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Post by deuce on Feb 6, 2016 17:14:00 GMT -5
Very cool letter from HPL talking about putting together a volume of Howard's best works:
"A book of Conan stories would certainly be a very welcome item, & I hope such a thing can be published some day. It ought, I think, to be a pretty large & inclusive thing--& might form quite a problem to a publisher with limited equipment. It seems to me that for an immediate volume a collection of Howard's best stories--irrespective of their membership in the Conan cycle--would be the wisest venture. REH's best weird tales, without question, were the short 'King Kull' series--though perhaps some of the Conans & Solomon Kanes, plus the recent 'Black Canaan', fall into that category. Certain Howard enthusiasts ought to be consulted about the contents of such a book--[ E. Hoffman] Price being especially well qualified to pick selections.
Financing would be a rather hard problem (I'm utterly broke!), but a large number of small subscriptions secured through advertisements in the fan magazines might help. Your scale of estimated prices is very helpful in forming an idea of the problem--as is the set of paper & cover samples. A 100-page volume ought not to be impracticable in the end--& might conceivably hold all the 'King Kull' tales.
Art work can sometimes be secured quite reasonably--Utpatel having done four drawing from my 'Innsmouth' for only $15.00. A sketch or line drawing of REH would make a good frontispiece--& as a model I'd suggest one of the 1931 snapshots (I could lend a small print). These are more typical, I think, than the stouter, moustached snaps of REH's last days. But all these points could be discussed by the editorial board--pictures, title, scope size, selects, &c. I'd suggest your getting in touch with Price on the subject, & also with REH's father."
- Lovecraft to Wilson Shepherd, 5 Sep 1936, Letters to Robert Bloch & Others pp359-360
Obviously, HPL was quite keen on the idea of a volume of Howard's best tales. He expressed his appreciation for Black Canaan more than once. In fact, he may've helped brainstorm the plot (to a small extent).
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Post by Jason Aiken on Feb 6, 2016 17:39:42 GMT -5
Interesting that HPL held the King Kull stories in such high esteem. I guess the more ancient the better for HPL.
It's been four or five years since I read the Kull tales, but I can't recall reading a bad one. I imagine HPL would love the Del Rey / Wandering Star editions.
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Post by kullagain on Feb 11, 2016 16:30:57 GMT -5
Interesting that HPL held the King Kull stories in such high esteem. I guess the more ancient the better for HPL. It's been four or five years since I read the Kull tales, but I can't recall reading a bad one. I imagine HPL would love the Del Rey / Wandering Star editions. I think he really agreed with how unique the Kull stories were (which is a little funny since werewolves, harpies, goblins etc composed some of the back story lore). In one of his quotes he talks about the nomenclature for the Hyborian Age feeling a little weak with the names so close to actual historical entities. I think he also enjoyed how the Thurian Age was more ripe for the fantastical, and had a closer link to ancient underworld forces. The Hyborian Age tended to be more low-fantasy and grounded. Most of all, I think he immensely connected with how much the Kull stories and the character himself oozed with cosmic wonder and the discomfort with the unfathomable. While Conan was very educated, he only really dabbled at the natures of the universe, while with Kull it was an obsession.
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Post by Jason Aiken on Feb 11, 2016 17:29:09 GMT -5
Interesting that HPL held the King Kull stories in such high esteem. I guess the more ancient the better for HPL. It's been four or five years since I read the Kull tales, but I can't recall reading a bad one. I imagine HPL would love the Del Rey / Wandering Star editions. I think he really agreed with how unique the Kull stories were (which is a little funny since werewolves, harpies, goblins etc composed some of the back story lore). In one of his quotes he talks about the nomenclature for the Hyborian Age feeling a little weak with the names so close to actual historical entities. I think he also enjoyed how the Thurian Age was more ripe for the fantastical, and had a closer link to ancient underworld forces. The Hyborian Age tended to be more low-fantasy and grounded. Good point, the Kull stories did feel more fantastic. The first scene that comes to mind is Kull diving down into the lake and entering the subterranean realm. The Serpent-men are also an interesting element that feel almost more high fantasy than low.
