PRICE, E(dgar) Hoffmann (Trooper)

(1898-1988)

   US writer whose career lasted 64 years. He served in WWI, graduated West Point in 1923, and began to publish weird fiction - the genre for which he is remembered - with "Triangle with Variations" for Droll Stories in 1924. By the time he stopped writing for the PULPMAGAZINES in the 1950s he had published hundreds of stories in dozens of outlets, sometimes as Hamlin Daly, and often drawing upon Oriental and near-Eastern experiences for his backgrounds. His best known story from this period is probably "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1934 Weird Tales) with H.P. LOVECRAFT, a personal friend. Some of his early work waslater assembled in Strange Gateways (coll 1967) and Far Lands, Other Days (coll 1975).In his retirement EHP became annoyed at being remembered onlyas one of the "Lovecraft Circle", and in 1979 he resumed writing. In his final decade he wrote a Western, two fantasies - The Devil Wives of Li-Fong (1979) and The Jade Enchantress (1982) - and the loose Operationsequence of sf novels: Operation Misfit (1980), Operation Longlife (1983), in which EHP expressed a loathing of doctors and argued for the individual's right to die, Operation Exile (1986) and Operation Isis (1987). The sequence is set in a DYSTOPIAN future: it warns about Marxismand comments on the weakness and decadence of the US Government; the heroes are always competent, the plots often chaotic. Since he claimed to be writing novels of ideas, it should be mentioned that EHP was an astrologer, a Theosophist, a practising Buddhist and a conservative Republican, and ideas from those fields do indeed percolate through hiswork. EHP may be remembered primarily for his vivid biographical sketches of his friends Robert E. HOWARD, Lovecraft and Clark Ashton SMITH. A volume of reminiscences and a late mystery remain unpublished.

   RB

   See also: SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS.