Stacy Tolman of Providence (1860-1935):

Portrait of Tolman.

From 1889 Tolman was a teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design, head of the dept. of drawing and painting there until 1905, thereafter teaching the anatomy class. He had his studio in the Fleur de Lys building in Providence from 1895.

The Etcher (c.1887-90), Stacy Tolman of Providence. The man depicted is the printmaker William Henry Warren Bicknell, friend and fellow student:

The Musicale (c.1887), Stacy Tolman of Providence:

Yard View, Providence (undated), Stacy Tolman of Providence:

The Interlude (1890), Stacy Tolman of Providence:

This evokes several Lovecraft stories such as “The Terrible Old Man”, “The Music of Erich Zann”, and “Hypnos”.

His late work, presumably in the 1920s, apparently showed the evidence of impressionism. One presumes that toward the end of his life Providence gave Tolman a major retrospective exhibition, which Lovecraft would have likely seen (unless he was away in New York at that point). I can’t find one, but there was a 1935 list catalogue for a Memorial Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Etchings by Stacy Tolman.

It is quite probable he was a teacher of Lovecraft’s Providence correspondent (and probable local friend) Frederick Allen Wesley, who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design as evidenced by the 1903 yearbook (and probably also studied there in later years)…

There is an ink drawing of Wesley by Tolman, not yet available online…

   Rhode Island Historical Society–Graphics Dept.:
   ACCESS RESTRICTED. APPOINTMENT REQUIRED
   1. Ink drawing, “Frederick Allen Wesley” (call# Graphics XXB Painting T652 1)

Given this, one wonders if Lovecraft’s friend Wesley was the model for the artist in “The Call of Cthulhu”…

“who had latterly been studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design and living alone at the Fleur-de-Lys Building near that institution. Wilcox was a precocious youth of known genius but great eccentricity”

Note that the last “A.W.” initials of Henry Anthony Wilcox are the same as those of Frederick A. Wesley, and that Lovecraft has a tendency to slip his friends into his stories.

One wonders if the Tolman portrait of Wesley will show something of Lovecraft’s description of Wilcox in “The Call of Cthulhu” as a…

   “thin, dark young man of neurotic and excited aspect”

Articles:

Ralph Davol, “An Appreciation of Stacey Tolman“, Brush and Pencil, an illustrated magazine of the arts today, Vol.7, Dec. 1900, pp. 163-172.

John. I.H. Baur, “A Painter of Painters: Stacy Tolman”, American Art Journal, Jan 1979, pp.37-48. 14 illustrations.

There appears to be an extant portrait picture of the obscure Lovecraft correspondent from Providence, Frederick Allen Wesley of 6 Hammond Street….

   Rhode Island Historical Society–Graphics Dept.:
   ACCESS RESTRICTED. APPOINTMENT REQUIRED
   1. Ink drawing, “Frederick Allen Wesley” (call# Graphics XXB Painting T652 1) [ink drawing by Stacy Tolman]

Source: Unveiled: a directory and guide to 19th century born artists active in Rhode Island, and where to find their work in publicly accessible Rhode Island collections, by Elinor L. Nacheman. (2007).

Stacy Tolman. (1860-1935) [portrait]. “He was an early member of the Providence Art Club, and Providence Watercolor Club. His studio, previously used by Charles Walter Stetson, was in the Fleur de Lis Building, in Providence with Sidney Burleigh, George Whitaker, Chester Dodge, Frank Mathewson, and Gertrude Parmelee (Cady). Tolman traveled to Europe and the Middle East to paint, and exhibited at the National Academy of Design, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.”

This would seem to link Wesley in some way with the Providence Art Club? And/or to the art scene of the Fleur-de-Lys Studios building (a building which also features in “The Call of Cthulhu”).

