I’ve now finished reading the first volume of Letters to Family. Here are the final notes for this volume.

* Arthur Leeds let Lovecraft borrow a volume of Blackwood stories, presumably tales he had not yet read. The book is unidentified. Lovecraft read it through in one night in December 1925. A short while later he did much the same with a volume of the ghost stories of M.R. James, making no comment on them.

* In December 1925 Long had a story suited to Frontier magazine. This must be the successor to Hunter’s Frontier Magazine, Frontier Times, which appeared in October 1923 and then ran until 1985. A Web page for collectors states… “this monthly was dedicated to frontier history, border tragedies, and pioneer achievements. … Rich in first-hand accounts of formative pioneer events [and these] tell it like it was — bold, bloody and accurate.”

* Lovecraft had never seen the North Burial Ground in Providence, by late 1925.

* He refers to an astronomy slide-show he once gave in Providence, with the aid of “my lantern” (page 506). Implying that he had once owned a relatively powerful ‘magic lantern’ in his youth, and had the astronomical slides for it.

* He recalls the colours and cut of the overcoats (page 506) that he had owned since young manhood, thus potentially aiding identification in early photos (should any new ones be discovered).

* He gives the first-names of the cooks and kitchen help, recalled from his youth at 454 (page 515). Evidently the kitchen help was not all Irish, as there was a “Svea” — which is a Swedish female name. In Lovecraft’s youth the newly arriving Swedes were the largest immigrant group in Providence.

* With Sechrist paying for the tickets Lovecraft sees the Russian Yiddish stage play The Dybbuk, early in its run at “the off-Broadway Neighbourhood Playhouse”. It opened in English translation in New York City on 15th December 1925. The play draws on Yiddish folklore, namely the belief that a spirit of a dead person (which refuses to be at rest) can cling to and ‘take over’ a living person, and thus displace the living personality. Lovecraft had already explored similar ideas in fiction, so this is not a source — though the staging may have revealed to him new wrinkles in the idea. It ends with dramatic exorcism according to a summary… “The holy man then conducts a dramatic exorcism, summoning various mystical entities and using ram horns’ blasts and black candles.” The contemporary occult idea of connecting the dybbuk to a wooden box (in which it is trapped) is apparently a wholly modern confabulation with no basis in the folklore. Thus there is no connection with a mention, a few pages later, of Lovecraft’s own little cedar box.

* In short succession in December 1925 Lovecraft hears long first-hand accounts of exploring then-mysterious ancient ruins, from Sechrist (Zimbabwe) and Orton (Mexico).

* Evidently the smoky New York air, during the coal strike, also induced bronchial problems with the visiting Orton. As it had done for Long. Lovecraft states that the strike caused the city to lift the outright ban on burning bituminous (smoky) coal. Thus the atmosphere, in which Lovecraft was exploring colonial sections of the city at night, would have been especially atmospheric in Autumn/Winter 1925.

* Lovecraft indicates he had cut connections with the Eddys in Providence (page 520) by December 1925. He even seems to go so far as to suggest the reason, stating of Eddy that… “his financial laxity is something much more deserving of legal & judicial attention”. This must refer to Eddy’s slick begging letters, of which Lovecraft had suffered a number while in New York. Lovecraft appears to subtly warn his aunt that these begging letters were not restricted to himself, and they might soon receive the attention of the law.

Further notes on Letters to Family. My reading of the first volume is now nearly finished.

* Lovecraft talked of the “beams of the moon” and their influence… “many a mind closed & sluggish in sunlight, opens up rare & magnificently exotic vistas in the beams of the moon” (page 377) and this passage seems to relate to the combined Commonplace story idea I posted previously. It also plays into a related story idea (page 401), which then arose from his purchase of an antique lamp from Ancient Greece (page 381).

* Later he talked of the likelihood of writing “a new series of tales” (page 437), though this probably indicates the Cthulhu mythos which was obviously then emerging.

