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Tentaclii

~ News and scholarship on H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937)

Tentaclii

Category Archives: Lovecraftian places

Lovecraft’s maps

03 Friday Jun 2022

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian places, Maps, Scholarly works

≈ 1 Comment

Along with the forthcoming mega-index to the completed volumes of Letters, it struck me that we could also use a companion volume containing maps. ‘Orienting’ maps, in outline but still somewhat detailed. Map that quickly tell readers where one place was in relation to another. I’d suggest the following:

1. Lovecraft’s Providence (the topography and places known as a boy)

2. Lovecraft’s Providence (post-1914).

3. Lovecraft’s College Hill and Marketplace (including tunnels).

4.   ”  Places near Providence (Dark Swamp etc).

5.   ”  Brooklyn.

6.   ”  New York City.

7.   ”  New England coastline.

8.   ”  Dots-on-the-map. A general ‘dot-map’ of Lovecraft’s excursion and trip destinations east of the Mississippi and up into Canada.

9.   ”  Florida and his southern excursions.

10.   ”  Circle locations (their origins, places).

11.   ”  Far-flung Empire (his interest in particular far-flung places, places used in fiction etc).

Appendix: Map and mapping sources known to have been owned, used, consulted by Lovecraft.

Appendix: Bibliography of maps known to exist, relating to the original Lovecraft material (i.e. not the wider and later Mythos).

Appendix: List of important addresses in Lovecraft’s life.

Might be done in a suitable period style…

‘Picture Postals’ from Lovecraft: De Leon Springs, De Land.

12 Friday Nov 2021

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context, Lovecraftian places, Picture postals

≈ Leave a comment

This week’s Friday ‘Picture Postal’ continues the loose Florida theme, begun for me by a recent Voluminous podcast in which Lovecraft preparing for an epic trip to meet Barlow in De Land, Florida.

After his arrival at De Land, and settling into the Barlow spread some 14 miles away from the town centre, they began to visit such local tourist spots as there were. One of these places was the nearby De Leon Springs. It was an obvious choice, as there was then a choice bit of antiquity for Lovecraft to enjoy.

Among our diversions have been several trips to ancient places of the sort I dote upon…. including a Spanish sugar-mill at De Leon Springs which antedates 1763 (vide enc. [see enclosed free-leaflet or postcard]). … [many such places having] the tropical background & marks of the jungle’s reconquest, being picturesque & exotic to the highest degree” (letter to Helen V. Sulley)

This is what the spot looked like…

“Tall trees casting a sinister twilight over shallow lagoons…” (Lovecraft on a 1931 visit to Florida).

Another card of one of De Land’s springs shows the more vibrant local colours one would see in the bright sunshine. It also perhaps evokes the wild ‘island’ and lake/riverine spread that the Barlow family had ‘out back’ of their isolated place, although it appears that around the house the native vegetation was mixed with belts of “tall Australian pines” (possibly planted as storm-breaks, and to dry out the ground?) as Lovecraft describes them.

This was no fleeting visit and Lovecraft had plenty of time to explore and get to know the environment and its snakes…

De Land, Florida, where I visited the young weird tale enthusiast R. H. Barlow for nearly 2 months in May & June, 1934.

The following summer he spent a mammoth 10 weeks there. It was, arguably, during these times that he was probably most happy/healthy as an adult.

De Land is a modern town which owes all its beauty to its fine subtropical setting — live-oaks, moss, magnolias … The Barlow place is 14 miles west of the village, & out of sight of any other human habitation … The climate is admirable — 85º to 90º day after day, & no chill spells at this season, I feel like a new person — as spry as a youth, & without a trace of the usual trouble which besets me in the north. I go hatless & coatless, & am maintaining an admirable layer of tan. Snakes abound to a picturesque degree; & young Barlow shoots them for their skin — which he uses in amateur bookbinding. The other day I saw him bag a coach-whip snake all of 7 feet long. (from a letter to Helen Sulley, 26th May 1934)

After reading Lovecraft’s letters I sometimes formed the vague impression that young Barlow was almost as blind as a bat (“he is very unfortunately handicapped by poor eyesight” etc). But evidently he could pick off a snake’s head in verdant undergrowth with a rifle, and presumably at some distance? Perhaps the explanation is he had good long-sight, but poor short-sight?


