S. T. Joshi

Sunand Tryambak Joshi (b. 22 June 1958 in Pune, India) is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (HP Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.

Literary criticism

His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.

Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.

At the time of writing, Joshi is working towards the publication of the collected poetry of Clark Ashton Smith and George Sterling, and Lovecraft’s Collected Essays.

Social criticism

In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader is scheduled for release in 2007.

Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.

In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.

Personal life

Joshi, who lives with his wife in Seattle, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, HP Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.

Bibliography

Books Written

• H. P. Lovecraft and Lovecraft Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1981).
• H. P. Lovecraft (Starmont Reader's Guide 13) (Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1982).
• The Weird Tale (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990).
• John Dickson Carr: A Critical Study (Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1990).
• H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West (Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1990).
• Lord Dunsany: A Bibliography (with Darrell Schweitzer) (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1993).
• Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995).
• The Core of Ramsey Campbell: A Bibliography & Reader's Guide (with Ramsey Campbell and Stefan Dziemianowicz) (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1995).
• HP Lovecraft: A Life (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1996).
• A Subtler Magick The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft. (Wildside Press, December 1996).
• Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography (Arkham House, 1999)
• The Modern Weird Tale (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, [March] 2001).
• Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, [June] 2001).
• God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, [June] 2003).
• Primal Sources: Essays on H. P. Lovecraft (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2003).
• The Evolution of the Weird Tale (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2004).
• Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopaedia (with Stefan Dziemianowicz) (2005)
• The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006).

Awards

International Horror Guild Award for Best Non-Fiction Work 2005 for Supernatural Literature of the World[1]

Books Edited

• H. P. Lovecraft in "The Eyrie" (with Marc A. Michaud (1979).
• H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism (1980).
• The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft by Sonia H. Davis (1985).
• Collected Poems by Donald Wandrei (1988).
• An Epicure in the Terrible: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honour of H. P. Lovecraft (with David E. Schultz) (1991).
• The Count of Thirty: A Tribute to Ramsey Campbell (1993).
• H. P. Lovecraft in the Argosy (1994).
• Caverns Measureless to Man: 18 Memoirs of Lovecraft (1996).
• Best Ghost Stories by Bram Stoker (with Richard Dalby and Stefan Dziemianowicz) (1997).
• A Night with Mephistopheles by Henry Ferris (1997).
• The Complete John Silence Stories by Algernon Blackwood (Dover Books, 1998).
• A Sole Survivor: Bits of Autobiography by Ambrose Bierce (with David E. Schultz) (1998).
• Documents of American Prejudice (edited) (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
• Great Weird Tales (Dover Books, 1999).
• Collected Fables by Ambrose Bierce (2000).
• Civil War Memories (2000).
• The Horror on the Stair and Other Weird Tales by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (2000).
• The Monster Maker and Other Stories by W. C. Morrow (with Stefan Dziemianowicz) (2000).
• The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (with David E. Schultz) (2000).
• The Yellow Sign and Other Stories by Robert W. Chambers (2000).
• Atheism: A Reader (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, [October] 2000).
• The Fall of the Republic and Other Political Satires by Ambrose Bierce (with David E. Schultz) (2000).
• The Mark of the Beast and Other Horror Tales by Rudyard Kipling (Dover Books, 2000).
• From Baltimore to Bohemia: The Letters of H. L. Mencken and George Sterling (2001).
• The Three Impostors and Other Stories by Arthur Machen (2001).
• The Return of the Soul and Other Stories by Robert S. Hichens (2001).
• The Black Diamonds by Clark Ashton Smith (2002).
• Great Tales of Terror (Dover Books, 2002).
• H. L. Mencken on American Literature (2002).
• Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories by Algernon Blackwood (2002).
• H. L. Mencken on Religion (2002).
• Eyes of the God by R. H. Barlow (with Douglas A. Anderson and David E. Schultz) (2002).
• Ramsey Campbell, Probably by Ramsey Campbell (2002).
• The Place Called Dagon by Herbert S. Gorman (2003).
• A Much Misunderstood Man: Selected Letters by Ambrose Bierce (with David E. Schultz) (2003).
• The Thirst of Satan: Poems of Fantasy and Terror by George Sterling (2003).
• The Pleasures of a Futuroscope by Lord Dunsany (2003).
• The White People and Other Stories by Arthur Machen (2003)
• Mencken's America by H. L. Mencken (2004)
• The Complete Jorkens (3 volumes) by Lord Dunsany (2004).
• In the Land of Time and Other Fantasy Tales by Lord Dunsany (2004).
• The Yellow Sign and Other Stories: The Complete Weird Tales of Robert W. Chambers (2004).
• The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft (2005).
• The Terror and Other Tales by Arthur Machen (2005).
• Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M. R. James (2006).
• In Her Place: A Documentary History of Prejudice Against Women (2006).
• H.P. Lovecraft Collected Essays Volumes 1-5 (2004-2006)

Books Translated

• Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic by Maurice Lévy (1988).

External links

• The Official S. T. Joshi Website
• "Lurking Terror: H.P. Lovecraft's Socialism" - Interview with Dr. James Hughes (Changesurfer Radio)