Joseph Vernon Shea was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of horror

Horror fiction

Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

, fantasy, poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

, and essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

s; and a correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

, Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...

, and August Derleth

August Derleth

August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...

.

Shea was born in Dayton

Dayton, Kentucky

Dayton is a city in Campbell County, Kentucky, United States, along a bend of the Ohio River. The population was 5,966 at the 2000 census. It is less than from downtown Cincinnati, Ohio.-Geography:Dayton is located at ....

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, the son of a professional magician. When corresponding with Lovecraft in 1931–1937, he resided in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. Shea later served overseas in the Army Medical Corps

Medical Corps (United States Army)

The Medical Corps of the U.S. Army is a staff corps of the U.S. Army Medical Department consisting of commissioned medical officers – physicians with either an MD or a DO degree, at least one year of post-graduate clinical training, and a state medical license.The MC traces its earliest origins...

, then returned to civilian life and worked as a metallurgist in Cleveland, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. He was a long-time member of the "Esoteric Order of Dagon" Amateur Press Association at the time of his sudden accidental death.

Stories

• "The Necronomicon". (Written before Lovecraft's death in 1937; Lovecraft read and annotated the manuscript.)
• "The Old Lady's Room". August Derleth
  August Derleth
  August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
  
  , ed., Over the Edge
  Over the Edge (anthology)
  Over the Edge is an anthology of horror stories edited by August Derleth. It was released in 1964 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,520 copies. The anthology was produced to mark the 25th anniversary of Arkham House...
  
  . Arkham House
  Arkham House
  Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
  
  , 1964.
• "Five-Year Contract". Magazine of Horror, September 1964.
• "The Flaw". Magazine of Horror, Spring 1967.
• "The Haunter of the Graveyard". August Derleth, ed., Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. Arkham House, 1969.
• "Icarus Climbs Toward the Sun". The Dark Brotherhood Journal, No. 2, 1972.
• "Dead Giveaway". Outré, 1976. Reprinted in Robert M. Price
  Robert M. Price
  Robert McNair Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus, including...
  
  , ed., The New Lovecraft Circle. Fedogan & Bremer
  Fedogan & Bremer
  Fedogan & Bremer is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1985 by Philip Rahman and Dennis Weiler. The name comes from the nicknames of the two founders when they were in college....
  
  , 1996. ISBN 1-878252-16-X.
• '"The Snouted Thing". 1979. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991. Posthumous collaboration with Lovecraft.
• "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit". Whispers, No. 15–16 (Vol. 4, No. 3–4), March 1982.

Poems

• "When Artists Die"
• "Look to the Skies"
• "The Dream-World of H.P. Lovecraft"
• "We tire of tyrants...”
• "A Walk in Providence"
• "H.P.L.’s Gravestone"
• "So Little Time Beneath the Stars"
• "Impermanence"
• "Better Days?"
• "What Good Is a Book?"
• "Roses Blooming in November"
• "Here at Swan Point"
• "Tomorrow"

(All above reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.)

Essays

• "H. P. Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1966. (Memoir of Lovecraft.)
• "H.P.L. and Films". 1972. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
• "The Lovecraftian Saga". 1976. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
• "H. P. Lovecraft and Samuel Johnson: A Comparison". 1978. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
• "The Timeless Lovecraft". 1979. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.The Outsider. 1979. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
• "On the Literary Influences Which Shaped Lovecraft’s Works". S.T. Joshi, ed., H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism. Ohio State University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-8214-0577-2, ISBN 978-0-8214-0577-2.
• "An Introduction to the Cthulhu Mythos". Fantasy Empire Presents H. P. Lovecraft. Tampa FL: New Media Publishing, 1984.

Books

• Strange Desires. Lion Books, 1954. (Edited short-story anthology.)
• Strange Barriers. Lion Books, 1955. Reprinted: Pyramid Books, 1961. (Edited short-story anthology.)

• H.P. Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows. West Warwick RI: Necronomicon Press
  Necronomicon Press
  Necronomicon Press is an American small press publishing house specialising in fiction, poetry and literary criticism relating to the horror and fantasy genres. It is run by Marc A. Michaud....
  
  , 1982. ASIN B0006YAHLC. (1966 essay in chapbook.)
• In Search Of Lovecraft. West Warwick RI: Necronomicon Press, 1991. ISBN 0-940884-39-9, ISBN 978-0-940884-39-7. (Collection of essays, fiction, and poetry.)

Further reading

• J. Vernon Shea, Mollie L. Werba, Robert Bloch
  Robert Bloch
  Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
  
  , Lyon Sprague De Camp, Donald Wandrei
  Donald Wandrei
  Donald Albert Wandrei was an American science fiction, fantasy and weird fiction writer, poet and editor. He wrote as Donald Wandrei. He was the older brother of science fiction writer and artist Howard Wandrei...
  
  , J. Vernon Shea: A Memorial. Mei-Li/Scorpio Press, 1981. OCLC 2712-0819.
• S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, "Shea, J(oseph) Vernon (1912–1981)" entry, pp. 240–241, in An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. ISBN 0-313-31578-7, ISBN 978-0-313-31578-7.

External links