Screenshot of missing pictures:

H.P. Lovecraft’s Travel Poster Collection

04 Thursday Nov 2021

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Housekeeping, Lovecraftian arts, Lovecraftian places

≈ Leave a comment

My ‘H.P. Lovecraft’s Poster Collection – 17 retro travel posters’ is now available to buy and download on ArtStation Marketplace, as an $18 fundraiser for Tentaclii. Just over $1 per printable poster, all bundled in a .ZIP file.

Inside the Ladd Observatory, in colour

25 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Astronomy, Historical context, Lovecraftian places, Picture postals

≈ Leave a comment

“The late Prof. Upton of Brown, a friend of the family, gave me the freedom of the college observatory, (Ladd Observatory) & I came & went there at will on my bicycle. Ladd Observatory tops a considerable eminence about a mile from the house. I used to walk up Doyle Avenue hill with my wheel, but when returning would have a glorious coast down it. So constant were my observations, that my neck became affected by the strain of peering at a difficult angle. It gave me much pain, & resulted in a permanent curvature perceptible today to a close observer. My body has ever been unequal to the demands of an active career. […] I no more visit the Ladd Observatory or various other attractions of Brown University. Once I expected to utilise them as a regularly entered student, & some day perhaps control some of them as a faculty member.” — Letter to Kleiner, 16th November 1916.

[During my time at Ladd] “I had a chance to see all the standard modern equipment of an observatory (including a 12” telescope) in action, and read endlessly in the observatory library. The professors and their humbler assistant — an affable little Cockney from England named John Edwards — often helped me pick up equipment, and Edwards made me some magnificent photographic lantern-slides (from illustrations in books) which I used in giving illustrated astronomical lectures before clubs.” — Letter to Duane Rimel, 29th March 1934. (My emphasis)

I’ve newly colourised two interior pictures, one showing the Observatory library in which the young Lovecraft spent so much time:

“As a boy I used to haunt the Ladd Observatory of Brown University — looking through the 12″ refractor now & then, reading the books in the library, & probably making an unmitigated nuisance of myself through my incessant questioning of everybody present. Curiously enough, the assistant there was one of your grandfather’s humbler compatriots — a Cornishman named John Edwards, whose capacity for mis-placing h’s was limitless. Scarcely less limitless was his mechanical skill, & in his infinite kindness he fixed me up all sorts of devices (a long-focus celestial camera, a set of photographic lantern slides, a diagonal eyepiece for my telescope, etc. etc.) at no more than cost price. I still have the slides somewhere — as well as lunar & other photographs I took with the camera. He is dead now — as is Prof. Upton, the director in those days [Winslow Upton], our acquaintance with whom gave me my passport to that dark-domed enchanted castle. My third victim there — Associate Prof. Slocum — is now head of the observatory at Wesleyan U. in Middletown, Conn. I would have carried astronomy further but for the mathematics — but I hadn’t quite the right stuff in me.” — Letter to Jonquil Leiber, 29th November 1936.

He continued to bicycle until the summer of 1913 (age 22) long after most other boys of Providence would have had given it up (to cycle after about age 18 was deemed ‘not the done thing’). So presumably from 1913 to 1918 he walked to the Observatory or took a trolley car.

There was a biography of Lovecraft’s Ladd mentor Winslow Upton, An Earth-bound Astronomer: Winslow Upton, A Memoir (1971), and his “A Visit to Kilauea” (1883) is online. Kilauea is the active volcano on Hawaii, and the model reed-boat seen in the picture above is likely both a souvenir of the trip (ultimately to observe an eclipse, some 1000 miles to the south) and a conversation-starter with shy students. Or possibly it was from a sabbatical in Peru. As well as being an astronomer Upton had also been interested enough in storms in the 1880s to publish two papers, “An investigation of cyclonic phenomena in New England” (1887) and “The storm of March 11-14, 1888” (1888), which might perhaps interest those looking for a ‘hook’ for a Mythos story.

