THE METAL MONSTER

NY: Hippocampus Press, 2002. 1st printing, 2002. Trade paperback. Cover art by Virgil Finlay. The publisher has this to say of it: "This is the first volume in a new series from Hippocampus Press: Lovecraft's Library. In the wilds of the Trans-Himalayan region, a quartet of adventurers led by Dr. Walter T. Goodwin stumbles upon a tribe of human primitives forgotten since the age of Alexander the Great, and an awesome being of living metal commanded by the exiled Norhala. As Norhalas guests, Goodwin and his team witness the mind-boggling marvels that are THE METAL MONSTER's way of life, and the unspeakable horrors it commits when Norhala takes it to war against her persecutors. A. Merritts second published novel, THE METAL MONSTER was first serialized in a Argosy All-Story magazine in 1920. Its exotic setting and extravagant scientific speculations make it a landmark of lost-race fantasy fiction. Dissatisfied with its writing, Merritt kept his story from book publication until 1946, revising and reshaping it for more than twenty years. This edition reprints for he first time the tale as it was originally published, restoring close to 10,000 words of text Merritt cut from the original. THE METAL MONSTER is the first in the Hippocampus Press series, Lovecrafts Library. H. P. Lovecraft was not only a writer; he was also a voracious reader and collector of the literature of weird fiction. Lovecraft was one of the most well-read authors of his time; his monograph "Supernatural Horror in Literature" is widely recognized as the finest historical survey of the genre ever written. Lovecraft's collection included many rare works that are not readily available in the present day. This new series offers to the modern reader a selection of works that Lovecraft himself read and admired, and that he commented upon in his letters or elsewhere. The text is authoritative, featuring an introduction by the preeminent scholar and expert on A. Merritt." Unread: brand new.. First Thus. Paperback. Fine.