It seems incredible that much of the work in this volume has not been widely available since the publication of Bierce's Collected Works more than ninety years ago. It seems particularly incredible in the case of the two long satires, "Ashes of the Beacon" and "The Land Beyond the Blow", since these constitute perhaps his most sustained attack on the absurdities of American society, and contain some of his most pointed and iconoclastic writing. Bierce himself seems to have held them in high regard, but until the Collected Works no publisher took an interest. "The Land Beyond the Blow" is a voyage to strange lands, undertaken courtesy of a large hairy fist applied to the narrator's eye; the various customs and other foibles of the peoples encountered serve to parody the government, judiciary, public taste, dog lovers, etc., etc., of Bierce's own time and place. "Ashes of the Beacon" purports to be "An Historical Monograph Written in 4930" and gives a few indications concerning the lamentable failure of "self-government" in America. It is less amusing and more analytical; and while practically everyone will find much in it to disagree with, there is also plenty to think about. Though generally conservative (with some startling exceptions) and frequently pigheaded, Bierce is neither a fool nor a hypocrite, and he makes his points with thoroughgoing clarity. His work as a whole is (among many other things) a lifelong battle against woolly thinking, murky logic and bad writing, and the pieces in The Fall of the Republic are no exception. Besides the long satires, the book includes a number of short essays on such topics as capital punishment (which Bierce favours), insurance (which he does not favour), temperance (which he demolishes completely) and the Decay of the Nose (upon which he is coolly judicious and commendably straight-faced). A further section is devoted to the Annals of the Future Historian, a series of pieces in which the Future Historian's misconceptions and presuppositions serve to point the reader towards uncomfortable questions not only about the present but, by implication, about the possible misconceptions and presuppositions embedded in our own perception of history. There is also a scholarly and sympathetic critical introduction by the editors who, in hunting out this work and making it available to a general readership, have done satire, literature and the rest of us an immense service.

I really enjoyed this textbook. The authors of this book really did a good job making you enjoy math. I used to hate math, but this book was an exception. They greatly explain theorems and other things so you won't get confused. One way I liked this book was its many math related photos. Also if you are confused on a lesson they have answers in the back in the book to help you to check your work or give you answers to things you are struggling in. They also have in class lessons so you can understand the concepts you are about to learn in the lesson and homework. They also greatly explain how to do proofs, and everything that involves triangles and trionometry to statistics and functions. They give you reviews and self-tests with all the answers in the back of the book so you can master the information you have just learned in the chapter. Also, I recommend this to anyone who loves math, anyone who is ok or great in math, or anyone who justs wants to learn trigonometry. Finally, all the teachers I have ever had me use UCSMP this book have always loved the books, the material that the studnets grasp easily, and the benefits that the book gives over other textbooks.

Excellent book! This is some of the best poetry you'll find anywhere, and its publication is a reason to rejoice! CAS excelled at a very dark and beautiful poetry and some of his best pieces are in here. It has some unreprinted material, as well as some poems that have seen very little light in the past. Great production values and three nice, full color paintings. I highly reommend it!

This is the first book where the reader is taken through Bierce's life in his own words. From his experiences in the Civil War until his mysterious disappearance into Mexico in 1913, "Sole Survivor" tells Bierce's tale through his stories, newspaper work, and personal correspondence. A must-have volume for anyone interested in the great American journalist and author.

Professor N. W. Peaslee, from 1908 to 1913, suffered a form of amnesia or did he? After waking up he stuffers from dreams of an other time, in a city built before history and a race of creatures long gone. Is he going mad or is it real? The answer can be found in Australia, where in one of the deserts explorers have found ruins over 150,000,000 years old. The question is, does he WANT to find the answer or not?

If you liked 'At The Mountains of Madness' you should enjoy this book AND already know what the answers are!

