H. P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book

[too_much_in_the_sun]

I'm not sure the exact source of this, but I ran across it the other day and thought it might be of interest.  It seems to cover approximately 1918 - 1935, and is essentially a list of brief story ideas or concepts that Lovecraft wrote down. 

H. P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book - Bruce Sterling

Excerpt:

159 Certain kind of deep-toned stately music of the style of the 1870’s or 1880’s recalls certain visions of that period—gas-litten parlours of the dead, moonlight on old floors, decaying business streets with gas lamps, etc.—under terrible circumstances.

[I am still busy with finals, by the way, but figured I'd drop by for five minutes to post some content.]

Comments

[khronos_keeper]

My internet is being stupid so I cannot access the link, but the one line excerpt is so fascinating! He's not wrong, though I can't recall any specific songs from those decades. After the Ball is from 1890, and still has the same atmosphere.

I do like the idea of grammophones warbling along in the background of his stories.

[too_much_in_the_sun]

...oops. The link problem was on my side; seems it got garbled while posting from my phone. It should be fixed now!

Lovecraft and time is a really fascinating idea to me -- he's so dedicated to his particular kind of antiquated style that it's surprising to have cars, telephones, or modern slang show up. Trying to imagine what music he's thinking of here is a puzzler partly because of that, because the only songs I know from those decades are deeply sentimental and/or religious. (And boy what I wouldn't give to read a Lovecraft story where something treacly like "Oh Promise Me" is playing in the background.)

I think I picked this particular snippet partly because of that: the Spooky Victorian atmosphere he's evoking is one that has popularity now, but he was writing much closer to that actual time.