David Simmons, H. P. Lovecraft and the Shadow of England. Symbiosis, 11.1 (April 2007) 89-104.

This essay was originally published in Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, Volume 11.1 (April 2007) pp. 89-104

Essay Topics and Keywords:

H. P. Lovecraft, ‘The Street’ (1919), ‘Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family’ (1920), ‘The Rats in the Walls’ (1923), and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926–27), Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, Hayden White’s concept of ‘Metahistory’.

An extract from this essay:

“The Anglophile nature of the American writer H. P. Lovecraft is well known in Lovecraftian circles, the writer once remarking in a 1927 letter: ‘If I could create an ideal world, it would be an England with the fire of the Elizabethans, the correct taste of the Georgians, and the refinement and pure ideals of the Victorians.’1 However, while Lovecraft’s penchant for all things English is ostensibly and perhaps somewhat superficially accepted by such scholars, there has been relatively little academic work undertaken concerned directly with the writer’s potential integration of this affinity for anything English into his fiction. Several critics, including S. T. Joshi and Paul Cannon, have discussed Lovecraft’s intense awareness of his English ancestry and proclivity for English writers, yet none have engaged in a close reading of how this partisanship may have manifested itself in Lovecraft’s collection of fantastic and supernatural short stories.”

David Simmons

University of Birmingham