Summary
(Professor Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Dublin)
This book offers a fresh perspective on the twentieth-century American weird fiction author H. P. Lovecraft and argues that the gentleman of Providence was a Romantic at heart. The book takes a philosophical approach and draws on Lovecraft’s essays, fiction and letters as well as poetry. Along the way, the reader is introduced to Lovecraft’s relationship with wonder, his aversion towards the cold light of reason, his teetotalism and his love of gardens, contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign and the beautiful. Also, the reader is privy to an exploration of Lovecraft’s wonder-evoking tropes, the idea of dark wonder and what he called the Dunsanian Conjuration.
Key Takeaways
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- List of Figures
- S. T. Joshi Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 On Lovecraft’s Lifelong Relationship with Wonder
- Chapter 2 Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Romantic on the Nightside
- Chapter 3 ‘Now Will You Be Good?’: Lovecraft, Teetotalism and Philosophy
- Chapter 4 Lovecraft’s Garden: Heart’s Blood at the Root
- Chapter 5 Weird Fiction: A Catalyst for Wonder
- Chapter 6 H. P. Lovecraft and the Dunsanian Conjuration
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. The German
National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic
data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Pedersen, Jan B. W., author. | Joshi, S. T., 1958- writer of
foreword.
Title: H. P. Lovecraft: midnight studies / Jan B. W. Pedersen.
Description: Oxford; New York: Peter Lang, [2024] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024010093 (print) | LCCN 2024010094 (ebook) | ISBN
9781803743073 (hardback) | ISBN 9781803743134 (ebook) | ISBN
9781803743141 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips), 1890-1937--Criticism
and interpretation. | Wonder in literature. | Romanticism. | American
literature--19th century--History and criticism. | Authors,
American--20th century--Biography.
Classification: LCC PS3523.O833 Z834 2024 (print) | LCC PS3523.O833
(ebook) | DDC 813.5/2--dc23/eng/20240521
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024010093
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024010094
Cover image: Harry Evans, Dunsanian, 2023. Courtesy of Harry Evans.
Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG
ISBN 978-1-80374-307-3 (print)
ISBN 978-1-80374-313-4 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-80374-314-1 (ePub)
DOI 10.3726/b21241
© 2024 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne
Published by Peter Lang Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom
info@peterlang.com – www.peterlang.com
Jan B. W. Pedersen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as Author of this Work.
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the
publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing
in electronic retrieval systems.
This publication has been peer reviewed.
About the author
Philosopher Jan B. W. Pedersen is the author of Balanced Wonder: Experiential Sources of Imagination, Virtue, and Human Flourishing (2019). He teaches at University College Diakonissestiftelsen, Frederiksberg, Denmark and at Folkeuniversitetet, Aalborg, Denmark.
About the book
‘This is not the H. P. Lovecraft we thought we knew. Lovecraft is a great writer and a famously difficult thinker, and Pedersen’s provocative and highly original argument is that he is fundamentally a figure in the European Romantic tradition, with close affiliations to Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron and (especially) Keats. This is a fascinating book about which serious readers of Lovecraft will be arguing for years.’
– Professor Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Dublin
This book offers a fresh perspective on the twentieth-century American weird fiction author H. P. Lovecraft and argues that the gentleman of Providence was a Romantic at heart. The book takes a philosophical approach and draws on Lovecraft’s essays, fiction and letters as well as poetry. Along the way, the reader is introduced to Lovecraft’s relationship with wonder, his aversion towards the cold light of reason, his teetotalism and his love of gardens, contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign and the beautiful. Also, the reader is privy to an exploration of Lovecraft’s wonderevoking tropes, the idea of dark wonder and what he called the Dunsanian Conjuration.
This eBook can be cited
This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.
Contents
CHAPTER 1
On Lovecraft’s Lifelong Relationship with Wonder
CHAPTER 2
Howard Phillips Lovecraft:Romantic on the Nightside
CHAPTER 3
‘Now Will You Be Good?’:Lovecraft, Teetotalism and Philosophy
CHAPTER 4
Lovecraft’s Garden:Heart’s Blood at the Root
CHAPTER 5
Weird Fiction:A Catalyst for Wonder
Figures
Details
- Pages
- XIV, 158
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781803743134
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781803743141
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781803743073
- DOI
- 10.3726/b21241
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2024 (June)
- Keywords
- H. P. Lovecraft Romanticism wonder dark wonder beauty the strange the foreign weird fiction dreamlands Lord Dunsany joy ugliness drama traveling Dunsanian Conjuration 20th century horror garden poetry philosophy contemplation teetotalism wonder-evoking tropes
- Published
- Oxford, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, 2024. XIV, 158 pp., 16 fig. b/w.