* He recalls an unfinished story of circa 1906-07, which featured an Ancient Roman colony in South America. He considers he might revive the idea one day, with the momentous modern discovery of a Roman colony while tunnelling under Providence. The Roman ships having been swept across the Atlantic by a mighty storm, a colony founded among the Indians, and then destroyed by earthquake etc. Later he notes the story potential in Rome’s long African frontier (page 500), which seems to imply a transfer of the Roman New England idea from New England to Africa. See my essay on Great Zimbabwe for how this might have developed further.

* In summer 1925 he was reading the account of the travels of Marco Polo, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, and also appears to have seen the German mountaineering documentary-drama movie Peak of Fate. These could all have played into aspects of his Dream Quest, written after he returned to Providence.

* Evidently Tryout Smith’s idea for the story “In the Vault” arrived sometime in August 1925, and it’s possible that this was what he was sketching out in Elizabethtown when interrupted. This does not obviate my notion that there was a ‘lost/unwritten’ New York story (see above), but it does suggested that “In the Vault” was the Elizabethtown tale being jotted down. But to be sure one would need the exact dates.

* The tunnelling under College Hill, Providence, he recalls as dating to 1906-08.

* Lovecraft’s New York reading on the deep history of Providence shows him that its culture and sense of itself was… “not laid by the Baptist home-lot families at all, but by the more polished Episcopalians from Newport, Boston or England, who came after 1700 and who were largely communicants of the King’s Church” (page 395). He also finds a new 43rd St. cafe-restaurant which is very handy for use after his late-night library reading (page 415).

* He had enjoyed becoming purposely lost in Cat Swamp as a boy… “Remembering that I had no map & knew nothing of the country, [I went] trusting with chance with a very agreeable sense of adventure into the unknown; just as I used to enjoy getting “lost” on walks around Cat Swamp, East Providence, or somewhere, with you, Gramp, or my mother in the early and middle ‘nineties.” (page 421). Evidently it was a small family tradition to try to become purposely “lost” on walks and horse-and-buggy rides.

* In “1897-8-9” the museum in Waterman Street “was an enchanted world” for him, with its “basement” museum of Greek and Roman reproduction sculpture. I’ve previously blogged about this, with interior pictures. I’ve updated the post, re: the fact that there was a “basement” full of sculptures as well as the few sculptures which adorned an upstairs entrance hall.

* An aunt made use of a “Mrs Glazer’s stable” for storage, in which the damp ruined a large painting and fine books. But this does not appear to be the drier barn in which Lovecraft later stored his own books and old materials.

* The Netropian journal, seemingly produced by the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co. of Providence, and with many local history articles and art in the 1920s. Copies apparently languish in paper at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, and might usefully be scanned and sent to Hathi. I seem to recall that Brown has recently joined Hathi, so we may yet see the run online.

* Lovecraft’s friend Kleiner trained himself to become an expert calligrapher in 1925, just for himself and friends.

* Arthur Leeds wrote a long tribute to Blackwood, which is presumably now lost. Leeds also had a large collection of magazines such as Adventure, Black Cat etc. Lovecraft was able to peruse and read into the Leeds collection at length, one quiet night.

* His opinion of the Arthur Leeds vampire story was glowing, when it appeared in the Weird Tales issue for Halloween 1925. “A great tale … the atmosphere and climax are ideal” (page 431). It is now newly in the public domain and available for adaptation.

* Lovecraft remarks “I never read a literary review” in magazines and newspapers, meaning reviews of fiction. He does make remarks indicating that he looks at the notices for new books in the magazines and papers. Evidently he skips the women’s pages in the magazines and newspapers he is sent from Providence, though otherwise seems to scour the papers quite closely.

* He does not seem to have acquired the anticipated scrapbooks, and his mass of cuttings evidently remains in a semi-chaotic home-brew filing system.

* He read a book on the British decadents of the 1890s in summer 1925 (page 380). This can’t have been The romantic ’90s by Richard Le Gallienne, as it did not appear until 1926.

