SF Site Review: 'From the Pest Zone: The New York Stories

by Gabriel Mesa

"The virtue of Hippocampus is not just to bring us the stories, but to package them in an edition that is exhaustively annotated by Joshi and Schultz and that comes with an introduction by the editors. The introduction is a very helpful piece, putting Lovecraft's New York stories into context and quoting extensively from his letters of the period. Most of the fun for the Lovecraft aficionado, however, will come from the annotations, which provide a wealth of detail that add depth to the stories. In some cases the notes fill in the story's background, such as by noting the local folk tales that may have served as the basis for some of the story ideas in "The Shunned House." The notes also act as a textual aid, defining certain archaic words that Lovecraft was fond of using and those geographical references that might not be obvious to the modern reader. ... When relevant, the notes also tie the events in the stories to events in Lovecraft's life. We learn that the address of the boarding house in "Cool Air" was not invented, for example, but that it was actually the home for Lovecraft's bookselling friend George Willard Kirk. Finally, the notes add a level of resonance to the stories by referring to other tales featuring similar images or ideas, whether by Lovecraft or by other authors who may have acted as an influence."