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Post by deuce on Feb 23, 2016 10:43:44 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Feb 24, 2016 12:14:41 GMT -5
In June, 1931, REH had this to say about ancestral memory: Fantastic linkings with by-gone ages are certainly curious. I must confess I lean toward the theory that racial memories are transmitted from ancestor to descendent, though I am not prepared to offer any argument upholding it.To which HPL replied: Nothing of a personal or individual nature is likely to be inherited through many generations - for what happened to any one progenitor simply fades into relative nothingness amidst the vast bulk of experiences inherited through the geometrically multiplying array of other lines…. It makes me laugh to hear of a person boasting of a remote forbear, as if he inherited anything more from that forbear than do the thousands or perhaps millions of others who also descend from the same source even though they do not bear the same name. Heredity counts only when one has behind one a very large proportion of the same kind of blood - blood which represents a certain definite type of experience or natural selection…. Our likes or dislikes for types and periods in ancient history are undoubtedly matters of accidental sentiment wholly unconnected with our blood stream. Early tales and reading - chance impressions from pictures, plays, or conversation - all these things generally lie behind such inclinations concerning ancient races or personalities.Howard came back with this: No doubt you're right in deciding that racial memories are a myth. As you point out, a distant ancestor could hardly have much influence on the life and ideas of a present day descendent. Yet it might be possible that atavistic forces might reproduce, to a certain extent, a shadowy ancestral shape in modern form. We know that cases exist in which a person bears a striking resemblance to a grand-parent or even a great-grand-parent, and this might occasionally be extended further into the past. I believe that one certain ancestor may sometimes exert a stronger influence on his descendents than former or later forbears.
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Post by kullagain on Feb 24, 2016 23:32:07 GMT -5
This last posted exchange feels like a microcosm of HPL's effect on Howard; Howard begins with a rather primal, perhaps too pristine slant, HPL grants a modern, maybe too meticulous response, just for Howard to derive/learn from this response, and finish with a more refined, developed version of his original slant, without it being convoluted.
This echoes in their other debates, and especially in Howard's genesis of fiction craft; how he already had his own style before reading Lovecraft, and always refined and developed a little more every time he read more Lovecraft while learning from his craft.
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Post by docpod on Mar 5, 2016 19:03:56 GMT -5
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Post by Ningauble on Jun 28, 2016 7:19:16 GMT -5
Hippocampus Press has announced on Facebook that A Means to Freedom -- the correspondence of REH and HPL -- will be reprinted in tpb!
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Post by deuce on Jul 6, 2016 16:57:29 GMT -5
If you’re interested in boxing, you ought to correspond with Robert E. Howard—who is not only a pugilistic fan, but a skilled performer in the ring as well. Have you seen his spirited prize fight stories? Some appeared under the pseudonym “Patrick Ervin.”
- H. P. Lovecraft to F. Lee Baldwin, 27 Mar 1934, LFLBO 56
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Post by deuce on Aug 18, 2016 12:47:02 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Aug 26, 2016 21:31:17 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Sept 5, 2016 9:52:23 GMT -5
"Well, I seem to be repeating myself without saying yet what I’m trying to say. But I’ll say this: humanity fears floods and starvation, foes and serpents and wild beasts, but there are fears outside these concrete things. Whence come these fears from the outside? Surely in its infancy mankind faced beings that live today only in dim ancestral memories, forgotten entirely by the material mind. Otherwise, why is it we half-visualize in that other, subconscious mind, perhaps, shapes beyond the power of man to describe?"
- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, Sep 1930, 033-0124, CL2.83
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Post by deuce on Sept 6, 2016 23:02:20 GMT -5
"I was extremely interested in your comments on the Pennsylvania Dutch. I’d heard, of course, of their witch-craft ideas, hexes, etc., but had no idea their backwardness and peculiarity was so extensive. There seems great material for a weird tale there, and I hope some day you’ll find it convenient to write such a story, as I know you could lend those primitive hill people as sinister a glamour as you have lent the witch-haunted settlers of New England in tales laid in that locality. I’d like to make some explorations in their country, myself."
-- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, 2 Mar 1932, CL2.302
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Post by deuce on Sept 9, 2016 19:18:42 GMT -5
He was telling me about the yarn his friend had written, and I was sure he was repeating it word for word!
"Bob," I interrupted him. "Do you mean that writer friend of yours - that Lovecourt-"
"Craft," he said emphatically. "Lovecraft."
I controlled an impulse to laugh. "I can never think of his name," I said.
"Lovecraft," he repeated, still emphatic. "One of the greatest writers of our time. Now, girl, I'll bring some of the things he's written for you to read it-"
"Oh, no," I said hurriedly. "That's perfectly all right. I don't want - I don't really have time to read very much right now, with teaching and trying to get kids ready for interscholastic speech contests."
-- Novalyne Price, One Who Walks Alone p.151
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