S. T. Joshi

Sunand Tryambak Joshi (b. 22 June 1958 in Pune, India) is an Indian-American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), he has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, and Lord Dunsany, and has edited collections of their works.

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His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically-oriented viewpoint.

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Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction.

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At the time of writing, Joshi is working towards the publication of the collected work of Clark Ashton Smith and George Sterling, and Lovecraft?s Collected Essays.

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In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and race relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan among others. Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, William F. Buckley, William James, Stephen L. Carter and others.

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Joshi has stated that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been the corrected texts of Lovecraft?s fiction and other works, his biography of Lovecraft, and The Weird Tale.

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22 June: REDIRECT June 22...

1958: 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar....

Pune: Pune (पुणे in Marathi), formerly Punavadi and Poona (पूना in Marathi), Maharashtra state, western India, is situated at the confluence of the Mula and Mutha rivers. Called the ?Queen of the Deccan,? Pune is the cultural capital of the Marathi people. A...