S. T. Joshi – författare

Howard Phillips Lovecraft's unique contribution to American literature was a melding of traditional supernaturalism (derived chiefly from Edgar Allan Poe) with the genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1920s. This Penguin Classics edition brings together a dozen of the master's tales - from his early short stories 'Under the Pyramids' (originally ghostwritten for Harry Houdini) and 'The Music of Erich Zann' (which Lovecraft ranked second among his own favourites) through to his more fully developed works, 'The Dunwich Horror', 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', and 'At the Mountains of Madness'.The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories presents the definitive corrected texts of these works, along with Lovecraft critic and biographer S. T. Joshi's illuminating introduction and notes to each story.

One of the masters of 'weird fiction', H. P. Lovecraft expanded the vast boundaries of the horror genre with his vividly imagined stories of exotic and fantastical otherworlds, nightmarish dreamscapes and the supernatural terrors lurking beneath the surface of small-town America.The shadow of New England's witch-hunting past hangs over many of the tales, as in 'The Shunned House' and 'The Dreams in the Witch House', in which malevolent spectres return to haunt the region. Others, such as 'From Beyond' and 'The Shadow Out of Time', depict the catastrophic results when cosmic channels of time and space are opened, while stories such as 'Polaris' and 'The Doom that Came to Sarnath' portray the downfall of mythical civilizations.

Not just any fantasy, horror, and science fiction author could impress H. P. Lovecraft into calling him 'unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living'. Clark Ashton Smith - autodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storyteller - simply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smith's visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.

This selection brings together tales from across the author's entire career. Liberal selections of earlier tales - including the entire Gods of Pegana as well as such notable works as "Idle Days of the Yann" and "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth" - are followed by memorable later tales, including several about the garrulous traveler Joseph Jorkens and the outrageous murder tale "The Two Bottles of Relish."

The only annotated edition of M. R. James's writings currently available, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. These volumes are both the culmination of the nineteenth-century ghost story tradition and the inspiration for much of the best twentieth-century work in this genre. Included in this collection are such landmark tales as "Count Magnus," set in the wilds of Sweden; "Number 13," a distinctive tale about a haunted hotel room; "Casting the Runes," a richly complex tale of sorcery that served as the basis for the classic horror film Curse of the Demon; and "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad," one of the most frightening tales in literature. The appendix includes several rare texts, including "A Night in King's College Chapel," James's first known ghost story.

From claustrophobic fear in isolated New England towns to terrifying threats that span the infinite cosmos, the tales herein are fuelled by H. P. Lovecraft's creations. While his horrors originate in a vast cosmos outside of space and time, the terrors they bring strike ordinary humans caught up in conflicts far beyond their control. This volume offers a who's who of Lovecraftian authors including Aaron Bittner, Adam Bolivar, Jason V Brock, Ashley Dioses, David Hambling, Lynne Jamneck, Mark Howard Jones, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tom Lynch, D. L. Myers, William F. Nolan, K. A. Opperman, W. H. Pugmire, Ann K. Schwader, Darrell Schweitzer, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jonathan Thomas, Donald Tyson, Don Webb, and Stephen Woodworth. Gathered together by S. T. Joshi, their works are certain to thrill.

As Stephen King will attest , the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation’s brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and—of course— Stephen King. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good addition to Penguin Classics.

Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro.American Supernatural Tales is the ultimate collection of weird and frightening American short fiction. As Stephen King will attest, the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. The book celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation's brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and-of course-Stephen King. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good collection of stories.S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer, scholar, and editor whose previous books include Documents of American Prejudice; In Her Place: A Documentary History of Prejudice against Women; God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong; Atheism: A Reader; H. L. Mencken on Religion; The Agnostic Reader; and What Is Man? And Other Irreverent Essays by Mark Twain.

