H. P. Lovecraft referred to Park Barnitz as "a vivid decadent of the fin de siecle period who modelled his verse on Baudelaire & killed himself soon after graduation from Harvard." His one and only volume, The Book of Jade (1901), has become a legend in the realm of weird poetry, its technical precision and its relentless obsession with death, horror, madness, and pessimism making it a choice prize for appreciators of poetic witchery.
But almost nothing is known about its young author, who died at the age of twenty-three. This comprehensive edition presents a wealth of material...