Eldritch... cacodaemoniacal... lucubration... Have you ever wondered about the meaning of these and other esoteric words used by Lovecraft and his colleagues? In this Cyclopean dictionary, the product of æons of erudition and research into the most recondite recesses of literature, Dan Clore not only defines thousands of words found in the work of A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and many others in the weird fantasy tradition, but supplies their etymologies and, most impressively, provides parallel usages of the words from centuries of English usage, citing authors ranging from Cotton Mather to Henry Kuttner, from Edmund Spenser to Samuel R. Delany. This is a volume that scholars of English usage, enthusiasts of fantasy and horror literature, and readers who love the beauty of the English language will find richly rewarding... either to read from beginning to end or to dip into as the mood strikes them.
Dan Clore is a free-lance writer and scholar. He has had articles published in Lovecraft Studies, Studies in Weird Fiction, Necrofile: The Review of Horror Fiction, Weird Times, and the anthologies A Century Less a Dream: Selected Criticism on H.P. Lovecraft, The Freedom of Fantastic Things: Selected Criticism on Clark Ashton Smith, and Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia. His fiction has appeared in The Urbanite, Deathrealm, Terminal Fright, Lore, Epitaph, Black October Magazine, Cosmic Visions, Cthulhu Sex, Creatio ex Nihilo, The NetherReal, and the anthologies The Last Continent: New Tales of Zothique and Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales. It was collected inThe Unspeakable and Others, first published in the fall of 2001, undoubtedly the most terrifying incident to occur in the period. A revised and expanded edition of The Unspeakable and Others will appear in 2009.
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