A PhD student from London, James Machin, has found an (apparently new) 5,000 word H. P. Lovecraft letter in an American archive. It’s by Lovecraft to J.C. Henneberger, 2nd February 1924.

“It was a single item in a folder of theatrical ephemera and seemed strikingly anomalous in that context. Rick Watson at the [Harry Ransom] Center kindly investigated further and told me that the letter was likely part of the Albert Davis or Messmore Kendall collections, originally acquired by the University of Texas in 1956–1958, both consisting of performing arts materials. When I learned that the collection of Messmore Kendall (1872–195-), a lawyer and theatre entrepreneur, included material collected by Harry Houdini, the mystery seemed to solve itself. At the time Lovecraft wrote the letter, Henneberger had engaged him to ghost-write a story for Houdini called “Imprisoned With the Pharoahs,” published later that year in Weird Tales.”

And Machin has very kindly published the letter in good readable scans, on the Cultural Compass of the Harry Ransom Center.

He goes into detail about what his novel Azathoth might contain. He also gives details for the story “The House of the Worm”, which by the sound of it had already been closely plotted. I’m pretty sure this is a wholly new insight into this ‘lost’ work, as Joshi’s I am Providence calls it “a novel about which we know nothing” (p.489). It…

“deal[s] with the frantic message sent by a dying and prematurely aged father to the boy who ran away twenty years before because of a nameless dread of his new stepmother…. the heiress who lived in the dark house in the swamp. The young man comes, and finds his father alone in the house (or castle — I’m not sure whether I’ll put it in New England or Old England or the German Black Forest)…. alone, yet not alone…. for he looks furtively around him… and other forms flit through remote corridors, strangely attracting swarms of flies after them… and vultures hover over the whole swamp…… and the young man sees things when he goes out on one occasion….”

One wonders if this fits the plot of the 1933 Mearle Prout story of the same name? Prout was a mysterious writer who opened with the Lovecraft-alike story “The House of the Worm” in 1933, much to Lovecraft’s amusement, then published another three stories and vanished. But sadly they’re not the same, it seems — Bobby Derie writes me that the plots are completely different.

Lovecraft also expresses admiration for Philip M. Fisher Jr.’s novelette “Fungus Island” in “a recent All-Story” [reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries 1991], showing he was still reading the All-Story in 1923/4, albeit only when certain friends recommended stories in it. He also remarks that he had admired Victor Rousseau’s “The Sea-Demons” (invisible sea creatures living off the Shetland Islands, with a hive mind, plan to invade the land) back in the All-Story for January 1916.

Samuel Loveman letter from 1972, regretting that he had to sell Clark Ashton Smith’s letters and manuscripts.

An interesting and plausible suggestion that the Henry S. Whitehead story “No Eye-Witnesses” (pub. August 1932) might have had its ideas influenced by Lovecraft. In terms of: the protagonist’s “visit with his ageing father in Brooklyn” (specifically Flatbush, where the ‘old gent’ Lovecraft had lived); the New York City subway (which came to nauseate Lovecraft); and the time-travel idea (favourite Lovecraft daydream theme). The circa Q1-Q2 1932 writing date (copyright was registered 1st July) is also very congruent: Lovecraft had an extensive stay with Whitehead in summer 1931, during which they co-wrote “The Trap” and likely discussed his New York City breakdown. The H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopaedia notes the two worked on another story with a broadly similar ‘time slip’ approach…

In the spring and summer of 1932 HPL appears to have assisted Whitehead on another story, apparently titled “The Bruise.” [later “Bothon”, according to Joshi] This story (about a man who experiences strange visions after receiving a blow to the head) had been rejected by Strange Tales as too tame, and HPL devised an elaborate plot involving the man’s access to hereditary memory, so that he sees in his mind his distant ancestor’s experience of the destruction of the Pacific continent of Mu 20,000 years ago.”

“No Eye-Witnesses” is available in the new Wordsworth budget paperback and Kindle ebook Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead. The Kindle version is currently available at half-price on Amazon UK.

The theme of Lovecraft’s New York story “Cool Air” was strong prompted by his own fear of cold and need for heat, and by his friend Leeds’s precursor story. But I wonder if the following historical snippet might be relevant to the slight stress that Lovecraft places on the increasing demands of Dr. Munoz for more cold and ever more ice…

At the peak of the trade in the 1870s, cargoes of New England ice worth hundreds of thousands of dollars went south annually from Charleston to Calcutta … ice was cut in winter [for export around the world] on every pond and river in the region” (from Reflections in Bullough’s Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England, University Press of New England, 2000)

So could there be a slight touch of historical satire in “Cool Air”, only to be picked up on by those aware of the role of the ice trade in New England history? I hasten to add that I’m not the first to make a suggestion along these lines, as S.T. Joshi has pointed to the possibility of a few deftly humorous touches in the story…

“There is, to be sure, a perhaps deliberate undercurrent of the comic in the whole story, especially when Munoz, now holed up in a bathtub full of ice, cries through his bathroom door, “More—more!” (A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft)