As the spring arrives I’ve started dipping at random into Lovecraft’s letters to Barlow, O Fortunate Floridian. Immediately one finds important nuggets of fact such as, just ahead of their first meeting in Florida on 2nd May 1934…

I fancy I shall be able to recognise you from the clear-cut snap you sent” (10th April 1934, page 124)

“Snap” being slang for photograph. What does “clear-cut” mean, as an example of the photographic terminology of the period? A “bright and clear-cut picture”, properly exposed and free from damage and obscuring shadows, spots, scratches etc. Sharp and clean, with the subject matter clear. It was probably inherited from the slang of engravers.

This rather deflates the dramatic storyteller’s notion (sometimes encountered or implied in faulty biographies, hazy magazine articles, graphic novels, etc) that Lovecraft was utterly surprised at the boyish appearance of then fifteen year-old “splendid little chap”, when they first met in person after an epic cross-country bus trip. Lovecraft can’t have been that surprised, if he had seen a photo of Barlow beforehand and studied the “clear cut” photograph at leisure and with his excellent magnifiers. Although it is, I suppose, possible that Barlow had artfully framed and lit the photo so as to appear a little older. I’m not sure if we still have the exact photo that was sent, and proof that it is the one? Is it the cover of this new book? If so then it seems clear enough…

The “snap” arrived in Providence mid-October 1933, according to the letters in O Fortunate Floridian.

Also, in a letter of July 1933 he tell Barlow (shortly after a detailed discussion of Madchen in Uniform, of all things), that…

your youthfulness will not count against you [as a prospect for a long-distance face-to-face visit], for I like youth very much even though I have left that condition very far behind. I enjoy seeing a new generation spring up and blossom out…

Here the implication is that Lovecraft knew Barlow was a “youth”, because Barlow had told him. Although it seems that Barlow had not explicitly told Lovecraft his exact age during their initial correspondence, and Lovecraft had not asked. This is evidenced by a later letter to Sully…

As for my host [Lovecraft was then staying at the Barlow residence in Florida] … He always evaded statements regarding his age, but it now turns out that he only turned sixteen last Friday. The little imp!” (Lovecraft to Sully, 26th May 1934).

Thus there was an element of surprise for Lovecraft, most likely as the 18th May 1934 approached and preparations for Barlow’s 16th birthday became evident. But it was most likely not the dramatic “stepping off the bus” moment of shocked realisation, such as we may one day see pictured in the big-screen movie of Lovecraft’s life.