H.P. Lovecraft Bibliographies

Blogger and educator Eric Hoefler posted an extensive bibliography of H.P. Lovecraft related sources, as well as an essay he wrote for a Graduate level course in English on recent developments in Lovecraftian scholarship. Both are available for viewing and download--in several different file types for the bibliography--on his "Sicheii Yazhi" blog here. Hoefler, whether fully conscious of it or not, has just graced the Lovecraftian community with another excellent bibliography useful for researching the literature and life of HPL.

Completest bibliographies have long been challenging to compile and discover in the history of Lovecraft studies, often due to the difficult task of focusing on explicitly Lovecraft-related works for inclusion. And even then, the question is often raised of whether or not a bibliography will have this specific focus, or attempt to undertake the overwhelming task of representing wider pieces from the Cthulhu Mythos. Unlike the slowly burgeoning, but easily coherent bibliography of someone like Thomas Ligotti--who has no known revisionist works ghostwritten for other authors, no large following (yet) of pastiche fiction written by others, nor a mountain of scholarship written about his stories--H.P. Lovecraft bibliographies are no easy task.

Fortunately, a number of scholars have tackled the ominous quest of archiving both fiction and scholarship relevant to Lovecraft and the broader Mythos. Hplovecraft.com lists a dated, but suitable selection of bibliographies by eminent minds like S.T. Joshi. Regrettably, these bibliographies are also not the most accessible outside of academia. Chris Jarocha-Ernst's Cyclopean book-length bibliography, A Cthulhu Mythos Bibliography and Concordance, is all but essential for the serious student. Yet, it too has fallen into the abyss of dangerous scarcity and rising prices since it is already out of print. It's no surprise, then, most researchers naturally turn to the web for online compilations of Lovecraftian scholarship. The Cthulhu Files contains one of the best listings of published work by contemporary weird writers from HPL's time, as well as writers like Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Robert Bloch, and many others who constituted the first 'Lovecraft Circle' of fellow Mythos authors. Though it appears to be updated infrequently today, the Ultimate Mythos Book List isn't a bad place to look for clear tables of published Mythos fiction either.

Hopefully, widening interest in more serious explorations of H.P. Lovecraft and the sub-genre he spawned will increase the output of quality bibliographies. Should a fresh and well researched Lovecraft bibliography spring up in book form, or better, an updated online database within the next couple years, it would be warmly welcomed.

-Grim Blogger