Here’s a curious little coincidence.

Lovecraft’s story “The Horror at Red Hook” states that one of the protagonists, the detective Malone, had in his younger days published… “many poignant things to his credit in the Dublin Review”. At circa 1926 Malone was 42 years old. Thus he was about age 25-32 when a young man and likely to be writing publishable poetry, at which point the editor of the real Dublin Review was one Wilfrid Philip Ward. Ward was editor from 1903 until his death in 1916.

“Ward Phillips” was one of Lovecraft’s own pseudonyms, and this name emerged at around this time, drawing on his own family name and history. The name was later revived for a character in Lovecraft’s fiction.

The similarity of the names must be sheer co-incidence, as I can see no reason why Lovecraft would be interested in the real Wilfrid Philip Ward. But it’s a small point that a Lovecraftian fiction writer might hang a new story on. Such a story might open with the re-discovery that Lovecraft had published immensely subtle anti-Catholic poetry in the Dublin Review at that time, under the nose of Philip Ward, in part by posing as Ward’s long-lost American relation. These poems being published under the name of Malone. And that this lost poem cycle is now revealed to be a sort of Da Vinci Code leading to… etc etc.