HPLinks #17.
* The journal Fraternal Review, from the Southern California Research Lodge, has a new ‘H.P. Lovecraft and Freemasonry’ special edition. Contents include…
* Harry Houdini and Masonry.
* Lovecraft’s Masonic grandfather.
* Masonic influences on Lovecraft, as well as Lovecraft’s subsequent influences on the occult world.
* Real-life location of the Masonic Lodge that inspired the one taken over in Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”.
A $5 digital edition is available. It’s interesting to think what might have happened had Lovecraft taken a different path… able to break into local journalism, then a local magazine editor (he would have been a cert for something like the Hospital Trust magazine The Netopian, with all its local history) and… thus been enticed to join a local Masonic Lodge. Possibly there’s a “what if” Mythos story in that?
* Deep Cuts looks into Her Letters To August Derleth: Muriel E. Eddy, and there are also a few firmer biographical memories found in the article “Mrs. Hinckley’s Providence”. The latter having an item of data on Lovecraft’s youth that I don’t think I’d seen before…
Dorothy Walter, a member of our Short Story Club, said Mr. Lovecraft used to call on her when she was young. About 20 years ago [circa 1946-47] a stranger came from Baltimore and asked Miss Walter and me [Mrs Hinckley] many questions. I only remember that my father knew Mr. Lovecraft and always spoke to him. When we came from Wickford to go to school, Mr. Lovecraft was usually sitting in the Providence railway station, probably because it was nice and warm there.
Presumably the father was taking the girls to the train for school each day, or meeting them off the train, and thus he said ‘hello’ to the boy Lovecraft. This seems quite plausible, though due to Lovecraft’s avid early interest in trains and railroad-men rather than for the warmth (his adult aversion to cold was later known, which probably coloured memories). Deep Cuts puts this at a time when Lovecraft was perhaps 10-12 year old. So maybe 1901-02? I also note that the article also recalls that at that time, at the back of the railway station there was a “beautiful backwater cove”. Tidal and sweet-smelling as she recalled it, but which was later filled in. This huge water feature can be seen on panorama views of the early city. It’s interesting to hear that it may have been known to Lovecraft as a boy.
* Deep Cuts also has Three Letters to the Editor, 1909, found via the digital archive of the Providence Journal. The topic of Lovecraft’s letters was Robert E. Lee and the South in the Civil War. Also letters from the young Lovecraft on the stage play The Clansman, something which was also debated among amateur journalists some years later — and as such his opinions on it are already well known.
* I see the (new?) Providence Journal Archives search is free, but then any items found are paywalled via individual pricing or a monthly subscription. I’m uncertain if they can take payments from outside the U.S., since payment is via credit card only. $29.95 gets you a one-month ‘unlimited downloads’ pass. Sadly passes cannot be gifted to researchers, since only the cardholder is allowed to use them.
The search-box supports phrases in quote marks e.g. “Ladd Observatory”. As with many old newspapers, however, the OCR of tiny print leaves much to be desired and there are many false-positives and oversights. For instance a search for “Winslow Upton” of the Ladd, will not find some articles that have his name and can be found with “Ladd Observatory”. Still, there are fascinating free snippets available, and even these may give mythos writers a historical hook on which to hang a story…
Found in a few minutes: Winslow Upton of the Ladd Observatory discussed “life on other worlds” in public in 1907. Whipple graves were opened ‘en masse’ in Providence, 1910. Lovecraft’s beloved River Seekonk was being totally poisoned by sewage outflows, 1923.
* Newly announced, the dates for the Robert E. Howard Days in June 2025.
* The German Lovecraftians have released dates for their annual get-together, 17th to 20th July 2025. In scholarly activity, note that a Literature Team Leader is now required to take forward their ongoing work… “on a volume of essays from German-speaking countries and a translation project for Lovecraft’s letters and essays”.
* In France, a two-day conference at the University of Poitiers on ‘Lovecraft and the Sciences’. 5th-6th December 2024, so sadly it’s been and gone. But here’s the programme in PDF, and I guess there may be recordings on YouTube and/or a book in due course.
* Skulls in the Stars reviews The Opener of the Way by Robert Bloch. Being a “quality edition” of 22 early Bloch stories, published by Valincourt. Has plot spoilers.
* New and free at FantasyBabble (spin-off from HorrorBabble), “A Stroll through the Dreamlands: 13 stories by H.P. Lovecraft”. The reading runs 2 hours 47 minutes, and it has all the Dreamlands stories in audio (except the Randolph Carter tales).
* In early 2025 France’s prestigious comics mega-fest Angouleme will feature a Masterclass with Gou Tanabe, the acclaimed manga adapter of Lovecraft. The event is one of several that will run alongside his large one-man exhibition ‘Gou Tanabe x H.P. Lovecraft’…
The great architect of a mythology which has infused all the world’s popular culture, H.P. Lovecraft has now built a bridge between 20th century New England and 21st century Japan, transcending borders and time, enabling pulp and manga to meet and join hands. This show is an opportunity to verify, once again, how great stories are universal.
* News of another Lovecraft all-night lakeside camp-out near Mexico City. Noctambulante 2025 is a Lovecraft-themed ‘camping and cinema’ event, and this time the organisers also promise that… “Cthulhu will emerge from the depths of Lake Xochimiclo”. Campers are expected to dress in a Lovecraftian manner. Starting on the evening of 29th March 2025, and booking now.
* The well-loved vintage videogame The Thing: Remastered, apparently forthcoming in a new release with… “updated character models, textures, and animations, with the implementation of advanced 3D rendering for updated lighting and atmospheric effects.”
* Also being mooted for a polish, a 40th anniversary Re-Animator edition of the celebrated 1985 comedy-adaptation movie of Lovecraft’s Home Brew shocker “Herbert West: Reanimator”.
* Visualizing Camelot was a 350-item university gallery exhibition surveying the uses of King Arthur in popular culture. The show was developed by subject-expert curators who were able to draw on specialist American and British collections of such material. It’s been and gone but a substantial website remains online.
* And finally, the new online H.P. Lovecraft Translator…
— End-quote —
“I was arrested mainly by the great temple of the Scottish Rite Masons, whose striking architecture lifts it out of the commonplace and mundane into the realm of the cosmick and mystical. Gazing upon it, I could well believe all the vague legends connected with the Masonick order; for here surely dwelt arcana whose sources are not of this earth. I saw it first at night, when only the twin cryptick braziers beside the great bronze door lit up the grim guardian sphinxes and the huge windowless facade. Mystery dwelt there — and I departed full of vague thoughts hinging upon the obscurest of dream-memories.” — Lovecraft on his visit to Washington in 1928.
“The hall retains its pristine impressiveness; its lofty rooms forming the present home of Ionick Lodge, the Masonick branch founded by my grandfather, and of which he was the first Grand Master. It did me good to see his picture there, enshrin’d in proper state.” — Lovecraft visits his grandfather’s Masonic Lodge in 1926.
