Something I happened to come across and wondered if it might be of related interest, as Lovecraft features prominently.
‘Determined to be Weird’:
British Weird Fiction before Weird Tales
James Fabian Machin
Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Birkbeck, University of London
June 2016
Abstract
Weird fiction is a mode in the Gothic lineage, cognate with horror, particularly associated with the early twentieth-century pulp writing of
H. P. Lovecraft and others for Weird Tales magazine. However, the roots of the weird lie earlier and late-Victorian British and Edwardian writers such as Arthur Machen, Count Stenbock, M. P. Shiel, and John Buchan created varyingly influential iterations of the mode.
This thesis is predicated on an argument that Lovecraft’s recent rehabilitation into the western canon, together with his ongoing and arguably ever-increasing impact on popular culture, demands an examination of the earlier weird fiction that fed into and resulted in Lovecraft’s work. Although there is a focus on the literary fields of the fin de siècle and early twentieth century, by tracking the mutable reputations and critical regard of these early exponents of weird fiction, this thesis engages with broader contextual questions of cultural value and distinction; of notions of elitism and popularity, tensions between genre and literary fiction, and the high/low cultural divide allegedly precipitated by Modernism.
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The full thesis (290 pages), can be read here:
www.forteanmedia.com/Lovecraft_Thesis.pdf