Bobbie Derie delves into letters arising from Barlow’s deposits of letter-caches with receiving libraries, in the late 1930s. The focus is on the whereabouts of the Robert E. Howard letters, but the article also throws a little light on the possible disposition of some of Lovecraft’s rarer books after his death…

Later, Mrs. Gamwell [Lovecraft’s aunt] may want someone to look over Howard’s [Lovecraft’s] books for possible library donations, I believe there is not much for the Harris Collection, but other departments might find material.

So the assumption that it was all trucked down to the hill to the Dana bookstore may not be the whole story. Before that happened there may have been some ‘picking’ of certain choice volumes by Brown academics, as well as by his aunt and a few members of his circle.