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Synopsis

Within the fantasy-fan and pulp-magazine collecting communities, this group of memoirs by a prolific pulp writer has reached almost legendary stature, although the finished, long-delayed book, proves less impressive than the reputation it rides in on. Price began writing these memoirs in the 1940s, concentrating on such fellow Weird Tales contributors as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. An early long-distance motorist, Price met many figures associated with the magazine, and so can describe firsthand editor Farnsworth Wright's love of raunchy humor and a drunken sword fight with Otis Adelbert Kline.

About half this book is the finest account of that era ever done. The other half suffers because Price completed the book in the 1970s and fell into repeated polemics, berating fans of that period for adulating Lovecraft and Howard. Arguing that his friend HPL was merely an amateur who couldn't break out of Weird Tales and that Howard wasted his time creating Conan the Barbarian, Price appears obtuse and possibly jealous. (Oddly, Arkham editor Ruber seems to agree with Price, whom he describes as "a prodigious worker, not an idler like Lovecraft, whose narrow focus on weird fiction caused him to burn out after several dozen stories" a statement sure to inflame HPL fans.) In addition, Price, a practicing astrologer, blasts Lovecraft for attacking astrology as nonsense. Questionable judgments aside, Price comes across as a far better writer of nonfiction than of fiction. With an introduction by Jack Williamson, a checklist of Price's fiction, and a section of photos, these memoirs will sell out fast to the ardent pulp readership that's been eagerly awaiting them.

-- Publishers Weekly

Table of Contents:

E. Hoffmann Price: Introduction - essay by Jack Williamson Some Notes on EHP and the Book of the Dead - essay by Peter Ruber

• Prologue (Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear: Fictioneers & Others) - essay
• Farnsworth Wright: 1888 - 1940 - (1944) - essay (variant of Book of the Dead: Farnsworth Wright)
• Otis Adelbert Kline: July 1, 1891 - October 24, 1946 - essay
• Howard Phillips Lovecraft: August 20, 1890 - March 15, 1937 - essay
• Robert Ervin Howard: January 22, 1906 - June 11, 1936 - essay
• Clark Ashton Smith: January 13, 1893 - August 14, 1961 - essay
• W. K. Mashburn, Jr.: August 7, 1900 - February 13, 1968 - essay
• Ralph Milne Farley (Pseud. of Roger Sherman Hoar): April 8, 1887 - October 10, 1963 - essay
• Seabury Grandin Quinn: January 1, 1889 - December 24, 1969 - essay
• Hugh Doak Rankin: July 2, 1878 - January 3, 1956 - essay
• The Varnished Vultures & Spider Bite - essay
• Barsoom Badigian: [1873] - Dec. 18, 1960 - essay
• Harry Olmsted: August 10, 1889 - April 2, 1970 - essay
• Albert Richard Wetjen: August 20, 1900 - March 8, 1948 - essay
• Norbert W. Davis: April 18, 1909 - July 28, 1949 - essay
• Milo Ray Phelps: [-d. 1937] - essay
• William S. Bruner - essay
• Henry Kuttner: April 7, 1915 - February 3, 1958 - essay
• August W. Derleth: February 24, 1908 - July 4, 1971 - essay
• Edmond Hamilton: October 21, 1904 - February 1, 1977 - essay
• Epilogue (Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear: Fictioneers & Others) - essay
• The Lovecraft Controversy - Why? - (1976) - essay
• Five Million Words! In his life as in his writing word for Price is 'colorful' - (1947) - essay by Monte Linsley
• Seabury Quinn: An Appreciation - (1977) - essay
• Mortonius (James Ferdinand Morton) - essay
• A Conversation with E. Hoffmann Price - (1986) - interview of E. Hoffmann Price - interview by Gregorio Montejo
• One Man's View of the Death of the Pulp Era - (1975) - essay
• EHP: A Bibliography - essay by Virgil Utter

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