H.P. Lovecraft's "Commonplace Book" Online!

The blog "La Petite Claudine" is hosting a handsomely organized transcription of H.P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book, seemingly in its entirety. At the hazard of touching off a renewed copyright battle by helping popularize this material by linkage here, the opportunity to view these entries is irresistible. This 221 log booklet by HPL served as a personal sketchpad of sorts for weird fiction writing ideas, from about 1918 to 1935. In later years, it became a little less personal, as the author shared it with the young Robert H. Barlow (who also made a more formal typed copy for Lovecraft) and others. But why waste my own words when HPL himself provided an apt description of its contents for Barlow:

This book consists of ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction. Very few are actually developed plots—for the most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed to set the memory or imagination working. Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on.

For Lovecraft scholars and artists studying the master, it is an essential primary source. The fairly uncommon publication of the Commonplace Book has helped retain its mystery. In recent decades, it has primarily seen light in a rare Arkham House edition of the text, as well as S.T. Joshi's selection of H.P. Lovecraft's essays, juvenilia, and other material in (out of print) Miscellaneous Writings. Thus, the possibility that Joshi or Arkham House might seek to have online forms of the Commonplace Book taken down. It is entirely possible, though, that any copyright claims to HPL's notes are as dubious as those attached to his fiction. We can only hope. For now, gaze upon one of the closest things to a transcription of Lovecraft's thoughts and dreams in all its glory, while you can at "La Petite Claudine."

-Grim Blogger