* He saw and enjoyed movies such as Seigfried, The Unholy Three, The Phantom of the Opera. Though he was evidently bored and lulled to sleep by conventional cinema, there is obviously a lot more to said on the topic than Joshi’s short essay. Indeed it seems to me that a book on Lovecraft and cinema could be written, by someone prepared to do all the legwork in the Letters and cinema archives. Though I won’t be the one writing it, so feel free. Along with a comprehensive chronology of the movies he saw and valued, one idea to examine might be that Lovecraft recognised the power of cinema by 1925 and the rise of this art then played a small part in dampening his own literary output during the 1930s. It was probably not a strong influence, but it may have been a small factor. Such a book might also note my discoveries of the pre-Lovecraft cinema careers of Leeds, McNeil, Houtain and Dench, back when cinema production was centred in New York. At least two of the Kalem members had been film industry professionals, and the Kalems were also occasionally joined by Charlie Chaplin’s brother.

* A Kalem meeting was attended by Hart Crane in 1925, though he arrived “one quarter lit-up” by booze, and after an hour he departed in search of more. The poet was, as many will recall, a pitiful drunk.

* In 1925 he took his “first real view” of the Hudson River, on a river-trip far up the river (pages 375 and 386). I may look at this trip for a future ‘Picture Postals’ post.

* In New York he saw again the Innsmouth-like “Old Mill” village he had visited in 1922. It is footnoted as Kiendlville, though Lovecraft knows it as Kiendalville. Neither spelling shows up on a postcard search. Letters to Family has a very fine description in which he and Loveman venture beyond this fishing-village settlement and reach the sea-marshes, which alone is worth the price of the book (pages 389, 391-92). Loveman wrote a poem about the visit. The material relating to this area might be collected and then make for a fine illustrated artbook project for an artist working in fine charcoals.

* In the summer Lovecraft finds he adores “huckleberry pie”, then in season.

* The Taorima restaurant was in Clinton St., above a grocery shop where Lovecraft shopped for cans.

* The national coal strike of the second half of 1925 caused the cost of living to rise. Under-heating of rented apartments was not permitted by law in New York City, and by Christmas the price of coke fuel had risen to $22 a ton by the start of December, at which Lovecraft’s landlady was livid. Lovecraft remarks that as winter approached the city temporarily lifted its total ban on bituminous (‘smoky’) coal due to the strike, so the city was likely to have been far smoggier and smokier than usual in the Autumn-Winter of 1925-26. The resulting atmosphere may have impaired Long’s health (he fell ill with bronchitis) but the resulting intensification of Autumnal mists and sunsets could have pleased Lovecraft. Kirk’s Diary mentions how fine the Indian Summer was that year, and another remark by Lovecraft indicates its terminus was in mid November (page 491) when the weather broke.

* By Autumn/Fall 1925 coffee at John’s was 10 cents, compared to the cost of full spaghetti meal at 35 cents. This seems high. Was the coffee price so high to help shape the profile of the clientele, by keeping out the riff-raff?

* With his Weird Tales cheque Lovecraft obtained a $13 ‘hiking’ suit by searching the “slum shops” for one and haggling. This is the one he wears in the well-known ‘HPL, cat-strangler’ snapshot. He also purchased a life-saving $7 ‘Perfection’ oil heater for his room, and was so eager to have it he carried it out of the shop and lugged it through the streets. After learning the heater’s arcane ways he managed to pare it down to consuming 3 gallons a week. On this flat-top heater-stove he was able to heat up his canned food, previously eaten cold.

Shown here with inner oil chamber, filled and wiped elsewhere on newspaper and then carried to the stove.

