The Robert H. Waugh Library of Lovecraftian Criticism (3 VOLUMES)

ONE SET REMAINS!

Available to be signed/inscribed by cover designer Dan Sauer. Please specify how you'd like it to be signed in the comments section of the order form.

Published by our friends at Hippocampus Press! Edited by James Chambers. Cover art by Josh Yelle (Pencilmancer). Cover design and series logo by Dan Sauer. Three paperback volumes (6x9 inches) totaling 900+ pages.

Three volumes of scintillant, dynamic Lovecraftian literary criticism—over 900 pages in total—for one low price!

To celebrate the release of A Monster for Many, Hippocampus Press has reissued Dr. Waugh's first two collections, making a uniform three-volume set. This new 2021 edition features new cover art by Josh Yelle and cover design by Dan Sauer. Inside, the first two volumes have each been brought up to date with regard to citations & footnotes. Volume 2 also features an index, absent from the initial edition.

THE MONSTER IN THE MIRROR (2006)

During the past three decades, Robert H. Waugh has established himself as a leading scholar on H. P. Lovecraft. Bringing to the study of Lovecraft a remarkable breadth of knowledge in literature, aesthetics, history, and philosophy, Waugh has approached his subject with sensitivity and nuance.

In this volume of his collected essays on Lovecraft, the reader will learn of the importance of documents in Lovecraft’s work; his provocative similarities to the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi; and his fascination with underground horror, as exemplified in At the Mountains of Madness and other tales. In a trilogy of substantial essays, Waugh looks at Lovecraft’s seminal story “The Outsider” from a variety of critical perspectives. A concluding article probes the controverted issue of religion in Lovecraft’s life, thought, and writings. In all, the essays demonstrate that Lovecraft’s multifaceted work is a virtually inexhaustible treasure-trove for the scholar and analyst. The Monster in the Mirror has been brought up to date with regard to citations, footnotes, etc. for this re-release.

A MONSTER OF VOICES (2011)

For more than three decades, Robert H. Waugh has been one of the most penetrating scholars of the work and thought of H. P. Lovecraft. His earlier volume, The Monster in the Mirror (2006), contained a treasury of essays that displayed Waugh's exhaustive knowledge of Lovecraft’s work and his skill in placing Lovecraft in a broader literary context. This new collection of essays cements Waugh’s reputation as a pioneering Lovecraft scholar.

Among the contributions are studies of the influence of World War I on “The Rats in the Walls”; Lovecraft’s relationship to his two late colleagues, Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber, as well as to such other writers as D. H. Lawrence, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Eugene O’Neill; the influence of Roman literature and history on Lovecraft; and the sublimated eroticism of “The Thing on the Doorstep” and “Medusa’s Coil.” All in all, this volume, containing several previously unpublished essays, displays the inexhaustible depths of Lovecraft’s writing and Robert H. Waugh’s deftness in probing its intricacies. A Monster of Voices has been brought up to date with regard to citations, footnotes, etc. for this re-release, and now includes an index, absent from the initial edition.

A MONSTER FOR MANY (2021)

In the 1990s, Robert H. Waugh—now Emeritus Professor of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz—emerged as one of the most profound and learned commentators on H. P. Lovecraft. He has brought to the study of the Providence writer a deep knowledge of literature in English, French, Latin, and other languages, and a sensitivity to the complex nuances found in Lovecraft’s literary work. This third volume of his essays continues the pattern of his earlier books, The Monster in the Mirror and A Monster of Voices. Here we have studies of Lovecraft’s use of the imagery of wells in “The Colour out of Space”; the cosmic history of alien species in At the Mountains of Madness and “The Shadow out of Time”; the role that the fictional Miskatonic University plays in Lovecraft’s fiction; and the influence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on several Lovecraft tales.

Other essays discuss Lovecraft’s influence on such science fiction writers as Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Leiber, and Philip K. Dick, as well as such understudied tales as “Cool Air” and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. And Waugh’s long rumination about Lovecraft’s response to the Nobel Prize winners of his day displays to the full the author’s wide-ranging expertise on world literature.