Thank ye, Mr Poftman!

Honey, ye thrill of being an obsess'd Lovecraft fanboy continues to elevate to nameless heights. Our charming poftman has just deliver'd a wee parcel in which three treasur'd volumes were contained in bubble-wrap. I cannot help but go on a bit more about these delightful LOVECRAFT ILLUSTRATED editions from PS Publishing. Ye brain-child of artist Pete Von Sholly, each volume contains a new Introduction by S. T. Joshi, follow'd by ye Joshi-edited text of that edition's story, colourfully illustrated by Pete. Much to my delighted surprise, when Von Solly ask'd S. T. Joshi to suggest names of people who might be interested in writing new essays on Lovecraft's stories for the books, my name was mention'd; & thus I have been invited to write for a number of these volumes, and that has proved delightful, especially because it returns me to Lovecraft's texts and allows me to study them in ways I have never attempted, thus to express some critical comment regarding them. I confess that I have become "hooked" in ye composition of these essays; & so I was delighted to learn that Pete and PS plan to bring out future editions, until all of Lovecraft's main weird tales are collected in illustrated volumes. This makes me hope that I can write for some of the new ones--I am especially keen on doing an essay for a THE LURKING FEAR volume, shou'd such transpire.

Rereading Lovecraft is an addiction. There are few texts to which I constantly return--the few being Dante, Shakespeare, Wilde's letters, the Book of Mormon--and so it's always nice to have those beloved texts in new editions, thus giving another reading of the stories a sense of novelty. Also, I return to Lovecraft's tales so often because I am forever writing stories that are connected to HPL's original tales--just now I am studying "The Horror at Red Hook" so as to write a new story for a Red Hook anthology. 

Speaking of which, I need to bring this to a close and get back to work. And try to resist ye temptation to dip immediately into these charming new volumes in ye LOVECRAFT ILLUSTRATED series...