s t joshi II

Our second conversation with the great Lovecraft  scholar S.T. Joshi, diving deep into Lovecraft’s staggeringly prolific letter writing and influence on generations of creators. This is a real treat for fans of weird fiction. 

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S.T. Joshi is an American writer, musician, critic and award-winning scholar whose work has covered much weird and fantastic fiction, especially H. P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Lord Dunsany, and associated writers. Incredibly prolific with over 350 books published, he has also expanded into areas such as atheism, weird poetry, race relations and political discussion.

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Check out S.T. Joshi’s homepage, biography of Lovecraft, and Black Wings of Cthulhu anthology. 

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Outline

Here are the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

(00:00) Intro
(01:05) H.P. Lovecraft’s letters, David E. Schultz
(03:45) Fritz Leiber
(06:32) The first circle of influence
(07:20) August Derleth
(15:33) The Rise, Fall and Rise of the Cthulhu Mythos
(16:24) Frank Belknap Long
(18:22) Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Block, Henry Cutner - Cross fertilization
(24:12) The Cthulhu mythos
(29:17) 60s-70s, the reawakening
(39:50) Charting the mythos
(51:41) Black Wings: Lovecraft mythos anthologies
(54:34) Ramsey Campbell, Colin Wilson 
(1:02:04) Lovecraft in modern times
(1:06:54) Finishing up