Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Lovecraft; A Biography, by Lyon Sprague De Camp ISBN: 0-385-00578-4 Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (T) Pub. Date: 01 January, 1975 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: For the most part, informative--yet annoying.
Comment: I could NOT read this all the way through due to the author's constant reminders of Lovecraft's racism. It got annoying after a while. On every other page it seemed he was nitpicking about some comments Lovecraft made about Jews or Blacks, which made me think "why include these in your book if all you're going to do is rag on him for it? We got the picture after your first criticism!"
Besides that, a book about Lovecraft can only be as exciting as its' subject, which is to say it isn't. HPL didn't do much. He just liked to stay home, and even when he was married he would much rather have done anything else than spend time with his wife. He didn't have any drama in his life and it sure doesn't make for good reading, except for the exploits of his creepy mother during his long drawn out youth.
There is good coverage of his pulp fiction "career" and the trials he had to go through to get published. It's funny reading about these magazine editor idiots who turned down his fiction for one reason or another. Had they but known what would happen to HPL posthumously....
HPL's attempts to get a "real" job are covered and are quite cringeworthy. He was certainly not cut out for a sales position.
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly readable, unpretentious and astute
Comment: An excellent 'straight' biography of Lovecraft, warts and all. De Camp never met HPL, but spoke to or corresponded with many of his friends and fellow-writers, as well as drawing on Lovecraft's massive epistolary legacy, to create a lively portrait of the writer. De Camp explores Lovecraft's less attractive facets - his pathological racism and snobbery - as fully as his more appealing ones - his erudition, courtesy, personal kindness and gentlemanliness - and gives us a decently-rounded and thoroughly entertaining account of the life and work of the horror-writing Sage Of Providence. Written in the mid-70s, the book inevitably only follows the story of what happened to his work posthumously up till then, though it does cover the founding of Arkham House in some detail. The book's one defect is de Camp's overtly socially conservative outlook, which leads to him framing debates about issues as diverse as Lovecraft's sexuality and the merits of free verse in a way that nowadays seems mildly reactionary and unrewarding. Otherwise excellent.
 |
Title: Lovecraft by Hans Rodionoff, Keith Giffen, Enrique Breccia ISBN: 1401201105 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
