Reddit mentions of I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (2 VOLUMES)

This is going to be long, but I'll quote from Joshi's own hand, from I am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft I realize this could be shorter, but I think the whole tale is pretty interesting:

One final issue, partly related to his promulgation of the "Cthulhu Mythos," is Derleth's control over the Lovecraft copyrights. This is an extraordinarily complicated situation and has yet to be resolved, but a few notes can be set down here. Lovecraft's will of 1912 naturally made no provision for a literary estate, so any such estate by default ended up in the cntrol of his sole surviving relative, Annie Gamwell, upon his death. Annie, as we have seen, formalised Lovecraft's wish to have [Robert] Barlow deemed his literary executor, but this conferred no control over the copyrights to Lovecraft's work. When Annie herself died, her estate passed to Ethel Phillips Morrish and Edna Lewis.

Derleth from the beginning claimed de facto ownership of Lovecraft's work by virtue of publishing it in book form, but his control is almost certainly fictitious. He became angry at Corwin Stickney for publishing his small HPL pamphlet in 1937, even though this booklet of eight sonnets was published in an edition of 25 copies. He repeatedly badgered anthologists into paying him reprint fees for Lovecraft stories, and most did so simply to stay on good terms with him. Derleth indeed claimed that he had sunk $25,000 of his own money into Arkham House in its first decade, and I am willing to beleive it; but I also maintain that Arkham House would never have stayed afloat at all had it not been for the sales generated from Lovecraft's work.

What, then, were Derleth's claims for owndership of Lovecraft's copyrights? He initially tried to maintain that Annie Gamwell's will had conferred such rights, but that will states clearly that Derleth and Wandrei are to receive merely the remaining proceeds from 'The Outsider and Others' - not the literary rights to the material therein. Arkham House then claimed that something called "the Morrish-Lewis gift" (presumably a document signed by Ethel Phillips Morrish and Edna Lewis) grants Arkham House blanket permission to publish Lovecraft's work; but this document, which was finally produced in court, does not in any sense transfer copyright to Arkham House.

Finally, Derleth claimed to have purchased from 'Weird Tales' the rights to forty-six Lovecraft stories published in that magazine. There is indeed a document to this effect, dated October 9, 1947; but the question is: what rights could have been transferred in this manner? Weird Tales could only have transferred rights to those stories where they controlled all rights (not merely first serial rights) but Lovecraft declared frequently that, although initially selling all rights to Weird Tales because he did not know any better, by April 1926 he began reserving his rights. Now there is no documentary evidence of this (i.e. no contracts from Weird Tales in which only first serial rights are purchased), but there is considerable circumstantial evidence to support Lovecraft's claim....

If April 1926 is the cut-off, there are 13 stories for which Weird Tales owned the rights (not counting 'Under the Pyramids," which was presumably written on a work-for-hire contract). But of these thirteen, seven had already appeared in amateur (uncopyrighted) journals, hence were in the public domain the moment they were published. Therefore, Derleth in truth purchased the rights to only six stories. And yet, he continued to act as if he controlled all of Lovecraft's works...

The whole issue is, of course, now moot, for it is widely acknowledged that Lovecraft's entire work went into the public domain at the end of the seventieth year following his death, i.e. January 1, 2008.

Hope that helps/was interesting and good luck with your project!

Yes the 55 dollar shipping charge is huge. You might get a better shipping deal thru amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Am-Providence-Times-Lovecraft-VOLUMES/dp/0982429673/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288927447&sr=8-1

Now, to the question of if it is worth it. I would say yes. You will not get a better understanding of Lovecraft through any other book. These two tomes gets you closer to the man than anything else.