I’ve found a school yearbook photo and description for Myrta Alice Little, a friend and correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft at the start of the 1920s. She was born c.1888 in the ancestral home at east Hampstead, New Hampshire, a rural area about 5 miles NW of Haverhill. She went to college about sixty miles up the coast from Haverhill, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Here is her photo and description from the School Annual 1908 Colby College, Waterville, Maine.

She took a B.A. there. She then went to Radcliffe College (1912) to take a Masters degree, and also took courses at Brown University and Clark University.

Her entry in An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia states that she was a former college lecturer by the time Lovecraft knew her in the Spring and Summer of 1921. Her biography in Career Women of America (1941) states she had taught in two high schools before becoming Head of English at Alfred University in New York from 1912-14. She then taught at the State Normal school in Providence 1914-15, before moving to Wheaton Seminary College, Mass. 1915-16. She then moved to Sacramento, California 1917-19, where she was Education Secretary of the YMCA (possibly this was war work, catering to the young specialist workers who were moved from the east coast to the west to make war materials?). In 1919 she started writing conventional short stories. She then returned to Hampstead, New Hampshire c.1920 and joined the amateur journalism movement, seeking to develop as a mainstream commercial story writer. She usually published in newspapers as “Myrta A. Little”, and about a dozen such conventional homely little stories can be found online in old newspapers by searching Google under that name. One of these, “A Queen Did It”, was anthologised in New England Short Stories.

Judging by her photo and description in the yearbook, she was obviously very tall and rather beautiful, and very intelligent with it. Lovecraft called her “learned and brilliant” in his report “The Haverhill Convention”. She was a keen book collector, and had joined the Brothers of the Book as early as 1913. Only one Lovecraft letter to her survives, given in Lovecraft Studies #26.

Could she have become Mrs Lovecraft? Who knows? She certainly met Lovecraft at a vulnerable moment, very shortly after his mother died, and she seems to have been looking for a husband. But she appears to have briefly been a Catholic in the mid 1910s, then a Seventh-day Baptist shortly thereafter, and a religious streak may have mitigated her other charms in Lovecraft’s eyes. In May 1922, the summer after she met Lovecraft, she married the Rev. Arthur R. Davies who appears to have been a Methodist preacher. After her marriage she contributed to magazines such as the Christian Herald.

There’s an interesting early use of the idea of ‘ley lines’ in supernatural fiction, in Lovecraft’s “The Lurking Fear” (written November 1922)…

“Now, in the light of that low moon which cast long weird shadows, it struck me forcibly that the various points and lines of the mound system had a peculiar relation to the summit of Tempest Mountain. That summit was undeniably a centre from which the lines or rows of points radiated indefinitely and irregularly…”

The idea of “the light of that low moon which cast long weird shadows” is also indicative that Lovecraft had some basic knowledge about British archaeological methods. Before modern archaeological tools, detecting ancient earthworks such as small ploughed-out tumuli through fieldwork was something best done in a low-angled light casting long shadows.

So either Lovecraft independently lit upon this wrong-headed but seminal ‘earth mysteries’ concept, or else he must have had it from a review of Alfred Watkins’s book Early British Trackways, Moats, Mounds, Camps and Sites. This book had appeared in early 1922, some nine months before “The Lurking Fear”. It attempted to show that ancient British trackways, evidenced millennia later only by their associated ancient barrow mounds and standing stones, hill-forts and the like, were often constructed onto dead-straight lines. Watkins further suggested that these straight lines radiated from certain key points in the British landscape.

It seems likely that a review of Watkins in the scientific journal Nature (5th August 1922, 110, pp.176-177) would have been Lovecraft’s source for the idea. There Early British Trackways was briefly reviewed without skepticism. The Nature review charitably overlooked the bumbling place-name blunders which had caused howls from British reviewers at The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement. This oversight at Nature was perhaps due to editorial recall of one Sir Norman Lockyer (founder and first editor of Nature until 1920) and his groundbreaking idea in Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments Astronomically Considered (1906, 1909) about the astronomical alignment of early British sacred sites. Findings which implied that a sacred nature might indeed be inferred for straight lines and lines-of-sight in early British cultures, and over a very long period. Lockyer’s work was the start of the broadly-sound (although loon-haunted) research on archeoastronomy. This earliest archeoastronomy was something which Lovecraft may also have become aware of in passing, since he was an astronomer who was also interested in ancient British topography and archaeology. Possibly the Theosophist journals may also have picked up early on Lockyer and Watkins, providing another route by which Lovecraft could have learned of the new ideas before late 1922.

