H. P. LOVECRAFT, AN EVALUATION by Joseph Payne Brennan Copyright 1955 by Joseph Payne Brennan MACABRE HOUSE 55 Trumbull St. New Haven 10 Connecticut Since the publication of my “H. P. Lovecraft: A Bibliography” (Biblio Press, 1952), I have been repeatedly urged to write out my opinion of Lovecraft’s work. I have been kept from doing so by the pressure of a full-time library job, plus my own creative work in the diverse fields of the horror story, the western story, and poetry, as well as the semi-annual publication of ESSENCE and other time-consuming activities such as an unending struggle against censorship groups which are violating Constitutional rights on both a local and national level. The following brief essay is an admittedly hurried and incomplete attempt to meet demands for a Lovecraft critique. An entire book, requiring many months of uninterrupted work, could be devoted to the project and I sincerely regret that circumstances do not permit me to undertake such a task. But I hope that my comments, in spite of their brevity, will be of some interest. Nearly twenty years have passed since Lovecraft’s death, but, unfortunately, a final evaluation of the man and of his work is still not possible. His collected poems, though due to appear shortly, have not yet been published. His letters, either selected or collected, have not appeared. Probably some of the pieces which he contributed under pseudonyms to “little” magazines have never been reprinted. And of course no complete and carefully written biography of the man has ever been published. With the important exception of the poems and letters however, all of Lovecraft’s work of any significance has been in print for some years. It seems doubtful, therefore, that an evaluation of his work, at this time, will be seriously qualified by future publication.