The Lovecraft family bible, found?
The Lovecraft family bible
05 Thursday Jun 2014
Posted in Historical context, New discoveries
05 Thursday Jun 2014
Posted in Historical context, New discoveries
The Lovecraft family bible, found?
Interesting item of confirmation: An Edward G. Barrett was listed as the Sexton at St. Paul’s Church, Boston (136 Tremont St) in a 1906/1907 Boston church and musical directory. His name is on the marriage certificate as a witness.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.ar62579509;view=2up;seq=74
More confirmation: There was a Rev. John L. Taylor in the Episcopalian church. Circa 1880 he was a Professor at the Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass. – as recorded in the Seminary handbook linked below. Andover is not far from Boston. So he is perhaps the John L. Taylor whose name is on the marriage certificate as a witness.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433089978047;view=2up;seq=44
Ah, I find I’m repeating Kenneth Faig’s work. He’d already tracked down the witnesses and identified them as “members of staff at St. Paul’s Church” (Epicure of the Terrible, page 46)
Found a possible means of authentication… quote: “bad copies or adaptations of some of his [John Martin’s] work may now & then be found in 19th century family Bibles — that which my own parents procured when setting up their own household in ’89 having a clumsily ‘elegant’ imitative engraving of Belshazzar’s Feast, which I recognized upon seeing a proper plate of the subject for the first time.” Lovecraft’s Selected Letters II, p.221. So… does this newly discovered Bible have a bad engraved plate of Belshazzar’s Feast in it?
I’m told it does have such an engraving, marked as by… “B.P. Newnam 237 Dock St.”
Following this up, I found that a B.P. Newnam was indeed recorded as a fine engraver, c.1893. And that “237 Dock St., Philadelphia” was a multiple office business building, home to MacCalla & Co. (Inc.) Publishers around late 1890s. So they both appear to check out against the archival record.
A photo of the births page has been posted – on it is recorded Lovecraft’s birth and that of his mother and father. “September 26th 1853 Rochester New York” for Winfield. That makes sense, and appears to be new. We have him as 26th October 1853 (Joshi’s “I Am Providence”), but it was quite common in those days for the birth not to have been registered until the baby had survived one month.
It may be possible to find a vintage bible with a blank marriage cert and blank family pages, then fake something like this with some really good calligraphy skills and some careful research. But this looks like the genuine item to me.
A little more information…
“I talked to my Grandma, Geneva McCraw, and she says that her mother Alice (Pruitt) Busby likely bought it when Geneva was a child, but Geneva isn’t at all sure. When Alice Busby died it was passed to Jesse Elmer Busby, Geneva’s oldest brother. When he died, my mother was given the bible.”
http://selfwrite.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/h-p-lovecrafts-family-bible-update/