More notes on insights gleaned from Letters to Family…

* In 1925 Lovecraft adored a screen recreation of the Italian Renaissance, as seen in the Lillian Gish silent movie Romola (1924). He saw this in New York in August 1925, during his short New York story-writing period. He liked it mainly for the costumes, lavish on-location backdrops, Italian physiognomy, and the painstaking attention to historical detail, but felt the acting was merely “adequate”. Picture-play magazine also had a similar opinion, that “Romola is beautiful but dull”. The movie is now newly on Archive.org with English inter-titles and no music. It was previously only available there with Portuguese hard-coded inter-titles and generic silent-movie music. The English version has slightly better compression, but is obviously from the same print. On Amazon there is a streaming version and reviews deem it “unwatchable”, “one big blur” and the captions “unreadable” and “chopped off”. However, as usual, Amazon is misleading its customers and a little more digging finds that these reviews are for the old VHS tape Grapevine release. An Amazon bot has been allowed to idly copy the reviews over to the new page. The English Archive.org copy seems likely to be the best that can be had. With adjustments in VLC Media Player, and shrunk to about 5″ at tablet size, it is watchable and the titles can be read.

* Lovecraft also planned to see “a fantastic cinema” on the evening of 11th August 1925, the same day he wrote the story “He”. Both Loveman and Leeds were eager to see the movie with him, suggesting it had more than the usual appeal. But a broken morning ferry at Elizabethtown threw the movie plan into disarray. The movie is not named. Coming so soon before “The Call of Cthulhu”, if might have pushed him in another direction, and we would never had had “Cthulhu”. What could the movie have been? The British adaptation of She was not released in the USA until 1926. The Phantom of the Opera had not yet been released. Nor had the werewolf movie Wolfblood: A Tale of the Forest. It can’t have been The Unholy Three as that was not released until 16th August and was seen later without reference to a missed screening. Of 1924 movies, The Hands of Orlac was not released in the USA until 1928. The comedy-horror-melodrama The Monster is a possibility. The French Le fantome du Moulin-Rouge is another possibility, although it was also a comedy-horror. The German anthology movie Waxworks seems the most likely, which had seen a November 1924 release and could still have been running in New York.

* Lovecraft wrote “He” on 11th August 1925 (wrongly stated as 18th Aug in the Lovecraft Encyclopaedia timeline, though the entry itself is correct). But on the morning of Saturday 15th he returned to the same Elizabethtown park in which he had written “He”. There he outlined and began writing another tale…

I settled myself as on Tuesday in Scott Park — beginning a horror tale I had in mind. This I sketched out and began filling in when my labour was interrupted by the advent of one of those curious stranger-addressing characters whom one meets now and again […] He was interested in the weird material he found me writing”. (pages 350-51)

The old fellow turned out to be the nation’s leading expert on bison and their care, and they had a long and amiable chat about the shaggy beasts. Thus, Lovecraft had his very own ‘Porlock’. What was this interrupted and seemingly uncompleted tale? He had already written “Red Hook” and “He” and got down the gist of and plotted “Cthulhu”. “In the Vault” was not written until mid September 1925, and was anyway not a story he “had in mind” but was an idea suggested by Tryout editor Charles W. Smith.

The possibilities would be:

i) a first try at “Cool Air” (later written February 1926);
ii) a first try at “In the Vault” (if Smith had suggested the idea by then, it having been “sketched out” sometime in August);
iii) a first stab at part of “The Call of Cthulhu”;
iv) at this time Lovecraft talks in letters of his “Salem novel” or a novelette of “Salem Horrors”, though this was not yet written. Possibly related to the Commonplace Book‘s 1925 “Witches’ Hollow novel”, though this was obviously a school-story and thus a planned collaboration with Whitehead.

Can his telegraphic 1925 Diary throw light in the incident? He records an evening spent with Loveman at the insalubrious Tiffany cafe on the edge of Red Hook, haunt of gangsters and petty hoodlums, after which… “HPL stay[s] up to explore with pad & pencil”, which sounds like experimenting all night with story ideas. His Diary then makes no mention of the Porlockian stranger he met the following morning, and the entry for this time is simply…

… ferry to Stat. Isl. in dawn — across to Eliz Ferry — sunrise — Eliz[abethtown]

Despite it being a Saturday, on his return he was immediately plunged into an unexpected maelstrom of urgent work and complex logistics relating to his circle. Presumably the dawn tale was forgotten. So all in all it sounds to me like this was an experimental New York story arising from his “explor[ing] with pad & pencil”, a tale perhaps later mislaid or destroyed or folded into some other tale?

