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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

This is a collection of Price's fantasy, horror and mystery short stories, which originally appeared in the magazines Weird Tales, Strange Detective Stories, Spicy-Adventure Stories, Golden Fleece, Argosy, Spicy Mystery Stories, Strange Stories, Short Stories, Terror Tales and Speed Mystery.

Table of Contents:

• Far Lands, Other Days - interior artwork by George Evans
• Foreword (Far Lands, Other Days) - essay
• The Word of Santiago - [Pierre d'Atois] - (1926) - shortstory
• The Peacock's Shadow - [Pierre d'Atois] - (1926) - novelette
• Gray Sphinx - shortfiction
• Makeda's Cousin - shortfiction
• Satan's Garden - [Pierre d'Atois] - (1934) - novella
• Queen of the Lilin - [Pierre d'Atois] - (1934) - novelette
• The Dreamer of Atlânaat - [The Dreamer of Atlânaat] - (1926) - shortstory
• A Jest and a Vengeance - [The Dreamer of Atlânaat] - (1929) - shortstory
• Wolves of Kerak - (1938) - shortfiction
• The Hand of Wrath - (1935) - shortstory
• One Step from Hell - (1939) - shortfiction
• Web of Wizardry - (1942) - shortfiction
• Saladin's Throne-Rug - (1927) - shortfiction
• Allah Sends a Reaper - (1939) - shortfiction
• Khosru's Garden - (1940) - shortfiction
• Hasheesh Wisdom - (1936) - shortfiction
• Snake Goddess - (1939) - novelette
• House of the Monoceros - shortfiction by Clark Ashton Smith and E. Hoffmann Price (variant of House of Monoceros 1941) [as ]
• You Can't Eat Glory - (1946) - shortfiction
• Woman in the Case - (1938) - shortfiction
• Heart of a Thief - (1940) - shortfiction
• Kiss of Sekhmet - shortfiction
• Vengeance in Samarra - (1940) - shortfiction
• Selene Walks By Night - (1940) - shortfiction
• Prayer to Satan - (1942) - novelette
• A King is Next to God - shortfiction
• Shadow Captain - (1943) - shortfiction
• Peach Blossom Paradise - shortfiction
• The Hands of Janos - shortfiction
• The Shadow of Saturn - (1950) - shortstory
• The Infidel's Daughter - (1927) - novelette

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Satan's Daughter and Other Tales from the Pulps) - (2004) - essay by Darrell Schweitzer
• Satan's Daughter - (1936) - novelette
• Pit of Madness - (1936) - shortstory
• The Walking Dead - (1935) - shortstory
• Every Man a King - (1943) - novelette
• Revolt of the Damned - (1937) - shortstory
• Crystal Clues - (1936) - shortstory
• Night in Manilla - (1935) - shortstory
• Murder Salvage - (1941) - shortstory
• Triangle with Variations - (1924) - shortstory
• Scourge of the Silver Dragon - (1935) - novelette
• Drink or Draw - (1943) - novelette
• She Herded Him Around - (1941) - shortstory
• You Can't Fight a Woman - (1939) - shortstory

This is a retelling of the Madame White Snake legend, also the basis for Tsui Hark's 1993 film, Green Snake. Price changes certain elements of the original tale -- the names have all been changed, for example -- but the basics are the same.

A failed scholar meets two immensely desirable women, who happen to be snake spirits attempting to take a short-cut on the wheel of life, whom he takes as his wives. Buddhist monks and Taoist priests, not trusting spirits who attempt humanness without the benefit of reincarnation, attempt to tear them apart.

It was perhaps natural, after a thousand years of celibacy, that the Immortal Jade Lady should petition the Moon Goddess for a lover. The trouble was that he was a mortal and she was a spirit -- which made for certain difficulties. Then she had to fall in love with him!

Ju-hai had troubles enough without spirit entanglements. He had a powerful enemy, seeking to destroy his family to seize their lands. Somehow, Ju-hai had to rescue his father, illegally impressed to fight a distant war, even though success meant outlawry. Then he had to win justice and vengeance against the enemy. It was a task to confound a mighty warrior and magician. And, of course, there was the matter of Hsi-feng, the little slave-girl...

But the Jade Lady meant to save him and to make him an Immortal, too -- whether he wanted to be on not!

Rod Garvin just made too many waves for the Thought Control Board that controlled the Plastic Society of the 21st century. Throwing him in an insane asylum didn't restrain him, nor -- when that didn't work -- did sentencing him to a suicide job on Mars. Garvin was bright, driven, and stubborn, so the only thing Thought Control could was was get rid of him -- quietly and permanently.

And that was fine with Garvin, since it meant he could make his dreamed-of voyage into deep space. But even beyond Saturn, Garvin couldn't avoid his talent for trouble. When his exploration ship stumbled onto an asteroid peopled by remnants of a starfaring race and possessed of incredible mineral wealth, it opened the possibility of unlimited loot for Earth and Thought Control -- if only Rod Garvin hadn't been the man to make the find...

In the twenty-first century, Avery Jarvis "Doc" Brandon lived in luxurious seclusion on subtropical Nameless Island. An immensely wealthy gene-engineer who dabbled in illegal baby-making, Doc was 186 years of age and looked thirty-five.

But a storm loomed on his horizon: Bureaucrats had blundered across Doc's real age. They wanted his "secret discovery" and would undertake anything -- including blackmail, kidnapping, and murder -- to get it.

Alexander Heflin, Imperator of North America, had his hands full: a war was brewing that could destroy the Imperium. Seeking to protect his wife, Lani, from their increasingly powerful enemies, Alex called on the one person he could trust: ex-war hero Rod Garvin.

Babysitting an Imperatrix seemed too easy a job for an adventurer of Garvin's caliber. After all, it kept him on Mars, while the action was happening on Earth. Little did he know that Alex was embarking upon a desperate ploy to save his nation by destroying it -- and it would be up to Garvin to pick up the pieces.

Rod Garvin, governor of North America and Mars, was supposed to be on vacation, spending time in France with his Number One wife, Flora, and Felix, the son he had never met. But where Garvin went, trouble followed. Alerted by a spy in Flora's household, his enemies awaited his arrival. And the war leaders of North America had a new assignment for Garvin: find Lani, Imperatrix of North America, and convince her to come out of hiding.

So, trailed by assassins, Garvin set out for the Egypt colony, where the incognito Lani was worshipped as the incarnation of Isis. But Rod Garvin was no longer on his own. Son Felix, a chip off the old block, insisted on accompanying his dad on this mission. Can this new father-son team complete their mission -- or will guards, assassins, and Lani herself prove their undoing?