Lovecraft’s recall of John Edwards as a Cockney (working-class Londoner) is perhaps more to be trusted than the late recollection that Edwards was a Cornishman. However, a highly intelligent lad from remote and rural Cornwall might soon find himself in London, circa 1865 or thereabouts, and picking up the Cockney speech from the local lads. Which could mean that both were true.

In the mid 1930s some in fantasy and science fiction fandom heard rumours that Lovecraft had once been the director of the Providence Observatory. He had to write to The Phantagraph (Nov-Dec 1935) fanzine to correct the misapprehension…

“Your statement that I was once director of the Providence Observatory flabbergasted me a bit, insomuch as there has never been any ‘Providence Observatory’! Then after a moment, it dawned on me that you must have seen one of my kid publications of 30 or more years ago — when I used to call my own small telescope and other astronomical apparatus ‘THE PROVIDENCE OBSERVATORY’ and publish (by hectograph or typewriter) important looking ‘bulletins’ and ‘annuals’. Thus do the exaggerations of youth bear misleading fruit in old age.”

He refers to his boyhood ‘astronomy newspapers’, mostly made when a preteen, containing his own observations from the rooftop of his house…

“The roof of 598 Engelstrasse [Angel St.] is approximately flat, and in the days of my youth I had a set of meteorological instruments there. Hither I would sometimes hoist my telescope, and observe the sky from that point of relative proximity to it. The horizon is fair, but not ideal. One can see the glint of the Seekonk through the foliage of Blackstone Park, and the opposite bank is quite clearly defined. With a terrestrial eyepiece of fifty diameters on my telescope, I can see some of the farms in the heart of East Providence, and even Seekonk, Mass., across the river. One in particular delights me — a typical bit of ancient agrestick New England with eighteenth century farmhouse, old-fashion’d garden, and even archaic well and well-sweep—all this bit of primitive antiquity visible from a roof in the prosaic modern town!! […] A good telescope, or even a binocular glass, is a great pleasure when one has a wide vista. I am fortunate in having an almost ideal battery of optical aids, including a Warner and Swasey — hell, no, I mean Bausch and Lomb—prism binocular which cost me $55.00 about twelve years ago. Ah, them golden days when I didn’t have to worry about what I spent! I’d like to see meself buying a $55.00 plaything today!!!” — Letter to the Gallomo, 30th September 1919.

Toward the end of this life in the summer of 1936, ill and in a generally weak condition, Lovecraft returned to the Ladd telescope…

“Had an interesting view of Peltier’s Comet on July 22 at the Ladd Observatory — through the 12″ refractor. The object shewed a small disc with a hazy, fan-like tail.”

“A blasphemous abnormality from hell’s nethermost craters…”

18 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian places

≈ Leave a comment

Cool pics of the strange crater that has been discovered in Siberia…

inside best aerial view

inside good gv

inside scientists on way


More odd Russian craters…

firecrater

darvaza-turkmenistan-door-to-hell-01


patomsy_

th

Further afield in Lovecraftian places that really exist

31 Saturday May 2014

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian places

≈ 1 Comment

Even more Lovecraftian places that really exist…

Abandoned organ room, Eastern Europe.

Miestnosorgan

Ani, medieval ghost town in Armenia.

ani

Library at Chateau de Groussay, France.

chateau-de-groussaylibrary

Abandoned Soviet power plant, with ‘eye’ dome.

power

Abandoned prison, Ross Island, India.

indianprison

Hotel Salto del Tequendama, Columbia.

columbia

Wreck of the S.S. America (1940), Canary Islands.

ssamerica

Abandoned tunnel under New York.

newyork9

Abandoned mine, Arctic circle.

arcticmine

Mirny mine, Siberia.

mirny

Ol Doinyo Lengai, Rift Valley, Africa.

OlDoinyoLengai

Abandoned power station, Belgium.

abandoned-places-1

Lovecraftian Places That Really Exist: special winter edition

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian places

≈ 3 Comments

Since most of America seems to be suffering from record levels of ‘global warming’ this week, here’s the really cold edition of “Lovecraftian Places That Really Exist”:

lighthouseLake Michigan Lighthouse.

iceballsIce eggs, unknown shoreline.

Manpupuner
Manpupuner Rocks, North Ural Mountains, Russia.

