Happy Birthday, H.P!

In honor of H.P. Lovecraft‘s birthday, I am posting a reading of his story “The Horror at Red Hook”.

 

Happy Birthday H.P. Lovecraft

Happy birthday to one of our favorite authors!  The Horror at Red Hook is my favorite story but the girls have their own, naturally.

On Reading Lord Dunsany’s Book of Wonder

By H. P. Lovecraft

The hours of night unheeded fly,
And in the grate the embers fade;
Vast shadows one by one pass by
In silent daemon cavalcade.

But still the magic volume holds
The raptur’d eye in realms apart,
And fulgent sorcery enfolds
The willing mind and eager heart.

The lonely room no more is there—
For to the sight in pomp appear
Temples and cities pois’d in air
And blazing glories—sphere on sphere.

If you are not so sure what H.P. is talking about here, find a really good book to read.  At your earliest possible convenience.  Maybe Lord Dunsany’s Book of Wonder can do the trick for you!

Here’s a little tidbit of knowledge that might pique your interest in The Book of Wonder:

Lord Dunsany employed the talents of Sidney Sime to illustrate his fantasy short story collections, but ‘The Book of Wonder’ is unique in that Sydney Sime drew the illustrations first, and Lord Dunsany wrote the tales to incorporate them:

‘I found Mr Sime one day, in his strange house at Worplesdon, complaining that editors did not offer him very suitable subjects for illustration; so I said: “Why not do any pictures you like, and I will write stories explaining them, which may add a little to their mystery?”‘

quoted from the “Book of Wonder” wiki