Welcome!


If you have arrived here, you probably already share my interest in early 20th century horror, science fiction, and fantasy.  Welcome!  I hope that you find something useful and edifying, and come back again soon.  Your comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

I have been interested in this literature from a very young age, when I discovered books that my parents soon had to place on higher shelves, out of my reach.  For a short time I was content with wonderful books like Alfred Hitchcock’s anthologies for children—Ghostly Gallery, Haunted Houseful, and best of all Monster Museum.  But when I was able to reach the higher shelves I began delving into darker works by H.P. Lovecraft and his colleagues and contemporaries.

I am still there.

It has been almost a century since Lovecraft died, but his influence remains pervasive.  He and his contemporaries wrote horror, science fiction and fantasy during a period of enormous social and technological change—in some respects, a time not so different from our own. 

We rely on horror writers like Lovecraft and his colleagues to document both our personal and collective cultural nightmares, so that we may revisit them, and study them, and come to a greater understanding of ourselves.  Perhaps in so doing we will avoid catastrophe.

Visitors who have read some of the articles in The R’lyeh Tribune will notice that I offer a unique perspective on horror, science fiction and fantasy—unusual for these days, at least.  I have allowed my generally Calvinist world view to inform my discussions of this literature, and for this I make no apology.  Horror and religion are two halves of the same coin, rolling together to that doom we all share, whether we seek the possibility of salvation or not. 

Let's talk! 

I offer The R’lyeh Tribune as my small contribution to the labor of many others who appreciate the work of H.P. Lovecraft and that of his contemporaries in weird fiction.



Sean Eaton
Summer 2013




“Our wisdom, if it is to be thought genuine, consists almost entirely of two parts:  the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”—John Calvin, The Institutes of Christian Religion 



4 comments:

  1. Ur blog has been of immense help to me! (somebody who is Majoring in English literature) thank u so much..

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  2. Wonderful! Glad you found something helpful here. Good luck in your future endeavors, and thanks for visiting.

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  3. Terrific stuff. Found your excellent site recently, reading the back catalogue now. Would like to put a link to you on my own (far less scholarly) blog, greydogtales.com. I read/write Edwardian psychic and psychiatric detective fiction. Couple of WHH pastiches with Sam Gafford at the moment, couple of original stories free as epub tasters:

    https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/564814

    I think some of my friends/contacts would like the R'lyeh Tribune. Kind regards anyway.

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  4. Edwardian psychic detective fiction sounds interesting. As you probably know, there's a deep vein of this fascinating material in the first few decades of the 20th century. Several of the authors discussed here, (Hodgson, Smith, and Howard, among others), had entries in this field.

    You may be interested in David H. Keller, a favorite horror writer from this time period--he was a psychiatrist himself.

    Feel free to put a link on your site; I intend to visit greydogtales when I get a moment. Thanks for spending some time here. Good luck with your projects.

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Thank you for your interest in The R'lyeh Tribune! Comments and suggestions are always welcome.