To anyone familiar with the close-packed and topsy-turvy nature of the hilly topography of Watkins’s own English Midlands and Welsh Marches, the ‘ley lines’ idea might have seemed as loopy as the traditionally rambling English road. Yet Watkins found a hearing in some quarters because the Ancient Romans had actually done it, incontrovertibly paving much of Britain with their dead-straight roads. Some of which were indeed founded on or alongside earlier ancient British trackways. Yet most reputable archaeologists were skeptical, and the idea simmered and drifted to the fringes where it became entangled with occultism and UFOs. In the late 1960s and early 1970s ‘leys’ were assiduously researched by mushroom-munching hippies during the British counterculture’s rural retreat from the heroin-blighted cities, but the notion was brought to a juddering halt by the abundant computer power of the late 1970s and early 80s. Long-distance leys were shown to be the result of statistical chance, plus dodgy place-name derivation and the indiscriminate lumping together of disparately-aged points — rather than the result of druids with pointy sticks standing on hilltops.

“We’re out of a job, lads! Right, straight down the pub and let’s get at that mistletoe wine…”

Some of Lovecraft’s friends, Paul Cook; Edith Dowe Miniter; a young James Ferdinand Morton Jr.; George J. Houtain. Mrs Miniter I’ve seen before, although this is perhaps a better scan than some faded ones online. From the book Ex-presidents of the National Amateur Press Association : sketches published by Paul Cook from Athol, 1919. Which also has potted biographies: did you know Cook wrote much fiction, under a pseudonym? That he was a story writer is not a fact not found in the Lovecraft Encyclopedia entry for Cook. Although it seems a limited-edition book of his stories has been collected as Willis T. Crossman’s Vermont: Stories (2005).

And Edward H. Cole of Boston, who Lovecraft visited frequently in the 1920s and 30s.

There has been much debate about the inspiration for the name of “Sentinel Hill” in Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”. W. Paul Cook declared (Joshi, Annotated Lovecraft, p.114) that the name was the only topographical inspiration Lovecraft took away with him from his Summer 1928 visit to Cook at Athol…

“During most of the years of my acquaintance with Lovecraft I was living in a north central Massachusetts town [Athol] which was the most absolutely devoid of historical, architectural, scenic, archeological [or other inspirations… except the Sentinel]”

I found this mention in the the book Athol, Massachusetts, past and present (1899), which explains Cook’s reference…

“To the west, across the intervening valley, is “West Hill,” one of the locations of the early settlers, with its “Sentinel Elm,” a landmark seen from every direction.”

I also found a postcard photograph of the same Sentinel Elm at Athol. It looks distinctly weather-beaten and not that ancient judging by the size of the trunk. It had presumably vanished by the time of the earliest Lovecraftian geographers, who could only find a nearby Sentinel Elm Farm. The card is currently for auction…

The Elm presumably gave its name to Athol’s first newspaper, Freedom’s Sentinel.

Here it is in colour…

And here in a Lovecraftian sunset…

The same page of the book Athol, Massachusetts, past and present that talks of the “Sentinel Elm” has a small and rather nice ink sketch of “Round Top Mt” — there is a “Round Mountain” that provides local colour at the start of “The Dunwich Horror”…

Although the Wilbraham Mountains are also rounded, which was where Lovecraft went directly he left the uninspiring topography of Athol in Summer 1928, to go to nearby East Wilbraham to stay with Mrs Miniter and Miss Beebe.

Wilbraham Mountains seen from Glendale Cemetery.

Many of the Lovecraft’s amateur press friends come together in Brooklyn in February 1916, for an annual dinner. Brooklyn NY Daily Eagle.

A colour painting of the farmhouse of Arthur H. Goodenough, the elderly amateur press man and friend of Lovecraft living near Brattleboro…

From the auctioneer: “D. POWERS: PASTEL PAINTING OF A COLONIAL HOME IN BRATTLEBORO VT (GOODENOUGH FARM)”

From the same auctioneer: “BERT G. AKLEY, OIL ON ARTISTS BOARD OF AN INDIAN MAIDEN PADDLING A BIRCH BARK CANOE BY MOONLIGHT 1917”. This is by the rustic naif artist-recluse Bert Gilman Akley (1871-1946) who Lovecraft visited at his farm and who gave his name to Akeley in “The Whisperer in Darkness”. Although a local article suggests…

“For Akeley’s home, however, Lovecraft seems to have drawn from his experience visiting another isolated Vermonter, the poet Arthur Henry Goodenough.”

I’ve found another two appearances of Lovecraft’s elegy for his adored cousin Phillips Gamwell, who died young. Lovecraftian sources have the poem appearing in the Providence Evening News on 5th January 1917. But here it is in The Cambridge Chronicle, 6th January 1917, possibly with new biographical details in the introduction…

The same poem appeared again in The Cambridge Tribune on 13th January 1917, under the simple title “Phillips Gamwell”, this time with a fine photograph of cousin Phillips…

… and the following week there was also an addendum on the photographer.

We’re also informed by The Cambridge Tribune of 2nd January 1904 that Phillips Gamwell was visiting Providence. Lovecraft then age 13, Phillips aged around 6. Here is Phillips Gamwell aged six in 1904 in The Cambridge Chronicle…

Resembles the young Lovecraft, wouldn’t you say?

The building next to the Fleur de Lys Studios in Providence? Lovecraft’s uncle Franklin C. Clark appears to have owned it between 1873-1884. It’s the Deacon Edward Taylor house at 9 Thomas Street.

