S. T. Joshi

Sunand Tryambak Joshi (born 22 June 1958), known as S. T. Joshi, is an Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction. Besides having written what critics such as Harold Bloom and Joyce Carol Oates consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft, I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (Hippocampus Press, 2010 [originally published in one volume as H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996]), Joshi has prepared (with David E. Schultz) several annotated editions of works by Ambrose Bierce. He has also written on crime novelist John Dickson Carr and on Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood and M. R. James, and has edited collections of their works, as well as collections of the best work of several other weird writers. Joshi has compiled, edited or written over 200 books, detailed in the recent publication 200 Books by S.T. Joshi (Hippocampus Press, 2014).
He is a significant bibliographer, having compiled bibliographies of Lovecraft, Bierce, Dunsany, Ramsey Campbell, William Hope Hodgson (forthcoming), Ray Bradbury and Clark Ashton Smith. He has been general editor of the Horror Classics series for Dover Publications.
Joshi is known for his acerbic style, and has been described by editor Ellen Datlow as "the nastiest reviewer in the field".Datlow in Joshi, S.T. (2009) Classics and Contemporaries. New York: Hippocampus Press. Pg. 10 Most recently he has turned his attention to collecting and editing the works of H. L. Mencken. He currently resides in Seattle, Washington.
Joshi was also a member of the Providence Pals, an informal group of H. P. Lovecraft enthusiasts and scholars active from the late 1970s through to the 1990s.
==Literary Criticism==
Joshi discovered Lovecraft when he was 13 in the public library in Muncie, Indiana. He read L. Sprague de Camp's biography of Lovecraft, Lovecraft: A Biography, on publication in 1975, and began thereafter to devote himself to the study of Lovecraft, guided in this by scholars such as Dirk W. Mosig, J. Vernon Shea, and George Wetzel.Will Murray, "S.T. Joshi: Re-editor". Dagon 24 (Jan-Mar 1989), p. 24 He also wrote some Lovecraftian fiction, such as the story "The Recurring Doom", which can be found in Robert M. Price's anthology Acolytes of Cthulhu.
Joshi elected to become a freshman at Brown University, where he received a B.A. (1980) and M.A. (1982) in classics, primarily because of the holdings of Lovecraft books and manuscripts in the John Hay Library.Will Murray, "S.T. Joshi: Re-editor". Dagon 24 (Jan-Mar 1989), p. 25 He later did graduate work at Princeton University from 1982 to 1984, where he was the recipient of the Paul Elmer More Fellowship in classical philosophy. 
Appalled at finding literally 1,500 textual errors in his favorite Lovecraft story, At the Mountains of Madness, he devoted years of research consulting manuscripts and early publications to establish the textual history of Lovecraft's works, in order to prepare corrected editions of Lovecraft's collected fiction, revisions, and miscellaneous writings, in collaboration with Jim Turner for Arkham House; they were published in five volumes between 1984 and 1995.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and exploration of the dominant worldviews of the authors in question. His The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. Aside from his biography of Lovecraft, Joshi regards this book as his most notable achievement to date.
A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern horror writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The third of what amounts to a critical trilogy on the weird tale, The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004), includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite, and others. Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (published in two volumes, 2012 by PS Publishing) is a comprehensive history of supernatural fiction from Gilgamesh to the present day.
==Magazines Edited==
In 1987, Joshi became the fifth Official Editor of the Esoteric Order of Dagon (EOD) amateur press association, an organisation devoted to the study of H.P. Lovecraft particularly but which also examines weird and fantasy fiction in all its forms. He has maintained this role for more than two decades and is still Editor. Joshi edited the journals Lovecraft Studies (1979–2001) and Studies in Weird Fiction (1986–2005), both published by Necronomicon Press; and Studies in the Fantastic (2008–09), published by the University of Tampa Press. He is editor of Weird Fiction Review (Centipede Press; 2010), and Lovecraft Annual (from 2007) and co-editor of Dead Reckonings (from 2007), journals published by Hippocampus Press.
==Editions of Lovecraft's Letters==
Joshi and his editorial collaborator David E. Schultz have edited many volumes of Lovecraft's letters to individuals: for Necronomicon Press (including those to Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, Samuel Loveman and Vincent Starrett); for Night Shade Books (Mysteries of Time and Spirit: Letters to Donald Wandrei) and Letters from New York; and for University of Tampa Press (O Fortunate Floridian: Letters to Robert H. Barlow). Joshi and Schultz are now progressively issuing volumes of H. P. Lovecraft's letters to individual correspondents through Hippocampus Press. Volumes already issued include Lovecraft's letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, Alfred Galpin, August Derleth (2 volumes), Robert E. Howard (2 volumes) and James F. Morton.