Possibly Wesley was an artist or designer himself. I have found a “Wesley, Fred A.” in Rhode Island School of Design Year Book 1903 – Volumes 25-28 – Page 69, taking a course there…

He appears to be taking the first and presumably foundational course, and so was presumably a junior student. If he had been born 1885 (as Ken Faig has found) then in 1903 he would have been of the right age to be an 18 year old freshman at the Rhode Island School of Design. Tolman was then a leading teacher there. One wonders if Wesley might in time have become an assistant apprenticed to Stacy Tolman or one of the other artists in the Fleur-de-Lys Studios?

Lovecraft correspondent Fred Anger planned an index to Weird Tales and an edition of Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yoggoth, both with Louis C. Smith. It seems that Smith has long been a minor and almost total mystery to Lovecraftians. But he can now be fairly easily traced through his fannish activities, although his birth and death dates, and his post-war occupation, remain elusive.

John Cheng’s book Astounding Wonder: Imagining Science and Science Fiction in Interwar America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) names Smith as… “Louis C. Smith on the Berkeley-Oakland side of San Francisco” and details on page 217 some of Smith’s early fannish involvement…

   “In 1928 Aubrey MacDermott, Clifton Amsbury, Lester Anderson, and Louis C. Smith on the Berkeley-Oakland side of San Francisco Bay began meeting monthly as the Eastbay Science Correspondence Club (ESCC). Raymond Palmer, originally a Chicago SCC member, suggested a national merger [with his own organisation and they became the] Eastbay Scientific Association, merged into one club under a constitution drafted by Dennis, Clements, and A. B. Maloire of Chehalis, Washington.”

Cheng appears to be drawing here on Joseph L. Sanders’s Science Fiction Fandom (1994), although I am unable to access his footnotes.

Harry Warner Jr.’s book All our yesterdays: an informal history of science fiction fandom (1969) noted on page 59 and 67 respectively that…

   “Louis C. Smith had dozens of custom-bound volumes that he entitled ‘Fantastic Fiction….’ and that “Louis C. Smith kept a card index in the thirties that contain facts on more than a thousand books” but that is all I have been able to access online.

Evidently Lovecraft was not dealing with a couple of vapid star-gazing schoolboys. Smith was serious about bibliographic undertakings.

Smith also contributed letters to the Jerome Siegel (1914-1996) fanzine Science Fiction, and had a letter in the very first issue in November 1932.

Smith had an article or letter in the August 1934 issue of The Fantasy Fan, in which he noted that “A. Merritt is of French Huguenot ancestry”. Smith and his friend Fred Anger provided “An Interview with E. Hoffman Price” published in The Fantasy Fan, December 1934.

Smith contributed an article on “Phillip M. Fisher, Jr.” to Fantasy Magazine, August 1935. In 2011 this was due to be reprinted as an introduction to the book Strange Ocean Vistas of Philip M. Fisher (George A. Vanderburgh’s Lost Treasures from the Pulps #12) but this is a volume that although prepared seems to have been delayed.

An article “Phantasy’s Trend” by Louis C. Smith appeared in The Phantagraph fanzine of February 1936.

The Futile Press’s The Science Fiction Critic (December 1936/January 1937, “Volume One, Number Six”) contained work by a “Frederik and Louis C. Smith”, the Smith item titled “Fantasiana”. One wonders if the “Frederik” was Smith’s friend Fred Anger. It seems likely he was. The Science Fiction Critic fanzine was edited by Claire P. Beck, and that particular edition was the first issued from her new address at Lakeport, California.

Smith had a column titled “Fantastica” in the fanzine Helios (Oct-Nov-Dec 1937).

According to the online The FictionMags Index Smith had letters published in Weird Tales: “Feb, Dec 1933, Dec 1934, Aug 1935, Nov 1936”.