"The Shadow Out of Time" is one of Lovecraft's finest tales, and this version is a collector-quality edition. The story itself is found in many Lovecraft anthologies, including an excellent presentation in Arkham House's "The Dunwich Horror and Others." However, there are many features that mark this volume as the definitive edition of "The Shadow Out of Time."

The corrected text from a recently discovered manuscript is the highlight. This is the tale as Lovecraft envisioned it. Anyone familiar with "The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft" will appreciate S.T. Joshi's meticulous notes and annotations. He adds another layer of insight to these familiar stories.

My favorite feature, however, is the restoration of the pulp cover from Astounding Stories 6-36 where the story first appeared. It is nice to see the pulp roots of H.P. Lovecraft being honored.

Unlike most recent Lovecraft fiction offerings, "The Shadow Out of Time" focuses on Lovecraft's final tale concerning Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, a professor at the infamous Miskatonic University who undergoes an amazing personality change that leads to a mysterious expedition under the deserts of Australia. Working from Lovecraft's own handwritten manuscript along with the common versions, the result is "The Shadow Out of Time" as Lovecraft himself must have visioned the final product.
Along with the corrected text, there are the marvelous detailed notes, appendices and history that readers have come to realize as the hallmark of a Joshi/Schultz collaboration. And like other Joshi/Schultz edited volumes, "The Shadow Out of Time" is a must have item for the complete H.P. Lovecraft library. Hopefully many other volumes devoted to other Lovecraft classics will follow.

For scholarly-minded Lovecraft readers who can manage the hefty price (this volume is put out by a publisher specializing in reference books for libraries, such books usually being very expensive because of low print runs and then storing these titles on inventory for many years rather than remaindering them), this is a "must-have" reference and research tool. Joshi and Schultz are, respectively, THE leading figure and one of the leading figures in Lovecraftian scholarship, and they've assembled something that is most helpful, that merits high praise for accuracy and assiduousness.

That said, the priorities of AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA are somewhat perverse and leave something to be desired.

Astoundingly, there's no discussion whatsoever of Lovecraft's philosophical beliefs, a matter that coauthor Joshi has elsewhere written, and nearly all contemporary Lovecraftian scholars agree, is essential to an understanding of Lovecraft's works and life. Why not? In the preface, Joshi and Schultz write: "No separate entry on Lovecraft's philosophical thought is included here, as the topic is too complex for succinct discussion." (p. xi.) How "succinct" are we talking here, one wonders? General information encyclopedias manage to summarize the "thought" of the great original figures Western philosophy in articles ranging from a few sentences to a few pages. Surely something calling itself AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA could muster a few paragraphs or a few pages about the nature of the "philosophical thought" of Lovecraft himself. (By such reasoning, there shouldn't even be such a thing as general information encyclopedias, since the sum of human knowledge is assuredly "too complex" to fit into a work of 30-odd volumes.)

This unwillingness here to do the obvious may be the flipside of a trait of the authors: a difficulty with being succinct when the situation calls for it (which is what encyclopedias are all about in the first place). A huge portion, if not most, of the book is occupied by astonishingly long synopses of Lovecraft's fictional works.

There is, of course, good reason to include synopses of Lovecraft's writings in an encyclopedia devoted to him: to help the scholarly-minded reader sort out his various writings, and to jog the reader's memory as to what transpires in the fictional works. But Joshi and Schultz detail so much that it's as if they're addressing those who've never read the texts and never plan to. Succinctness seems to be a hard pill indeed for the authors to swallow.

So what's the harm in long synopses? First, if the reader's goal is just to have his memory jogged, the amount of reading entailed is so great that a synopsis may be little more help than simply skimming through the text itself. Second, publishers impose page limits on a book like this, and so space used inappropriately is space subtracted from other things.

Already discussed has been how this work incongruously omits any discussion of philosophy. But also omitted are entries for the various supernatural (or, often really, alien) beings in Lovecraft's fiction, because, argue the authors, they "do not figure as 'characters' in any meaningful sense in the tales", despite the fact that fictional persons and places in Lovecraft's works receive entries. There seems to be some unexplained double-standard at work here.

