The Nightmare (1781) by Henry Fuseli

A 1781 oil painting by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) influenced many writers like William Blake, Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe whose narrator in "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) says, 

An irrepressible tremour gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened --I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me --to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night), and endeavoured to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment.

According to Wikipedia, "Poe and Fuseli shared an interest in the subconscious; Fuseli is often quoted as saying, 'One of the most unexplored regions of art are dreams.'"

The Lizard's Ardent Uniform & Other Stories

There will be more on this very personal BEAT to a PULP release in the next week. But for now here is the cover and description.

"All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream."--Edgar Allan Poe

The Lizard's Ardent Uniform and Other Stories (Veridical Dreams Vol. I) takes you on several voyages into every day nightmares, bizarre detours, and hellish worlds. Enlisting the talents of authors Chris F. Holm (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine), Terrie Farley Moran (Well Read, Then Dead), Patti Abbott (Home Invasion), Evan V. Corder, Steve Weddle (Needle: A Magazine of Noir), Hilary Davidson (The Damage Done), and Garnett Elliott (Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine), thought-provoking fragments from the dream journals of Kyle J. Knapp (writer and poet of Pluvial Gardens and Celebrations in the Ossuary, who passed away in 2013 at the age of twenty-three) are fleshed out into seven stirring tales of crime, science fiction, literary, and fantasy. Edited and with an introduction by BEAT to a PULP's David Cranmer.

Stories:
The Lizard's Ardent Uniform -- Chris F. Holm
Dust to Dust -- Terrie Farley Moran
Twin Talk -- Patti Abbott
The Malignant Reality -- Evan V. Corder (including "The Needles" poem by Kyle J. Knapp)
Ghosts in the Fog -- Steve Weddle
The Debt -- Hilary Davidson
The Zygma Gambit -- Garnett Elliott

A portion of the proceeds from this collection will go to higher education.

Letters: Edgar Allan Poe

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. — Edgar Allan Poe to James Russell Lowell, July 2, 1844

The Raven Trailer

Nevermore?

I'm looking forward to John Cusak playing Edgar Allan Poe. It's a shame they're changing the title because Poe locked that name in long ago. Still I guess the logical next best title would be Nevermore, right?