SvalbardtSvalbard Plateau, Norway.

SvalbardniorwaySvalbard, Norway.

ff_antarctica4_fResearch station, Antarctica.

domesouthResearch dome, Antarctica.

SvinafellsekullglacierIceland
Inside Svinafellsekull glacier, Iceland.

Night-on-a-Strange-PlanetNamafjall, North Iceland.

Lovecraft’s Providence, on Google Street View

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context, Lovecraftian places, Maps, NecronomiCon 2013

≈ Leave a comment

Lovecraft’s Providence, on Google Street View (give it a moment to load the map, then it will switch through to Street View)…

Site of 454 Angell Street. Family home to 1904. House torn down in 1961.

598 Angell Street. Home from 1904 to 1924.

10 Barnes Street. Home from 1926 to May 1933.

Site of 66 College Street. Home to 1937. House moved in 1959 to 65 Prospect Street.

Swan Point Cemetery. Entrance, site of Lovecraft’s gravestone.

Providence Public Library (hideously ugly modern entrance, and the grand old entrance which is no longer in use).

Prospect Terrace. A favorite haunt in young childhood and occasionally in adulthood.

Blackstone Park / the Seekonk River at York Pond. A favorite middle-childhood haunt, and as an adult the site of outdoors summer letter-writing…

“At the present moment I am seated on a wooded bluff above the shining river which my earliest gaze knew & loved—which my infant imagination peopled with fauns & satyrs & dryads—. Whenever possible, I take my writing out in the open in a black leatherette case—.” — H.P. Lovecraft letter, 8th July 1929.

The Ladd Observatory. Site of boyhood astronomy.

Thomas Street. The “Fleur-de-Lys” building and the Providence Art Club.

John Hay Library, Prospect Street. Home of the Brown University Lovecraft collection.

Lovecraftian Places that Really Exist: Summer Holidays edition

31 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian places

≈ 2 Comments

Another set in my Lovecraftian Places that Really Exist series of blog posts…

WiPGEAbandoned Ta Prohm temple, Cambodia.

South-Pole-TelescopeSouth Pole Galaxy Detector, Antarctica.

Rockland_Breakwater_Lighthouse_maineRockland Lighthouse, Maine, USA.

abandoned_mill_in_Sorrento_ItalyAbandoned mill, Sorrento, Italy.

out018Birnbeck Pier (abandoned), Somerset, UK.

bookshop_walesOld Bookshop, Laugharne, Wales, UK.

antarctica-dry-valleyDry valley, Antarctica.

water_temple_baliUnderwater ancient temple, Bali.

mingun_templeAbandoned temple, Mingun, Burma.

More…

Lovecraftian places that really exist: yet more…

06 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian places

≈ Leave a comment

Ball’s Pyramid, Pacific Ocean.

cave4

Krubera Cave, the Arabika Massif, Georgia.

Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, Greece.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, USA.

Woods of Coylumbridge, Scotland.

Moss mounds, high in the mountains of Peru.

Puente del Inca, Argentina.

Any Ancient Egyptian ruins still home to th kittehs of Ulthar.

See more Lovecraftian Places posts…

Lovecraftian places that really exist: even more…

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian places

≈ 5 Comments

More Lovecraftian places that really exist…

adandonedpowerAbandoned entrance, Sweden.

insiderisdtunnelOne-mile long abandoned tunnel under College Hill, Providence, New England.

Cheve CaveCheve Cave, Mexico.

Windsor RuinsThe Windsor Ruins, Mississippi.

widan_elfaras1Ruins from the Old Kingdom (5000 years ago), North Faiyum Desert, Egypt.

tepUnderwater excavation of Cleopatra’s ancient temple, off the coast of Egypt.

egyptunderwatertreasure02

clinton-pres-library-arkansasPresidential Library, Arkansas.

St Anne's Churchyard, LimehousePyramid in St. Anne’s Churchyard, Limehouse, London.

laguna-BeachTower at Laguna Beach.

New “Lovecraftian places” tag

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Housekeeping, Lovecraftian places

≈ Leave a comment

I added a new Lovecraftian places tag to this blog’s posts, so you can see all the “Lovecraftian places that really exist” series of postings.

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