I have a suspicion as to why this double-standard is there. The authors are justly contemptuous of the August Derleth-inspired "Cthulhu Mythos" bunk that so lamentably remains in circulation, and so may be revolted that any highlighting of the likes of Cthulhu, the Old Ones, etc. could be taken as buttressing the spurious notion that there's a Derlethian pantheon of "gods" on which Lovecraft and his colleagues had collaborated.

If that's Joshi's and Schultz's underlying motivation for treating these entities differently from other proper names, then they're to be faulted for letting the "Mythos" help define Lovecraftian studies. Moreover, scholarly-minded Lovecraftians should be able to use a Lovecraft encyclopedia as part of their arsenal to debunk misconceptions, and so including entries on Lovecraft's supernatural/alien entities that set the record straight as to what they're each about may be the most important components of that arsenal.

Collaborative compiled by Lovecraftian experts S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia is an exhaustive reference filled with an impressive wealth of biographical and literary lore about one of the best-known writers of supernatural horror in the 20th century. Filled cover to cover with bibliographical information, the encyclopedia lists entries in A to Z format of people Lovecraft knew, characters in his books, and much more. An extensive, scholarly reference especially for Lovecraft enthusiasts, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia is an essential, core, indispensable reference work for students of Lovecraft's life and work.

Both this book, AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA and its companion volume issued at the same time by Greenwood, THE COMPLETE H.P. LOVECRAFT FILMOGRAPHY are highly recommended. Both books are scholarly, authoritative and well written. These two excellent works encompass the highest level of scholarship about Lovecraft and should be read by every fan and student of Lovecraft. Bravo to Greenwood for these two volumes.

H.P. Lovecraft was at the hub of a small circle of weird fiction writers, artists and enthusiasts. Even the most casual note sent in by a fan of his work would often receive a wonderfully long and detailed letter by way of thanks. Were it not for HPL's mammoth correspondence, writers like Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, E. Hoffmann Price, August Derleth, and Donald Wandrei would never have gotten to know one another and, very possibly, might not have persued writing careers with nearly as much fervor and creative imagination.

This book is a record of the friendship that developed between HPL and Donald Wandrei who, as a 19-year-old University of Minnesota student in 1926, one day decided to write a fan letter. For the next ten years, the two men would exchange views on everything from the "weird" influence on art and literature to the woes of trying to get Hugo Gernsback, editor of WEIRD TALES, to pay for the stories he bought.

Readers will also find interesting Wandrei's hitching odessey in the Summer of 1927, when he went from St. Paul to New York City to Providence, Rhode Island (bumming lifts all the way) in order to visit HPL from July 12-29.

There is also a great deal of humor to be garnered from these letters, especially HPL's near obsession with a cheap eatery called JAKE'S (where you could get a complete meal for 25 cents) and a precursor to Baskin and Robbins called MAXWELL'S, where HPL would take visitors and stage ice cream eating contests.

The only truly sad notes were HPL's consistent failures to secure a steady writing job and his persistent racism (also shared by Wandrei, at least while he explored New York). While certainly a blot on their characters, it does add to rendering a more complete picture of two creative people: one a neophyte, the other a rather weary and disillusioned veteran.

This must surely be one of the most fascinating books published on Lovecraft in a very long time. The book contains nearly all of the correspondance between him and Donald Wandrei, a horror/sci-fi writer in his own right, as well as upcoming co-founder of Arkham House. What makes this volume particular fascinating, is that it not only contains Lovecrafts letters, but also Wandreis, making this volume so much more exciting to read because of the ping-pong effect it gives. A lot of other letter-books tend to be slightly boring because the letters seem out of place due to the missing answers.
The two talk about their life, their writings, their authorfriends and what they read, giving a wonderful glimpse into the lives of two struggling writers who never made the big jackpot!
Of course the book will mainly be enjoyed by the hardcore-Lovecraft-fan, but even the more casual reader will be entertained by this book, that also gives a glimpse into the way life was lived in the beginning of the last century!

