Shea was born in Dayton, Kentucky, the son of a professional magician. According to an obituary published in a 1981 issue of Crispin Burnham's Eldritch Tales, Shea's father had been a friend of such famous stage magicians as Howard Thurston, Hermann the Great, Houdini and Blackstone.
He began writing fiction and poetry around the age of 13. His letters to Weird Tales magazine also appeared in print from around that time. At the age of 19, in 1931, Shea sent some of his early efforts to H.P. Lovecraft for criticism. Shea at that time resided in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and apparently entered the University of Pittsburgh, but had to drop out after a year because of financial considerations.[1] The correspondence lasted from 1931-37. Lovecraft's side of the correspondence has now been published in full in S. T. Joshi and David E. Schulz, eds. H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to J. Vernon Shea, Carl F. Strauch, and Lee McBride White. New York: Hippocampus Press, 2016, pages 15–295.
Shea later served overseas in the Army Medical Corps and was initially a private.[2] After serving in the military, he worked as a metallurgist in Cleveland, Ohio. In the 1960s he donated what he believed to be all his letters from Lovecraft to the John Hay Library, but ten more letters were later found amongst his effects.
He was a long-time member of the "Esoteric Order of Dagon" Amateur Press Association at the time of his sudden accidental death.[3][4] In the last five years of his life, from 1977, Shea contributed 20 issues of his own quarterly zine Outre to the Esoteric Order of Dagaon a.p.a., contributing, in all, 1248 pages. This totals more pages than anyone else had ever contributed to the a.p.a., and Shea did not join the a.p.a. until its Mailing #13.[5] Some of this material was gathered in a small-press booklet, In Search of Lovecraft (West Warwick, Rhode Island: Necronomicon Press, 1991).
Shea died unexpectedly in early 1981 at the Cleveland apartment where he lived alone.
"The Necronomicon" at the Wayback Machine (archived October 20, 2009). (Written before Lovecraft's death in 1937; Lovecraft read and annotated the manuscript.)
"H.P.L. and Films". 1972. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
"The Lovecraftian Saga". 1976. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
"H. P. Lovecraft and Samuel Johnson: A Comparison". 1978. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
"The Timeless Lovecraft". 1979. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
"'The Outsider'". 1979. Reprinted in In Search of Lovecraft, 1991.
"On the Literary Influences Which Shaped Lovecraft's Works". S.T. Joshi, ed., H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism. Ohio State University Press, 1980. ISBN0-8214-0577-2, ISBN978-0-8214-0577-2.
"An Introduction to the Cthulhu Mythos". Fantasy Empire Presents H. P. Lovecraft. Tampa, Florida: New Media Publishing, 1984.
Otherwise Nice People. This digest-sized collection of five stories was announced in 1976 by small press publisher Stellar Z Publications; however, it was never issued.
H.P. Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows. West Warwick, Rhode Island: Necronomicon Press, 1982. ASIN B0006YAHLC. (1966 essay in chapbook.)
^S. T. Joshi and David E. Schulz, eds. H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to J. Vernon Shea, Carl F. Strauch, and Lee McBride White. New York: Hippocampus Press, 2016, page 8
Burleson, Donald R. and Mollie. The Morgan and Rice Gazette Volume 21, Number 4 (whole number 84) (Candlemas 2005): A Tribute to J. Vernon Shea. 20 pages. For Esoteric Order of Dagon Amateur Press Association.
