Oh to be a fly upon ye wall......

To-day in England begins a conference on The Weird at ye Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London.

Keynote speaker One is S. T. Joshi, who delivers a speech entitled "Two Revolutionaries: Poe and Lovecraft."  Keynote speaker two is Roger Luckhurst, who speaks on "Where the Weird is: At the End of the Passage."

Luckhurst is ye editor of THE CLASSIC HORROR STORIES, the edition of H. P. Lovecraft's tales that was publish'd by Oxford University Press.  'Tis a book I refuse to have in my library because its editor has used the pulp texts that were the first publication of most of the stories in the book.  His reason for doing this was because he felt these texts contain'd a "pulp energy" that Lovecraft's Works apparently lack otherwise.  In his review of the book, S. T. has this to say about such a decision:

"How does Luckhurst defend this return to

corrupt texts?  Well, in reality he doesn't. . . .

Luckhurst tries to justify his use of Astounding texts by declaring that he wants to 'retain 

some of the pulp energy that Astounding Stories wanted to inject into Lovecraft's tales'

This is, I humbly submit, blithering idiocy."

S. T. ends his review, "I guess the lesson one has to draw from this book is: Don't entrust an amateur to do a professional's job."

How I wou'd love to listen in onto any discussion these two gents may have at this conference concerning ye editing of Lovecraft's texts!!!