H.p. Lovecraft, an Evaluation

Published in 1955, this early critical assessment captures a pivotal moment in Lovecraft scholarship, when the architecture of the Cthulhu Mythos was still being assembled and the question of Lovecraft's literary permanence remained genuinely open. Joseph Payne Brennan brings a critic's precision to the task, acknowledging what most fans prefer to ignore: the prolixity, the reliance on adjectives like 'eldritch' and 'cyclopean,' the diminishing returns of later Mythos stories written to satisfy a growing circle of admirers. Yet Brennan's real power lies in his appreciation for the early work, those tales where Lovecraft's peculiar genius ignites without apology. He singles out 'The Music of Erich Zann' and 'The Rats in the Walls' as demonstrations of what Lovecraft did better than anyone else: the gradual accumulation of wrongness, the suggestion of horrors that language can only gesture toward. The inclusion of 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' as essential reading reveals Brennan's understanding that Lovecraft was not merely a storyteller but a theorist of fear. This is criticism written before the cult fully calcified, when one could still assess Lovecraft's merits and failures with honest balance. Essential for anyone who wants to understand how Lovecraft's reputation was built, and what it was built from.