To the reader:
I had begun the following project a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it remains incomplete.
James Clinton Howell (January 2006)
Early in 2004, I played a game for the Nintendo Gamecube titled Eternal Darkness. The game’s aesthetics were designed in reference to the literary horror of H. P. Lovecraft, an early 20th century writer from Rhode Island. Intrigued by Eternal Darkness, I bought a Penguin paperback of some Lovecraft stories and researched Lovecraft materials on the Internet. One of the items I found is an essay titled “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” In the course of his essay, Lovecraft analyzes a horde of books written from the 17th to the 19th century; he then explains how each contributes to the evolution of literary supernatural horror.
Later in the Spring 2004 semester, I won the USC-Aiken Oswald Creative Writing award. (Second year in a row!) Along with the prestige and the plaque, I got a check for $500 which I decided not to put toward tuition. I invested roughly $120 in the books most highly commended by Lovecraft for excellent horror.
This reader’s journal is an informal analysis of each of the books that I bought. By “informal,” I mean that I reserve the right to use phrases like “motherfucking frog” and “achingly pristine dilapidation” as interchangeably as I please. This is not for a grade. This is for insight. If anyone gets anything out of this, I will be delighted.
James Clinton Howell, June 2004
Note: the annotations given to quoted excerpts are primarily for my own use, should I desire to find the quotation from my edition of the book in the future.
Journal Entries on the Books:
The Magus: A Complete System of Occult Philosophy, by Francis Barrett
A Strange Story, by Edward Bulwer Lytton
Melmoth, the Wanderer, by Charles Robert Maturin
If you would like to read the entire essay by Lovecraft, you can access it here:
"Supernatural Horror in Literature," by H. P. Lovecraft
I have copied and pasted the contents from my original web resource in the interest of preserving readers against the pop-up ads attending the original text's servers.
Web design for Adilegian copyrighted 2006 James Clinton Howell.