H.P. Lovecraft, an evaluation

Joseph Payne Brennan
Copyright 1955 by Joseph Payne Brennan MACABRE HOUSE 55 Trumbull St. New Haven 10 Connecticut
Since the publication of my “H. P. Lovecraft: A Bibliography” (Biblio Press, 1952), I have been repeatedly urged to write out my opinion of Lovecraft’s work. I have been kept from doing so by the pressure of a full-time library job, plus my own creative work in the diverse fields of the horror story, the western story, and poetry, as well as the semi-annual publication of ESSENCE and other time-consuming activities such as an unending struggle against censorship groups which are violating Constitutional rights on both a local and national level.
The following brief essay is an admittedly hurried and incomplete attempt to meet demands for a Lovecraft critique. An entire book, requiring many months of uninterrupted work, could be devoted to the project and I sincerely regret that circumstances do not permit me to undertake such a task. But I hope that my comments, in spite of their brevity, will be of some interest.
Nearly twenty years have passed since Lovecraft’s death, but, unfortunately, a final evaluation of the man and of his work is still not possible. His collected poems, though due to appear shortly, have not yet been published. His letters, either selected or collected, have not appeared. Probably some of the pieces which he contributed under pseudonyms to “little” magazines have never been reprinted. And of course no complete and carefully written biography of the man has ever been published.
With the important exception of the poems and letters however, all of Lovecraft’s work of any significance has been in print for some years. It seems doubtful, therefore, that an evaluation of his work, at this time, will be seriously qualified by future publication.
In his essay on Lovecraft, “Tales of the Marvellous and the Ridiculous”, which originally appeared in “The New Yorker” and was later reprinted in his book, “Classics and Commercials”, Edmund Wilson states flatly: “Lovecraft was not a good writer.” (Before Lovecraft admirers reach for their shotguns, I might point out that Edmund Wilson also refers to no less a literary figure than Somerset Maugham as “second-rate” and “a half-trashy novelist.”) Even though his criticism is far too severe—too much of a generalization—Wilson does call attention to two Lovecraft faults which I must reluctantly acknowledge: his frequent prolixity and his tendency to lean on shopworn adjectives such as “terrible”, “horrible”, “hellish”, etc. to achieve eerie effects. In a good horror story, adjectives such as this are best omitted or at least introduced very sparingly. Beyond these criticisms, Wilson emphasizes the essential weakness and lack of verisimilitude of the “Cthulhu Mythos” episodes. With this, too, I must grudgingly agree. And at this point I would like to call attention to the fact that the two specific faults mentioned immediately above—prolixity and adjectivitus—are more frequently encountered in the “Mythos” stories than in any others.