A posthumous collection of non-fiction pieces edited by L. Sprague de Camp, principally of interest for the insight they afford into Lovecraft's attitudes and interests. Approximately two thirds of the page count is accounted for by "A Description of the Town of Quebeck", a history of Québec and description of its present (i.e. 1930) aspect, penned after Lovecraft's first visit to the city, for which he adopted the language and attitude of a 18th century British loyalist (US Americans are consistently refered to as "rebels"!), which affectation is less annoying than it might have been. Shorter pieces include columns on popular astronomy, opinion pieces on poetics and politics, and a few more pieces of travel literature.

Lovecraft's aesthetic views were conservative; his political ones reactionary, and most modern readers will find much to disagree with here. It's worth noting though that said views were not set in stone, indeed seems to have been rather labile in specific content: in 1915 he could complain about it being unnatural that the Great War put the great "Teutonic" powers of Britain and Germany on opposite sides; just two years later he could equate modern Germany with Roman era barbarians while aligning Anglo-American culture with the civilized Roman heritage. I do agree with him in disliking free verse.

De Camp's editing is rather indifferent, the introductory pieces he supplied are of limited interest, and there's a sprinkling of typos that, for lack of [sic]'s, has to be presumed not Lovecraft's. Where there is a typo in the original, de Camp's attempts at clarification can be weak, for example, Lovecraft's text as originally published in an amateur magazine in one place reads "noxus homo" - de Camp notes that this is a typographical error and says that the original is uncertain; context clearly calls for "novus homo".

Not a book to be recommended to those unfamiliar with, or unappreciative of, Lovecraft's fiction, but for those who do like his work it may be well worth while to provide a bit of background as to where he was coming from. And the historical part of "Quebeck" is just plain good reading.