Collected Essays, Volume 3: Science

This third volume of Lovecraft’s collected essays presents his complete published writings in the realm of science, chiefly those of astronomy, but also including some essays on anthropology and folklore. Science was one of Lovecraft’s earliest interests, and he frequently testified that his discovery of astronomy at the age of 11 led to the formation of his distinctively cosmic vision. His first published work was a letter to the Providence Sunday Journal on a point of astronomy; shortly thereafter, he began writing two separate astronomy columns, for the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner (1906) and the Providence Tribune (1906–08), the latter containing hand-drawn star-charts. After a hiatus, he wrote an extensive monthly astronomy column for the Providence Evening News (1914–18), in which the dry recitation of astronomical phenomena for the month was enlivened by elucidations of the Greek myths behind the names of the constellations, discussions of important astronomical discoveries over the centuries, and snippets of Lovecraft’s poetry. His “Mysteries of the Heavens” is a compact survey of the entire realm of astronomy, written for the Asheville (N.C.) Gazette-News in 1915. As a whole, this volume displays Lovecraft’s devotion to science as the ultimate arbiter of truth and as the solid foundation of his cosmic voyagings in the realm of weird fiction. All texts are exhaustively annotated, with critical and bibliographical notes, by S.T. Joshi.