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperbackWinner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition  For the seventieth anniversary of Penguin Classics, the Penguin Orange Collection celebrates the heritage of Penguin’s iconic book design with twelve influential American literary classics representing the breadth and diversity of the Penguin Classics library. These collectible editions are dressed in the iconic orange and white tri-band cover design, first created in 1935, while french flaps, high-quality paper, and striking cover illustrations provide the cutting-edge design treatment that is the signature of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions today.The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories  Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Phillips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the twentieth century, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. This definitive collection reveals the development of Lovecraft’s mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical—and visionary—American writer.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is commonly regarded as the leading author of supernatural fiction in the 20th century. He is distinctive among writers in having a tremendous popular following as well as a considerable and increasing academic reputation as a writer of substance and significance. This encyclopedia is an exhaustive guide to many aspects of Lovecraft's life and work, codifying the detailed research on Lovecraft conducted by many scholars over the past three decades. It includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries on Lovecraft and presents extensive bibliographical information.The volume draws upon rare documents, including thousands of unpublished letters, in presenting plot synopses of Lovecraft's major works, descriptions of characters in his tales, capsule biographies of his major colleagues and family members, and entries on little known features in his stories, such as his imaginary book of occult lore, the Necronomicon. The volume refers to current scholarship on the issues in question and also supplies the literary, topographical, and biographical sources for key elements in Lovecraft's work. As Lovecraft's renown continues to ascend in the 21st century, this encyclopedia will be essential to an understanding of his life and writings.

Horror and the supernatural have fascinated people for centuries, and many of the most central figures appear over and over again. These figures have gained iconic status and continue to hold sway over popular culture and the modern imagination. This book offers extended entries on 24 of the most enduring and significant figures of horror and the supernatural, including The Sea Creature, The Witch, The Alien, The Vampire, The Werewolf, The Sorcerer, The Ghost, The Siren, The Mummy, The Devil, and The Zombie. Each entry is written by a leading authority on the subject and discusses the topic's essential features and lasting influence, from the classical epics of Homer to the novels of Stephen King. Entries cite sources for further reading, and the Encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. Entries include illustrations, sidebars of interesting information, and excerpts from key texts.Horror and the supernatural have fascinated people for centuries, with many of the most central figures appearing over and over again across time and cultures. These figures have starred in the world's most widely read literary works, most popular films, and most captivating television series. Because of their popularity and influence, they have attained iconic status and a special place in the popular imagination. This book overviews 24 of the most significant icons of horror and the supernatural.

The Irish writer Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) has suffered a regrettable decline in critical esteem. Although one of the most popular and critically acclaimed writers of the early 20th century, he seems to have fallen out of fashion with both the Irish critical community and with enthusiasts of fantasy literature. But Dunsany was one of the critical figures in modern fantasy, a significant influence on Tolkien, Le Guin, and other writers. His own work, written over a 50-year span and covering nearly every literary mode (short story, novel, play, essay, poem), is itself rich with meaning. In this, the first academic study of Dunsany's work, Joshi establishes that Dunsany has a remarkable grasp of the symbolic function of fantasy, and that he used fantasy, horror, and the supernatural as metaphors for his most deeply held convictions on life and society. His entire work is unified by a single overriding theme—the need for human reunification with the natural world—even though this theme takes on many different forms (e.g., scorn of industrialization, demonstration of the moral superiority of animals over human beings, rumination on the extinction of the human race). The course of Dunsany's long career—proceeding from early short stories and plays about the edge of the world to full-length novels to tales of comic fantasy (such as the popular Jorkens stories) to sensitive works about Ireland—reveals a writer constantly searching for new ways to express his central philosophic and aesthetic conceptions. Joshi's volume may best be described as an exercise in literary excavation—an attempt to unearth an unjustly forgotten writer and to show that his work is in need of further study and analysis.

Ambrose Bierce is well known to readers as the author of The Devil's Dictionary (1906) and numerous short stories, such as the Civil War tales gathered in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891) and the horror stories collected in Can Such Things Be? (1893). But, in his own day, he was best known as a prolific and fearless jounalist, and in the 40 years of his literary career he wrote thousands of articles for newspapers and magazines in San Francisco, London, and elsewhere. Most of the articles and poems that Bierce published in his own 12-volume Collected Works (1909-12) first appeared in his newspaper columns, as did his celebrated tales. With the growing scholarly interest in Bierce, these contributions are eliciting more attention.This bibliography is the first to attempt an exhaustive catalog of Bierce's entire body of published work. While the volume includes a chapter of separate publications by Bierce, such as individual books, its most important feature is a chapter listing entries for his contributions to books and periodicals. These entries identify the first appearances of his stories, articles, and poems. An additional chapter lists reprints of his works, and the volume also provides information about manuscript holdings. Joshi and Schultz demonstrate that in addition to being a master short story writer, fabulist, and epigrammatist, Bierce may also have been the leading American journalist of the 19th century.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is commonly regarded as the leading author of supernatural fiction in the 20th century. He is distinctive among writers in having a tremendous popular following as well as a considerable and increasing academic reputation as a writer of substance and significance. This encyclopedia is an exhaustive guide to many aspects of Lovecraft's life and work, codifying the detailed research on Lovecraft conducted by many scholars over the past three decades. It includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries on Lovecraft and presents extensive bibliographical information.The volume draws upon rare documents, including thousands of unpublished letters, in presenting plot synopses of Lovecraft's major works, descriptions of characters in his tales, capsule biographies of his major colleagues and family members, and entries on little known features in his stories, such as his imaginary book of occult lore, the Necronomicon. The volume refers to current scholarship on the issues in question and also supplies the literary, topographical, and biographical sources for key elements in Lovecraft's work. As Lovecraft's renown continues to ascend in the 21st century, this encyclopedia will be essential to an understanding of his life and writings.

Discusses the ideas and impact of 27 atheists, agnostics, and secularists whose ideas have shaped society over the last 200 years.In the opinion of many critics and philosophers, we are entering an age of atheism marked by the waning of Christian fundamentalism and the flourishing of secular thought. Through alphabetically arranged entries written by expert contributors, this book profiles 27 iconic figures of unbelief whose ideas have shaped American society over the last 200 years. Included are entries on influential figures of the past, such as Albert Einstein and Voltaire, as well as on such contemporary figures as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Each entry discusses the ideas and lasting significance of each person or group, provides sidebars of interesting information and illuminating quotations, and cites works for further reading. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Students in social studies and history classes will welcome this reference as a guide to the ideas central to the American separation of Church and State and to many of the political debates at the heart of society today.Each entry discusses the ideas and lasting significance of the person or group, provides sidebars of interesting information and quotations, and closes with a list of works for further reading. The volume ends with a selected, general bibliography. Students in history and social studies classes will welcome this reference as a guide to the American separation of Church and State and to the ideas central to contemporary political debates.

Discusses the ideas and impact of 27 atheists, agnostics, and secularists whose ideas have shaped society over the last 200 years.In the opinion of many critics and philosophers, we are entering an age of atheism marked by the waning of Christian fundamentalism and the flourishing of secular thought. Through alphabetically arranged entries written by expert contributors, this book profiles 27 iconic figures of unbelief whose ideas have shaped American society over the last 200 years. Included are entries on influential figures of the past, such as Albert Einstein and Voltaire, as well as on such contemporary figures as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Each entry discusses the ideas and lasting significance of each person or group, provides sidebars of interesting information and illuminating quotations, and cites works for further reading. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Students in social studies and history classes will welcome this reference as a guide to the ideas central to the American separation of Church and State and to many of the political debates at the heart of society today.Each entry discusses the ideas and lasting significance of the person or group, provides sidebars of interesting information and quotations, and closes with a list of works for further reading. The volume ends with a selected, general bibliography. Students in history and social studies classes will welcome this reference as a guide to the American separation of Church and State and to the ideas central to contemporary political debates.

An exhaustive work covering the full range of topics relating to vampires, including literature, film and television, and folklore.Encyclopedia of the Vampire: The Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture is a comprehensive encyclopedia relating to all phases of vampirism—in literature, film, and television; in folklore; and in world culture. Although previous encyclopedias have attempted to chart this terrain, no prior work contains the depth of information, the breadth of scope, and the up-to-date coverage of this volume.With contributions from many leading critics of horror and supernatural literature and media, the encyclopedia offers entries on leading authors of vampire literature (Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer), on important individual literary works (Dracula and Interview with the Vampire), on celebrated vampire films (the many different adaptations of Dracula, the Twilight series, Love at First Bite), and on television shows (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel). It also covers other significant topics pertaining to vampires, such as vampires in world folklore, humorous vampire films, and vampire lifestyle.

An exhaustive work covering the full range of topics relating to vampires, including literature, film and television, and folklore.Encyclopedia of the Vampire: The Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture is a comprehensive encyclopedia relating to all phases of vampirism—in literature, film, and television; in folklore; and in world culture. Although previous encyclopedias have attempted to chart this terrain, no prior work contains the depth of information, the breadth of scope, and the up-to-date coverage of this volume.With contributions from many leading critics of horror and supernatural literature and media, the encyclopedia offers entries on leading authors of vampire literature (Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer), on important individual literary works (Dracula and Interview with the Vampire), on celebrated vampire films (the many different adaptations of Dracula, the Twilight series, Love at First Bite), and on television shows (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel). It also covers other significant topics pertaining to vampires, such as vampires in world folklore, humorous vampire films, and vampire lifestyle.

A much-awaited collection of prose and poetry from one of the great cosmic masters of the supernaturalNot just any fantasy, horror, and science fiction author could impress H. P. Lovecraft into calling him “unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living” or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term sui generis. Clark Ashton Smith—autodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storyteller—simply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smith’s visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror, and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Mencken weighs 172 pounds, is 5 feet 10 inches in height and not beautiful. His chief amusement, after reading, is piano-playing, this he does very crudely. He takes no exercise except walking and is a moderate eater and drinker. He sometimes drinks as little as one bottle of beer a week, though this doesn't happen very often."" So wrote H. L. Mencken about himself, in a brief sketch of his life penned in 1905.Perhaps America's foremost literary stylist and most mordant wit, Mencken's most engaging writing told about his own life and experiences. In Mencken on Mencken, veteran Mencken editor and scholar S. T. Joshi has assembled a hefty collection of the best of Mencken's autobiographical pieces that have not appeared previously in book form. These forty-four selections cover a wide variety of topics ranging from incidents from Mencken's everyday life to reflections on friends and colleagues to his careers as author, journalist, and editor, to his travels abroad. As a journalist in Baltimore, Mencken encountered many unusual characters: a professional mourner hired by a beer distiller, a wagon driver who slept through the great Baltimore fire of 1904, a confirmed bachelor who left town to avoid the clutches of a predatory widow. He provides accounts of literary figures he knew, such as Theodore Dreiser, and ruminations on his work at the Baltimore Sun and as editor for the magazines Smart Set and the American Mercury. In an essay titled ""What I Believe,"" he eschews humor and writes straightforwardly of his longtime scorn for the idea of religion, and in his journalist mode he reflects on a half-century of attending political conventions, drawing on his vast inside knowledge to savage the corruption and incompetence of the political class. A superb travel writer, Mencken gives us a rollicking account of beer-drinking in Munich, astute observations of political unrest in Cuba, and carefully drawn scenes from a long tour he and his wife made of the Mediterranean in 1934.Joshi has thoroughly annotated the pieces and also compiled an extensive glossary of names and terms that Mencken mentions. Mencken on Mencken offers a fully rounded self-portrait of one of America's most colorful personalities and most extraordinary men of letters.