Talk:Oliver Onions

Just Wondering
Is "The Beckoning Fair One" an actual air? Or a title of Onions's imagination? JKeck (talk) 00:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * He made it up. It's fiction like the story. Mike Hayes (talk) 18:07, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Lovecraft on Onions
Several publications, have stated H. P. Lovecraft admired Onions' story "The Beckoning Fair One". For instance, David G. Hartwell in the the intro to the story in The Dark Descent states "...it is admired by Lovecraft, Blackwood and Aickman, and has been called the greatest single ghost story". Several reprints of Onions' work claim Lovecraft's endorsement for the story on the back (for instance, the 1978 Dover Books edition of Onions' Widdershins). However, there is no mention of Onions' work in Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature, and the one mention of Onions' work in Lovecraft's correspondence I know of is negative (the 1936 letter to J. Vernon Shea). I suspect Lovecraft didn't regard Onions' work very highly, otherwise he would have kept mentioning him in his correspondence (as he does with Poe, Machen, Blackwood, and other authors he admired).

So I believe that there is no evidence that Lovecraft admired the story, and the "Lovecraft admired "The Beckoning Fair One" quote is apocryphal. While Onions is (rightly IMO) highly regarded by many historians of supernatural fiction, Lovecraft was probably not one of them. 176.61.97.121 (talk) 13:12, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

"Unknown writer"
When I was living in London in 1970-71, Oliver Onions' widow wrote a letter to The Times complaining, "My late husband wouldn't be an 'unknown writer' if people wouldn't keep saying that he is." Mike Hayes (talk) 20:42, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Resurrection
IMDb lists him as an Italian band from the 1970s: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2410340/ Shtove
 * What's your point? H. P. Lovecraft (band) was also named ater a writer of weird tales. Deor (talk) 16:57, 2 January 2022 (UTC)