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Post by Voorqual on Aug 23, 2017 0:06:32 GMT -5
Anyone read this guy's stuff? He's surprisingly obscure even among fans of Lovecraft, judging by what I see, and yet at times he proved himself to be a true master of prose and cosmic horror, and wrote a few fun, grotesque phantasms as well. Long story short, he was sort of one of Lovecraft's protégés, not to mention a huge fan. Died young though, and left behind only a small but satisfying book's worth of weird fiction. It's funny how obviously he was influenced by Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Lord Dunsany in his earliest tales, which had the cosmic attitude and monstrosities of Lovecraft, the exoticism and sardonic humor of Smith, and the brevity and dreamy atmosphere of Dunsany. These tales were pretty fun, but over time he developed his own much stronger style, often exploring distant futures in which man is either extinct or dying. His two greatest tales, and in my opinion among the greatest works of cosmic horror ever, would no doubt be "A Dim-Remembered Story" and "The Night Ocean." Strongly suggest reading these! Sadly the former isn't available anywhere online, but his Night Ocean, as well as his bizarre Dunsanian alien fantasy, "The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast," are available on the Lovecraft website, due to Lovecraft's contribution in revising these tales. (According to Joshi, Lovecraft played only a minimal hand in the creation of Night Ocean.) www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/no.aspxwww.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hwb.aspx |
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Post by Ningauble on Aug 24, 2017 2:21:06 GMT -5
Anyone read this guy's stuff? He's surprisingly obscure even among fans of Lovecraft, judging by what I see, and yet at times he proved himself to be a true master of prose and cosmic horror, and wrote a few fun, grotesque phantasms as well. Long story short, he was sort of one of Lovecraft's protégés, not to mention a huge fan. Died young though, and left behind only a small but satisfying book's worth of weird fiction. It's funny how obviously he was influenced by Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Lord Dunsany in his earliest tales, which had the cosmic attitude and monstrosities of Lovecraft, the exoticism and sardonic humor of Smith, and the brevity and dreamy atmosphere of Dunsany. These tales were pretty fun, but over time he developed his own much stronger style, often exploring distant futures in which man is either extinct or dying. His two greatest tales, and in my opinion among the greatest works of cosmic horror ever, would no doubt be "A Dim-Remembered Story" and "The Night Ocean." Strongly suggest reading these! Sadly the former isn't available anywhere online, but his Night Ocean, as well as his bizarre Dunsanian alien fantasy, "The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast," are available on the Lovecraft website, due to Lovecraft's contribution in revising these tales. (According to Joshi, Lovecraft played only a minimal hand in the creation of Night Ocean.) www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/no.aspxwww.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hwb.aspxBarlow is indeed a giant in pulp, even though he as far as I know did not publish anything in the pulps. He collected manuscripts of the giants - Smith, Howard, Lovecraft, Whitehead, etc. - and was especially close to Lovecraft, becoming his literary executor before his 19th birthday. It must be remembered that all of Barlow's fantasy stories were written when he was a teenager; he could have gone very far had not Lovecraft's death, and Barlow fafiating from the field, killed all interest in writing more of the sort. We had a very good panel about him at NecronomiCon last Friday. All of Barlow's collaborations with Lovecraft - "The Battle That Ended the Century", "The Slaying of the Monster", "Collapsing Cosmoses", "The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast", "'Till A' the Seas'", "The Night Ocean" - can be found at www.hplovecraft.com. I can add that a facsimile of the manuscript for "The Night Ocean" has been published, most recently in Lovecraft Annual #8, which does prove that Lovecraft's hand in it was minimal. All of Barlow's fantastic fiction has been collected in Eyes of the God. |
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Post by Voorqual on Aug 24, 2017 8:13:58 GMT -5
^ Yup, I totally forgot to mention the part of him being made executor, and the shaky history after the fact–another reason his obscurity is so tragic. All my info comes from "Eyes of the God," and also the collected letters Lovecraft wrote to Barlow, "O Fortunate Floridian," though sadly it only has Lovecraft's side of the correspondence. Anyway, I'm awfully sad to have missed that panel. I've been eagerly delving deeper into Barlow's work lately!
Also, It seemed that Barlow, like Smith, was a neat artist of the weird, even creating "fanart" of Cthulhu and Chaugnar Faugn. I wonder where one might be able to see his stuff, which Lovecraft was so eager about in his letters, assuming it isn't lost.
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Post by Ningauble on Aug 24, 2017 10:24:06 GMT -5
^ Yup, I totally forgot to mention the part of him being made executor, and the shaky history after the fact–another reason his obscurity is so tragic. All my info comes from "Eyes of the God," and also the collected letters Lovecraft wrote to Barlow, "O Fortunate Floridian," though sadly it only has Lovecraft's side of the correspondence. Anyway, I'm awfully sad to have missed that panel. I've been eagerly delving deeper into Barlow's work lately! Also, It seemed that Barlow, like Smith, was a neat artist of the weird, even creating "fanart" of Cthulhu and Chaugnar Faugn. I wonder where one might be able to see his stuff, which Lovecraft was so eager about in his letters, assuming it isn't lost. Another excellent source on Barlow is the two articles on him by Kenneth W. Faig, Jr. in The Unknown Lovecraft. At least one of them was written in the 70s, and because of caution does not touch upon the main reason for Barlow's suicide, but it is still one of the best biographical sources on him that I have seen. IIRC, there was a drawing by Barlow in the exhibition at the John Hay Library during NecronomiCon 2015, but I can't for the life of me recall what it looked like. |
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