We perhaps get a glimpse of the tale in the Commonplace Book in the second half of 1925, with the items here slightly re-structured to make more of a modern-gnostic story outline…

A secret language spoken by a very few old men … Hideous world superimposed on visible world — gate through — power guides narrator to ancient and forbidden book with directions for access. … Someone or something cries in fright at sight of the rising moon, as if it were something strange. … Explorer enters strange land where some atmospheric quality darkens the sky to virtual blackness — marvels therein.

As such the November 1927 dream-fragment “The Book” may seem to connect with these 1925 ideas. However, note that Joshi is not convinced that there was no later Derlethian padding… “the latter portion of the text may not be Lovecraft’s at all: several sentences here are distinctly un-Lovecraftian in style.”

More notes on insights gleaned from Letters to Family…

* Lovecraft was a member of the Blue Pencil Club of Brooklyn, though perhaps not a paid-up one. He joined in July 1924 and anticipated paying his dues in due course. The membership had a cost, but Dench was a commercial opportunity-spotter and it was presumably good networking if rather humdrum in terms of the literary debate. Lovecraft was then in dire need of a regular job, following the disaster of Sonia quitting her well-paid job to start a (quickly failed) upmarket hat-shop, and then having her valuable client-list effectively stolen from her by subterfuge.

* Lovecraft’s correspondent and fellow amateur journalist Mrs. Renshaw was remarked on as being “high” in Republican women’s circles in Washington, which adds another small item of data on her.

* Lovecraft read Moby Dick and… far from hailing it as a existential masterpiece the tale seems to have only made him interested in the history of the old time whalers.

* Lovecraft’s Grandpa never lived to see him in long trousers. Since he died in 1904, this puts a marker on Lovecraft going into long trousers. Actually he elsewhere tells us exactly when the trousering happened, April 1904. He had his first suit in 1905.

* As a boy, his room at 598 was cut off from light and air by the side of a neighbouring house.

* Lovecraft evidently kept a “trunk” in the cellar at Clinton Street. A possible cue there for a new Mythos story.

* During one regional antiquarian trip he tripped and fell headlong down stairs into a dark colonial cellar, while carrying a black cat. This offers a rather mind-boggling opportunity for an artist to depict the moment.

* Lovecraft and Sonia saw the original ‘Zippy the Pinhead’ in a sideshow at Coney Island. This was not in the Luna Park section, as that section was only done on a similar visit a few weeks later.

* Lovecraft’s famous silhouette was not cut at Coney Island. E.J. Perry the cutter was working in the winter at the “Capitol Book Shop on Broadway near 51st St.” (page 309), and that was where Lovecraft and some of the Kalems first had theirs cut. Sonia did later have two silhouettes cut by Perry at his Coney Island stand (not Luna Park) with and without her hat. On the bookshop The New York Times, then a reputable paper and ‘the paper of record’, noted its name change from “Capital Book Shop, Manhattan to Capitol Book Shop” in its 26th June 1925 issue. But that doesn’t help, as the shop is now utterly obscure under either name or close variants. Which is strange, as it obviously gave Perry a reasonable trade in the winter.

* The somewhat shady Yesley-Leeds “publication” of 1925 sounds to me like it would have been a generic giveaway magazine, into which the sponsoring business would have its own flattering article and pictures centrally inserted. Lovecraft wrote a number of general articles for it, as did Long. Its nature is never explicitly spelled out for his aunt, nor is Yesley pictured.

* Prior to “copying some yarns” for submission to Weird Tales and starting the New York stories with “Red Hook”, he was considering writing tales with an Eastern, “Baghdad” setting. It would be interesting to speculate on how these might have turned out. Perhaps we glimpse something of these unwritten tales in “Under The Pyramids” (written after close study of a travel guide or two, and afternoons spent in the antiquities departments of the New York museums) and in Dream Quest.