Hippocampus Press is the next publisher I wanted to take a look at.
Established in 1999 by Derrick Hussey, it specializes in classic horror and science fiction with an emphasis on the works of H.P. Lovecraft and his literary circle.
In my view, it has filled the void left by Arkham House and a few others. They have been fortunate to be able to work closely with leading scholars in the field. This has made it possible for them to come out with high-quality collections, and they are very affordable with both paperback and hardback editions.
Their main focus has been on HPL. Among their notable works here is the Valorium edition of HPL’s works, done in three volumes, with a planned fourth of his revisions. They also have collections of his poetry. Letters to and from Lovecraft with various other authors are also available. For non-fiction, they have an annotated edition of his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” and five volumes of his essays in themed volumes.
For Clark Ashton Smith, they have several great works. While NightShade Books has done the complete fiction collections, Hippocampus has the complete poetry collections, as well as themed collections of his fiction and collections of his letters.
They also have a few volumes of Robert E. Howard material, but I look to the REH Foundation and Del Rey for their definitive collections.
In addition, Hippocampus has collections of other horror and fantasy authors. Some are modern authors, others are classic ones. They have the completed fiction of Arthur Machen in three volumes and a similar set of all of Ambrose Bierce‘s fiction. There is the Classics of Gothic Horror series and the Lovecraft’s Library series.
Journals are another area that Hippocampus excels in. There is the Lovecraft Annual, with new scholarship under the editorship of S.T. Joshi. It replaces the journal Lovecraft Studies, which had been published by Necronomicon Press. Lovecraftian Proceedings is from the Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Symposium, which is part of the NecronomiCon Providence. Dead Reckonings is a review magazine on horror. Penumbra is an annual journal edited by Joshi, with both fiction and non-fiction. And Spectral Realms is devoted to weird poetry.
I don’t have as many of their works as I’d like, but I am slowly working on rectifying this. If you have an interest in horror and weird fiction, you should take a look at their offerings. There may be something of interest they have published. They oftentimes have specials running with discounts on their books. I took advantage of this once to get their complete Arthur Machen set.
