An Update on Lovecraft Photos

A big thanks to Pietro in Italy must go out for this post being possible. Via blog comments and e-mail, he informed me of the existence of a Lovecraft photo booklet in Italy that's been published for years! It's called Lovecraft: Le Parole, Le Immagini. The book collects a number of photos of both the man and the places he visited and lived. It seems to include a photo on one page, and a background description on the other. Not bad for a photo book layout at all. In fact, sticking to a simple format like this would be an excellent move, should any publisher (perhaps spurred by blog posts like these?) ever decide to make a new book of collected images. A few of the photos presented were of patchy quality, but still contained material new to these eyes.

Oddly, the Italian book compiled its sources mostly from Arkham House material in the United States, especially the Marginalia book. If many of the original photos remain in the hands of Arkham House, this raises the specter of another copyrights issue, perhaps explaining why no one has attempted to create another Lovecraft photo book in America. However, this raises several more queries in of itself. Such as, why does Arkham House own the rights to these images, if they cannot even defend claims to HPL's stories? And if they do control any rights, then weren't these acquired at the same time Derleth and others claimed direct control of certain Lovecraft intellectual and material items from his estate? I'll admit I am unsure of the public domain requirements governing images, but it seems that these, like HPL's stories protected by a different legal measure, should remain free. Especially considering that the photos were only taken by Lovecraft and his circle of friends, and only reprinted haphazardly many years later in the US and abroad. In any case, yet another ambiguous quagmire for American Lovecraftians.

I was also informed of a few American sources that do specialize in limited Lovecraftian photography. Unfortunately, all are out of print. "The Arkham Sampler," published by The Strange Company (1983), put out two photo-centric issues of Lovecraftian goodness, beginning with Vol. I, No. 3. It also described each item and placed them in chronological order. This is probably the closest thing we have in the US to an Italian booklet like Lovecraft: Le Parole, Le Immagini. The similarly rare small press magazine, "Etchings and Odysseys," is said to have published rarer pictures of Lovecraft on a few occasions. It too, is another gem of the '80s.

Before I go, Pietro runs an excellent blog called "Studi Lovecraftiani" in Italian. Check him out. I'm also closing again with a few rarer pictures of Lovecraft, a few of which were contained in the material Pietro revealed. Enjoy!


-Grim Blogger