, Jim Tully, Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, Edgar Allen Poe, and last, but no means least, yourself. Maybe the French excel the British in some ways, but where is the Frenchman who writes, or wrote, with the fire of Jack London, the mysticism of Ambrose Bierce, or the terrific power your own weird masterpieces possess?"
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, December 1932
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Post by deuce on Mar 7, 2018 12:29:11 GMT -5
"Thanks for the kind things you said about the Kull stories, but I doubt if I’ll ever be able to write another. The three stories I wrote about that character seemed almost to write themselves, without any planning on my part; there was no conscious effort on my part to work them up. They simply grew up, unsummoned, full grown in my mind and flowed out on paper from my fingertips. To sit down and consciously try to write another story on that order would be to produce something the artificiality of which would be apparent."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, June 1934
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Post by deuce on Mar 8, 2018 10:22:07 GMT -5
"I note that another book of ghost-lore has blossomed from the pen of Montague Rhodes James — of whom I had never heard in my life before I read your fascinating article on horror literature in The Recluse. I would like to read some of this gentleman’s work. Could you tell me what company handles his stuff, or where I could obtain it?"
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, August 1931
Howard is referring to British weird fiction author, MR James: interestingliterature.com/2016/10/31/a-very-short-biography-of-m-r-james/The "fascinating article" is HPL's landmark essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature": www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx
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Post by deuce on Mar 9, 2018 12:15:57 GMT -5
"Just had a letter from Two-Gun Bob. His mother has had a serious double operation, but is recovering."
-- H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 4 June, 1935
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Post by deuce on Mar 12, 2018 9:22:03 GMT -5
This is the letter that, ultimately, instigated the REH-HPL correspondence. "The climax of the story [The Rats in the Walls] alone puts Mr. Lovecraft in a class by himself; undoubtedly he must have the most unusual and wonderfully constructed brain of any man in the world. He alone can paint pictures in shadows and make them terrifically real. As to the climax, the maunderings of the maddened victim is like a sweep of horror down the eons, dwindling back and back to be finally lost in those grisly mists of world-birth where the mind of man refuses to follow."
-- Robert E. Howard to Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales June 1930
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Post by deuce on Mar 24, 2018 1:48:50 GMT -5
“Let it rest with the ages' mysteries,
And but recall the day
I was want to go where the cannikins clinked,
Not caring who should pay.”
Cities brooding beneath the seas
Yield their chalcedon and gold;
Ruthless hands the treasures seize,
Rending the Ages’ mysteries,
But who is Grandpa Theobold?
Secret of the eternal Sphinx
Is a story worn and old,
Like a tale too often told;
All the ancient unknown shrinks —
But who is Grandpa Theobold?
Fingers turn the hidden Keys,
Looting wealth from lair and hold;
Cast what shapes in what dim mold?
Question now the Eternities.
But who is Grandpa Theobold?
Prince, before you snare the stars,
Speak, before the sun grows cold
Scowling through the morning bars,
Who is Grandpa Theobold?
-- Robert E. Howard to Tevis Clyde Smith, October 1931
Howard had received the manuscript for At the Mountains of Madness, which contained Lovecraft's circulation list, ending with "Grandpa Theobald" -- which was one of HPL's nicknames for himself. REH found this curious, which prompted the rhyme. He referred to HPL as "Uncle Theobold" obliquely in a later letter.
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Post by deuce on Apr 10, 2018 0:57:25 GMT -5
"Regarding the question of chivalry, I am sorry if I misunderstood your attitude. When I have used this term it has been simply to indicate the ordinary consideration that the weak (of whatever age or sex) are accorded by the stronger; I was not referring to the fantastic and exaggerated customs and habits of the so-called Age of Chivalry. It is to the unnecessary violation of this principle that I object."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, July 1935
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Post by deuce on Apr 11, 2018 8:42:53 GMT -5
"I have been dissatisfied with my handling of decaying races in stories, for the reason that degeneracy is so prevalent in such races that even in fiction it can not be ignored as a motive and as a fact if the fiction is to have any claim to realism."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, 5 December, 1935
REH had written Red Nails the previous summer.
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Post by deuce on Apr 12, 2018 12:03:55 GMT -5
"I’ve never had much time to devote to theories and philosophies. My life has been a daily grapple with vital — perhaps sordid — facts, connected with the very elements of existence."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, 5 December, 1935
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Post by deuce on Apr 30, 2018 11:37:55 GMT -5
Lovecraft reporting on E. Hoffmann Price's visit to Cross Plains to meet REH:
"Just got a postal from [E. Hoffmann] Price & Howard. They appear to be painting Cross Plains red!"
-- HPL to R. H. Barlow, 15 April, 1934
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Post by deuce on May 1, 2018 11:10:15 GMT -5
"This is another question: at just what period did barbarism cease to be, and civilization begin? If the American west is not to be considered civilized, why are we to consider European countries of a few centuries ago as civilized? There was more cruelty, ignorance, injustice and intolerance practised in the best of them then, than was ever practised in any part of America."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, Sep/Oct 1933
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Post by deuce on May 22, 2018 13:59:03 GMT -5
"And just as I have struggled for a maximum amount of freedom in my own life, I look back with envy at the greater freedom known by my ancestors on the frontier. Hard work? Certainly they worked hard. But they were building something; making the most of opportunities; working for themselves, not merely cogs grinding in a soulless machine, as is the modern working man, whose life is a constant round of barren toil infinitely more monotonous and crushing than the toil on the frontier. He’s not building anything. He’s simply making a bare living."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, January 1934
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