On the Two-Gun Raconteur blog today Keith Taylor surveys some scientific history to try to illuminate why Lovecraft and R.E. Howard might have been spurred to discuss the idea that ‘a white race or tribe had once lived in Africa’. This was a commonly accepted theory by the mid 1920s, apparently bolstered by archaeological and survey evidence and then given an added dimension by sparse Boskop archaeological skull finds from 1913 onwards — the latter being the focus of Taylor’s blog musings.

One can see this then-common idea in action in a Lovecraft letter, written after hearing a vivid and extensive first-hand account of visiting the Zimbabwe ruins in Africa. Lovecraft had had this account directly from his friend Edward Lloyd Sechrist …


This essay has been replaced by the essay in my new book of revised, expanded, and footnoted versions of my recent Tentaclii essays, Lovecraft in Historical Context: fifth collection.

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