Back from the Dead: Early Fiction and Poetry

S. T. Joshi's literary career has spanned nearly five decades. Among the earliest of his writings were stories and poems he wrote while attending Burris Laboratory School in Muncie, Indiana, which appeared in the literary magazine he established there, the Forum (1974-76). These tales, crude as they are, reveal his developing interest in weird fiction, running the gamut from pure supernaturalism to psychological terror to satire and parody. The influence of H. P. Lovecraft is evident in such tales as "The Recurring Doom" and "The Wells Manuscript." A detective novella written in 1979, Tragedy at Sarsfield Manor, is a somewhat more polished work. Joshi also wrote many poems in high school. These are not weird but instead are philosophical, exhibiting the depths of his cynicism, pessimism, and misanthropy. An appendix contains some book reviews he wrote in 1973-74, including his first writings on Lovecraft.