On top of that, the publisher has done a wonderful job in producing the book; smythsewn binding, fine paper and highquality printing!!
The book is the first in a series of books containing letters of Lovecraft, and I already look forward to the next volumes!
Highly recommended!

I'll admit it, I'm a tech dork. I work for an Internet company and this book is perfect for tag and signature lines for email. Although on a more serious note the definitions found here are not the dictionary definitions but the definitions that modern day society has reflected upon them. While a word, item, or identification for something may mean one thing in the dicitonary we tend to stereotype or re-clasify it in our times as something completly different. Read the exerpts for some good examples. Whil the book was compiled of pieces written back in the turn of the 20th centurey a lot of the sarcastic or sardonic definitions still hold true. Definatly an interseting book.

Ambrose Bierce, in this hilarious book, satirizes all aspects of human behavior. This lexicon that he has created provides often true insight in to the tacit meanings of otherwise benign words. For example, PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. This book is a must-get.

If you don't have access to the 5-volume "Selected Letters" (published by Arkham House), this book is indispensible. This collection of letters spans Lovecraft's adulthood and covers such diverse topics as writing, eighteenth century antiquities, philosophy, politics, racism, economics, cats, travel, and even the art of buying a cheap suit!

Veteran Lovecraft scholars will enjoy this work because of the editors' efforts at placing each selection of letters in its proper context. These little annotations assist the reader in gaining a better understanding of the author's need to communicate with kindred spirits (despite his avowed misanthropy), his attempts to battle his depression with satiric humor, and the sometimes extreme lengths undertaken to cope with the slide into poverty and near starvation.

Well researched and ably constructed, Joshi and Schultz's offering is a welcome addition. Highly recommended.

Strange that it took so long for someone to think of this. Lovecraft was one of history's great letter-writers, and many of his letters contain autobiographical details, so why not gather those all together? Well, here they are, 343 pages of letters, Lovecraft's autobiographical sketch SOME NOTES ON A NONENTITY, and some explanatory notes. The letters don't really form a coherent autobiography, and someone who reads this book without having read Joshi's biography of Lovecraft first will probably not form a very clear idea of Lovecraft's life.

Most of the letters are new to me, even though I am familiar with the contents of the multi-volume Arkham House "Collected Letters." Virtually all the letters are a delight to read, since poor Lovecraft could find entertainment in even the most humdrum activities... consider the wild Arabian Nights bazaar-haggling fantasy he inserts into the account of his search for a good, cheap suit, after a thief made away with almost everything he owned in the way of wearables.

The text has one annoying defect; the letters are usually not introduced by telling us who they were written to, and one must repeatedly turn to a couple of pages marked "sources" for this vital info. Lovecraft's tone and style, and openness or reticence, varied greatly with correspondent, and this is background info you have to have to appreciate a given letter.

Typographical errors are very few; I spotted only about four, all probably transcription errors in copying from Lovecraft's microscopically hand-written originals.

Like the majority of university press books I have seen over the past 40 long-suffering years, this one suffers from what Lovecraft himself might call "preternaturally odious" design. The cover consists of a fuzzy snapshot of Lovecraft superimposed on a collage of details from old engravings, and each major section is defaced by a grey blob that is probably imagined, by someone with no sense of design, to be decorative. Chapter headings seem to have been affected by word-processing runaway, so that for instance the index is headed "Marriage and Exile, Clinton Street and Red Hook"!

Let's just say I loved every word of it. After you read it, this should go right on the shelf with your worn, much-read volumes of Lovecraft fiction, and you'll find yourself dipping into it at random, at odd times. What a man! Recommended!