Smith had a column published in the Tesseract fanzine: December 1936; and January 1937 (titled “Authorsophy”, stated as being… “a column by Louis C. Smith which quotes Edmond Hamilton, E. E. Smith and others”); and March 1937; and October 1937 (titled “Science in Fiction”). Tesseract was apparently the product of The Science Fiction Advancement Association of San Francisco, with which Smith was presumably involved since he was evidently living in the city. In 1941 Smith was noted in a SF fanzine as living in San Francisco…

   “recent news from America is that that eternal infernal bibliography-in-preparation bug has now bitten old-time fan Louis C. Smith and Fantasia-editor Louis Goldstone, both of San Francisco.” (Futurian War Digest, 1941, No.14).

This quip probably refers to Smith’s venture with co-editor Jack Riggs, on a 28 page index of SF pulp stories: Unknown Index: Fantasy Fiction in Three Sections, Table of Contents, Index of Titles, Alphabetical List of Authors, Berkeley, Calif., 1944 or 1946. A book record at Worldcat describes this work as an… “Index to the 39 issues of Unknown and Unknown Worlds.”

The cover of this work actually gives us an address: “1620 Chestnut Street, Berkley-2- California”

However, this may have been Jack Riggs rather than Smith’s address, since the 1941 Fanzine Yearbook in section two of Le Zombie (January 1942) gives the title and address of Smith’s own fanzine:

   “TELLUS    Louis C. Smith, 1845 Prince Street, Berkeley, California. Mimeographed; monthly; two; 16 pages; 10 cents.”

Tellus is in the Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries… “Tellus. Nos. 1, 2 (1941), 3 (1942), 4 (1943), 5 (1944), 6 (1945)”

This fanzine run might be usefully inspected for any article by Smith remembering his contact with Lovecraft or his circle. It might also give biographical details for his friend Fred Anger.

Smith’s home was also a venue for weekly fannish SF meetings in his city, according to a footnote to an article in Astounding Science Fiction in 1942 (Volume 28, Issue 6, page 110)…

   “Every single member is an Astounding SF fan, which isn’t as astounding as it may seem. We meet every Friday evening at 1845 Prince Street in Berkeley with Louis Smith as director.”

All goes rather quiet on the Louis C. Smith front after this. But in 1971 a paper was presented to the first Popular Culture Association National Conference (East Lansing, MI, April 8-10, 1971) by a Louis C. Smith, titled “John Clark Ridpath and Popular History – Neglected and Forgotten”. Ridpath was a popular historian 1869-85. It might suggest that Louis C. Smith became a academic or more likely an academic librarian, since he obviously had the bibliographic bug in him.

Lovecraft correspondent Fred Anger (William Frederick Anger, probably b. 15th Sept 1920) was a young Lovecraft fan and letter writer to the pulps. The Lovecraft Encyclopedia states he planned an index to Weird Tales and an edition of Fungi from Yoggoth, both with Louis C. Smith, neither of which appeared. He contributed an interview to The Fantasy Fan fanzine.

Here are two fragments of Anger’s youthful letters to pulps…

   “Fred Anger, of Berkeley, California, writes: “Weird Tales is certainly improving steadily. Every new copy gets better and better; evidently there is no end to your progress. The first installment of The Trail of the Cloven Hoof is as good a piece of weird fiction as it is possible to find. Mr. Eadie has given us nothing but the best in all the years he has been writing. The Trail of the Cloven Hoof equals if not excels The World-Wrecker of several years ago. Congratulations, Mr. Eadie. Through the Gates [of the Silver Key?… his letter is incomplete, at least in the digital source I have access to]” — “By Air Mail,” a letter to Weird Tales, September 1934, Vol.24, No.3.

John Cheng’s book Astounding Wonder: Imagining Science and Science Fiction in Interwar America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) quotes Anger on page 62, as being representative of writers to the pulp letters pages…

   “Readers were not naive about letters columns. Some readers questioned the validity and representative character of published exchanges. “I hardly think that the small cross-section of the Science Fiction readers as represented by your Discussions is quite a fair example of the readers as a whole,” wrote Fred Anger, 2700 Webster Street, Berkeley, California. “It is inclined to be prejudiced and it is not a customary editorial policy to print letters which really express opinions.”

