My reactions to reading this autobiography in 2005.

This autobiography of Lovecraft helps explain why he has attained the reputation he has today, why he was not forgotten. He was a charming, interesting correspondent whether we’re reading the minute details of how he lived on $2.10 of food a week, his recounting to his aunt Annie of his quest to get a cheap cooking stove, his manic quest to replace the suits stolen from him in New York, his travels to Quebec and Charleston and New Orleans, the close examination and reviews he gave those young writers he mentored, and his views on race and socialism. Lovecraft comes across as thoughtful, a close examiner of the things in his life and writing, a man many remember fondly though they just corresponded with him. There is the moving letter to the depressed Helen Sully in which Lovecraft outlines his practical stoicism. Despite his poverty and disappointment at how his writing career has turned out, he relates the many things he does take joy in. Marcus Aurelius would have been proud of his attitude. I smiled when I read how Lovecraft said nobody would catch his linguistic goof in the language of his devolving protagonist in “The Rats in the Wall”. Someone did and that was Robert Howard who became a dear friend of Lovecraft. (We also get the reasons Lovecraft admired Howard -- not his intellect but his vigor and energy.) Lovecraft’s sincere interest in helping young writers is shown in his letter to R. H. Barlow about teenage wunderkind Kenneth Sterling with whom he co-wrote “In the Walls of Eryx”.

“Appendix: Some Notes on a Nonentity”, H. P. Lovecraft -- A tightly condensed 1933 autobiographical essay in which Lovecraft not only outlines his life and interests but his inspirations in other authors and landscapes as well as theory of horror writing. ( )

Though HP Lovecraft has a (mostly unmerited) reputation for being a recluse, he kept in touch with many people through correspondence, and the volume of his letters dwarfs his fiction and amateur press work. Joshi and co-editor David Schulz have drawn from his vast correspondence to create an account of HPL's life in his own words. Excerpts have been organized chronologically and thematically, to provide an account of Lovecraft's life and adventures, as well as his evolving views on science, society, and fiction. As anyone who's familiar with him knows, HPL was quite an interesting figure: a man who embraced science but thought he belonged in the 18th century, who rejected religion but clung to notions of racial difference, and whose fiction could be both bold and reactionary. While this is not the most thorough of biographies, since there are some subjects that the Old Gent was reluctant to put in his correspondence, the opportunity to read about it from his perspective is worth it. ( )