==Other Work==
Joshi edited the five-volume set of Lovecraft's Collected Essays issued by Hippocampus Press from 2004-2006. He edited two annotated volumes of Lovecraft's best work for Dell books (the second with Peter H. Cannon). He and David E. Schultz edited the collected poetry of Clark Ashton Smith, issued by Hippocampus Press (3 volumes, 2007–2008) and the collected poetry of George Sterling (3 volumes, 2013).
Forthcoming works (some of which are discussed on Joshi's blog at his official website -- see below) also include Horror Fiction Index; a three-volume edition of the letters of Ambrose Bierce; bibliographies of William Hope Hodgson (with Sam Gafford and Mike Ashley) and of Clark Ashton Smith; The White People and Other Weird Tales by Arthur Machen (for Penguin Classics); a comprehensive bibliography of Ray Bradbury (with Jon Eller); a revised/updated edition of the Ramsey Campbell bibliography The Core of Ramsey Campbell; and an edition of the correspondence between Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth.
Joshi was general editor of a line of original Cthulhu Mythos works from Perilous Press, including works by Michael Shea and Brian Stableford. The first publication was Shea's Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (2009), with Stableford's volume titled The Womb of Time (two Mythos novellas). He has also edited the Black Wings series of original Lovecraft-influenced stories, starting with Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, published by PS Publishing from 2010 to 2018. 
==WFA Statuette Controversy==
In August 2014, Joshi argued against author Daniel José Older's successful campaign to change the World Fantasy Award statuette from a bust of Lovecraft to one of African-American author Octavia Butler.Laura Miller, It’s OK to admit that H.P. Lovecraft was racist, salon.com, 12 September 2014. Older claimed Lovecraft's image was unacceptable because of his racism; in response, Joshi contended, "the WFA bust acknowledges Lovecraft’s literary status in the field of weird fiction and nothing more. It says nothing about Lovecraft’s personality or character." Joshi also argued that the critics of Lovecraft were ignoring “the significant question as to whether racism should be regarded as so much more significant a moral, intellectual, and personal flaw than many other stances one could name,” and argued that it was incorrect to think “that Lovecraft’s undeniable racism somehow negates his immense talents as a writer and also negates the many virtues -– intellectual, aesthetic, and personal –- that he displayed over his life.”Alison Flood, "World Fantasy awards pressed to drop HP Lovecraft trophy in racism row", The Guardian, 17 September 2014; retrieved 23 September 2014. 
Journalist Laura Miller took issue with Joshi's arguments, stating Joshi is essentially telling writers like [Nnedi] Okorafor that they must accept an honour from that community in the form of a man who considered [black people] to be "semi-human" and filled "with vice". Suck it up, or get out. I’m pretty sure this is not the message the World Fantasy Convention meant to send when they gave Okorafor the prize in the first place.
==Personal Life==
Joshi was raised in Illinois and Indiana. After attending Brown University, he settled in the New York City area, where he was a senior editor at Chelsea House Publishers. Currently he lives in Seattle, Washington. Joshi married Leslie Gary Boba on September 1, 2001. They divorced in December 2010.
He wed Mary Krawczak Wilson in July 2014, at a private ceremony in Seattle.
==Selected Bibliography==
==External Links==
*Official S. T. Joshi Website
*"Spreading the Word on the Power of Atheism," New York Times profile
*"Lurking Terror: H. P. Lovecraft's Socialism", Interview with Dr. James Hughes (Changesurfer Radio)
* 2004 Interview at Temple of Dagon
*"YOG RADIO #29: Interview with S.T. Joshi", audio interview at Yog-Sothoth.com
*Interview at AcidLogic
*Audio interview with Joshi at Agony Column at Agony Column
*"Fright and Freethought--S. T. Joshi", audio interview by Robert M. Price at Point of Inquiry
*"The Strange, Impossible Worlds of Horror Fiction's Modern Masters", review of Joshi's The Weird Tale by Robert Chatain in The Chicago Tribune
*Interview with Joshi by James McAlmont at Fruitless Recursion
==References==
*Griffin, David. "Interview: S.T. Joshi". Carnage Hall No 4 (1993).
*Harksen, Henrik (ed). Out of the Shadows: An E.O.D. Tribute to S.T. Joshi. Odense, Denmark: H. Harksen Productions, 2004.
*Murray, Will. "S.T. Joshi: Re-editor". [interview] Comics Buyer's Guide (Nov 18, 1988); Dagon 24 (Jan–March 1989).
Category:Scholars
Category:Editors
Category:Expanded Mythos Authors