Cheng does not say to which pulp Anger was writing here, nor does he footnote the quote. It was not Weird Tales, but rather an SF pulp with letters pages titled “Discussions”. Presumably this must have been Amazing Stories. This might suggest Anger was a hard SF as well as a fantasy-horror fan. I have found an online indication that his letter was published in a 1935 issue of Amazing Stories.

Anger appears to have been very antagonistic to Robert Bloch, then of about the same age…

   “Another fellow named Fred Anger never missed a chance to criticize Bloch” (Gary Romeo, “Stars of the Pulps”, Sand Roughs #5, Winter Solstice, 2002).

This was apparently because Bloch didn’t like Conan and had called R.E. Howard’s character “Conan the Cluck” in print.

The Lovecraft correspondence with Anger seems accounted for, and safely in the Selected Letters and held in a public collection…

“H.P. Lovecraft Correspondence: Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, United States. The collection consists of 5 holograph postcards (Aug. 31, 1934 to Sept. 2, 1926), 10 holograph letters (Aug. 14, 1934 to Aug. 14, 1935), 1 typescript letter (Jan. 16, 1936), one chain letter (typescript and holograph, undated), one typescript letter signed by August Derleth (April 21, 1968). The letters and postcards are written to Fred Anger from Lovecraft, mostly from his home in Providence, Rhode Island. They relate to their common interests in writing weird fiction and issues relating to publishing their work. Transcriptions of the materials have been made and are available in the archives.”

I have found a further note (.xls file) that this was an…

“Acquisition Donated to the Archives by William F. Anger in 1973”

One assumes that the letter from August Derleth (April 21, 1968) was to alert Anger of the importance of his old Lovecraft letters and items? If so it would likely have Anger’s home address in 1968. Has anyone ever checked this archive, other than perhaps Derleth? Its presence at Minneapolis might suggest that Anger was around Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1970s? Or perhaps was an alumnus of the university?

Generally lacking in the older Lovecraftian printed literature is a death date for Anger, although I Am Providence states 1920-1997. I have found a Polish listing of correspondents which states “1997”, and interestingly this also notes that Anger personally knew Clark Ashton Smith.

Presumably this 1997 death date was drawn either from Joshi or from Ken Hill’s information given on the alt.horror.cthulhu discussion group in 2008…

   “William Frederick Anger, born in 1921, according to AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA […] I don’t find any references to him after the 1930’s. The Social Security Death Index lists a William F. Anger, born 15 September 1920, died 2 September 1997; last known residence, Buffalo, N.Y.; social security number issued in New York State.”

This is the only mention of Anger on that alt.horror.cthulhu thread. An open genealogy website confirms that “William F Anger’s last known residence is at Buffalo, Erie County, NY (New York) 14203.” Another database usefully states…

   “William F Anger, died 09/02/1997 buried at Bath National Cemetery in Bath, NY.”

This has enabled me to find a picture of his gravestone at Bath National Cemetery (Plot: R, 0, 53), the inscription of which tells us that he served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War…

Presumably the U.S. Navy archives may have more details of his war service. YN3 indicates he was a “Petty officer third class” in the Navy.

None of this proves that the East Coast Anger is the same as as the West Coast Anger. But my hypothesis would be that after California fandom in the 1930s, where he apparently knew Clark Ashton Smith personally, Anger served in the Navy in the 1940s. He then possibly (my guess) took advantage of the post-war G.I. Bill to get an university education, and went to live in the East Coast. Given that he was a Lovecraft fan I wonder if he may have tried for Brown University? What he did on the East Coast for fifty years, if indeed he was living around New York from circa 1947 to 1997, I have as yet been unable to discover. There seems to be not a whit of him in the fannish record that’s available online.

