Lovecraft's Southern Vacation: A Robert E. Howard LitCrit TriplePunchPack!

But how about Howard vs. Lovecraft?

I’ve known of the versus for a long time (see my remarks on the Howard-Lovecraft correspondence in the first issue of Necrofile back in 1992), with their ongoing debates known by the overarching term “Barbarism vs. Civilization” — but I credit my awareness of the rivalry specifically manifesting itself in “Pigeons from Hell” to none other than Brian Leno.

--- Don Herron, from the Afterword to Lovecraft's Southern Vacation

Lovecraft’s Southern Vacation collects the crème de la crème of Cimmerian Award-winning essayist Brian Leno’s Robert E. Howard criticism together for the first time under one set of covers, with an Introduction and Afterword by Don Herron.

The title essay rocked standard perceptions of a classic supernatural tale that everyone thought they knew inside and out — as Leno took Howard’s “Pigeons from Hell” and showed convincingly how it satirized the New England horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft.

Then Leno took to the texts again to investigate one of the long-standing puzzles of Howard’s life: Did he or did he not see the 1933 film King Kong before his death in 1936?

And trust to Leno to come up with an unexpected source for Howard’s popular tale “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” featuring the Texan’s most famous creation, Conan the barbarian.

If you enjoy Howardian litcrit, Leno’s got the knack.

"I’ll be adding info that helps to confirm your theory in re: 'Pigeons'—a brilliant observation & deduction—in my REH chapter of Lovecraft’s Great Tales!"

--John D. Haefele, author of A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos