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.
The Typographical Journal for 1946 names a “William F. Anger” in a list of either contributions or expenditures, having against his name “$300”. One wonders if he set himself up as a printer after the war? But this is likely to be the same as the man noted in The Typographical Journal in a 1935 issue of as… “William F. Anger, age 27; at trade twelve years; worked in Denver, Colo.; Chicago”. The age would mean that he was born 1908, so he can’t be the fannish Anger.
Great information on William Frederick Anger. Like Anger, a number of Lovecraft’s correspondents generously gave their letter files to institutions. Duane W. Rimel (1915-1996) gave his Lovecraft letters to Brown University. Earlier, Mrs. Bernice Barlow also donated her son’s letters from Lovecraft to Brown University. Barlow had kept these letters with him during all his time in Mexico. The other major item he retained, after depositing most of his Lovecraft items with Brown in 1937-42, was the manuscript of “The Shadow Out of Time.” This eventually came to Brown, too, as the gift of the children of Barlow’s student June Evelyn Ripley. The major unaccounted item apparently once owned by Barlow is the 1937 Lovecraft diary which was the source for the listing of correspondents you have been working on. Sadly, a number of other Lovecraft letter files have been broken up and their contents will be difficult to assemble for eventual publication in the Joshi-Schultz letters project. Fortunately some of these files went through Arkham House before being dispersed, so at least the Arkham House Transcripts remain as a source.
It now appears that the East Coast Navy serving Anger (d.1997, see above) is not Lovecraft’s Anger. Since Randy Everts writes that Anger lived in California (which would explain the Smith connection) and that he later moved to Florida. He died there 1982…
“William Frederick Anger
Florida, Death Index, 1877-1998
birth: 14 April 1921 death: 6 July 1982 Walton, Florida, United States”