I’ve been taking a quick look at the possible candidates for another elusive Lovecraft correspondent: C. L. Stuart of 17 Brockett St, E Milton, Mass.

It seems here we have another Barlow error. The address should read “Brackett St.” The location is four miles south of the centre of Boston, near the coast.

I have found a rather likely personage in the form of the East Coast author and encyclopedia editor Charles Leonard Stuart (aka Leonard Stuart).

He first shows up in the online record as a magazine editor in the 1890s, then as Assistant Editor of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1900). In 1910 he edited Current Cyclopedia, and by 1911 he is credited with the revising and editing of Webster’s New Illustrated dictionary. He then tackled the editorship of the Everybody’s cyclopedia (1912) (a complete reference library condensing the world’s knowledge in plain English) with George J. Hagar. This must have been a success, since two years later he was the chief editor of the People’s Cyclopedia (1914)…

Prepared by more than two hundred of the most eminent editors, educators, scholars, scientists, inventors and explorers under the chief editorship of Charles Leonard Stuart

A “Charles Leonard Stuart” has a 1922 copyright registry entry for a nationalist book in 1922 (cranky 1920s racialist stuff, with lots of worries about Papist influence and a chapter on Eugenics) which might have caught Lovecraft’s attention…

The Age of Understanding; or, Americanism and the standard of world nationalism: a true outline of history and science. Boston, R.G. Badger, 1922.

The book is available online at archive.org as by “Stuart, Leonard, [b.] 1868”. A short biography in this volume calls him an…

   “…encyclopedist and author of French-American ancestry; b. near Coutances, France, 12 February 1860; s. of Sara Stuart-Johns of Cornwall, England, and of Philippe Le Sueur, grandson of Pierre Le Sueur (d. 1792), the founder of French Methodism” […] settled in New York City in 1897 […] since has been continuously associated with international encyclopedic and educational book publishing work. Contributor to leading encyclopedias and periodical literature. Editor of the New Century Reference Library (1907); Current Cyclopedia of Ready Reference (1910); People’s Cyclopedia (1914); etc.; author of The Story of Human Flight (1907); A Misunderstood Scientist (1907) ; The Passaic and Its Falls (1910); The Great God Pan (1913); Unity, Life’s Ideal (1914); The Tycoon and the Suffragette (lyrical comedy; 1914); The Cosmic Comedy or the Kaiser’s Dream (1919) [possibly a wartime update of his 1901 The Cosmic Comedy; or, The vital urge]; The Age of Understanding or Americanism the Standard of World Nationalism (1922); A Roamer in Lyonesse (1922); The Eon or The Quest of the Lotus (MS.) [given as “The Eonic Quest” on the title page], Residence Glencliff, N.Y.

After 1922 he becomes quiescent in terms of publication. One assumes he might have retired to Brackett St. in the early-mid 1920s, aged about 65. But I can find no proof of this, other than it certainly looks like a nice retirement spot on Google Street View.

There are number of items in his Age of Understanding biography which would have interested Lovecraft, and might have prompted him to write offering revision services:

  1. The Great God Pan: an All-time Story (1913, Tudor Society, 35 pages). A copy is in Harvard Library, digitised but not yet placed online. This suggests it may have been a scholarly monograph.

  2. The Cornwall and Lyonesse connections might have intersected with Lovecraft’s quest after his own ancestors. I can find no trace of any title called A Roamer in Lyonesse, nor any work on Lyonesse from 1922 to 1935 under any likely name. Possibly the book was anticipated for 1922, but never appeared. Possibly it needed revision work, and if so the topic would have been directly in Lovecraft’s line of interest. Lyonesse is, of course, the Cornish/Arthurian folk story of the lost land under the sea.

  3. The manuscript of his esoteric-sounding “The Eon or The Quest of the Lotus” (aka “The Eonic Quest”) might also have been revision work for Lovecraft. I can find no trace of this work either, under those titles.