Here’s the ad of a refrigerator company agent in Providence in 1910. Note that the name is that of Lovecraft’s uncle Edwin Everett Phillips (1864-1918). This is from just before he lost a load of money for Lovecraft and his mother in 1911…

In 1911, is this him being the Secretary and a Director in the new Providence Rotary Club?

The Boston Rotary Club (in 1912 apparently on rocky foundations, according to an open letter from the Chairman in 1912), sponsored the first Providence Rotary Club in 1911. The Providence club was set up alongside the established Rhode Island Rotary Club. One wonders if the new Providence Rotary got off to a shaky start, and/or if the Boston Rotary Club had to call in its sponsorship? A history of the Providence Rotary Club and its later merger with the incumbent club is given in The Rotarian, Oct 1917.

One wonders if Providence Rotary Club, being a commercial venture, was the same commercial venture which lost Lovecraft and his mother a lot of money? In 1932 Lovecraft remembered in a letter that…

“an uncle lost a lot of dough for my mother and me in 1911” (Selected Letters III, p.267)

Uncle Edwin (if indeed it was he) appears to have vanished as both Secretary and Director of the Providence Rotary Club by 1912/13, as evidenced by this picture and list of the officers. One wonders of his disappearance might suggest some financial calamity, one which necessitated his resignation?

I found some further illuminating details which touch on the youthful Lovecraft’s involvement with the Universalist Men’s Club in Providence. Here is an article from 1922 (Cambridge Chronicle newspaper, 4th March 1922) in the fourth paragraph of which a visitor from the Providence men’s club visits the Cambridge equivalent, and reminds the laymen members there of their founding aims (the press report not actually going into detail on these, sadly)…

Following up the group’s name, it seems “The Order of Universalist Comrades” would be the title of such Clubs, at least by the early 1920s. I have found another reference to a branch of the “Universalist Comrades” in The Lewiston Daily Sun (17th Feb 1922). Yet The Universalist Register (available online to 1918) contains no mention of any Comrades. It seems likely that the name was changed after Lovecraft’s likely years with the organisation (his involvement perhaps sometime between 1906-1914), with the name change perhaps around 1921 or 1922? It strikes me that, in the radical political times after 1919, renaming the Men’s Club as “The Order of Universalist Comrades” might have been meant to appeal to naive youth looking for clubs of either the right or the far-left. But the Comrades seem to have vanished as an organisation during the years of the Great Depression…

“[Fred Colwell Carr, 1873-1936] was a native of Rhode Island and most of his life was passed in Providence” “He was national secretary of the now defunct organization, the Universalist Comrades.” “For the past eighteen years he has been secretary of the Universalist Convention of Rhode Island.” (The Christian Leader aka The Universalist Leader, Volume 39, Issue 4, 1936, p. 125) My emphasis.

This Carr name is interesting, and he must be the same Carr who spoke at the Cambridge meeting in 1922 (see the press cutting above). Carr may thus give us the name of someone connected to the Providence Men’s Club in Lovecraft’s time, when Carr would have been in his 40s and a possible leader of the Men’s Club. His name leads to me a list of its officers in Providence in 1922…

“The Universalist Comrades: President, Mr. E. S. Burlingham, 11 Progress Ave., Providence; Vice-President, Mr. Anson Wheelock, Woonsocket; Treasurer; Mr. Daniel E. Peckham, 30 Gurney St., East Providence; Secretary, Mr. Fred C. Carr, …” (Universalist Biennial Reports and Directory, 1922)

But there the trail goes dead. Sadly his 1936 obituaries are inaccessible online, due to copyright. They might have told us if he led the Men’s Club in Providence before the First World War, and something of the nature of the youth work then done in Providence. He also shows up in the record as Frederick Colwell “Freddie” Carr (1873-1936).

The collaborative story “Poetry and the Gods”, by Anna Helen Crofts and H.P. Lovecraft, appeared The United Amateur in September 1920. An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia states nothing is known about Croft other than her address at 343 West Main St., North Adams, Mass. and that she “appeared sporadically in the amateur press”. However Crofts was traced through the Adams city directories in The Fossil #341, July 2009, in Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.’s “The strange story of “Poetry and the Gods” by Anna Helen Crofts and Henry Paget-Lowe”. Other details were also found. An obituary and further details were later unearthed and published in The Fossil #344, April 2010. Donovan K. Loucks in 2010 photographed her house and grave which shows her as Anna Helen Crofts McCuen (1889-1975), who married Joseph B. McCuen (1879-1963).

Given the biographical materials so far discovered on Crofts, Lovecraft presumably collaborated on “Poetry and the Gods” in the summer before Crofts took up a new salaried job in teaching. I have dug up the press notice of her appointment and salary, in the North Adams Transcript of 9th June 1920, with her appointment presumably being for the September 1920 term…

This appears to have been her first substantial teaching post, judging from the dates in the obituary. I have also found that Crofts published several articles in Vocational guidance magazine (organ of the National Vocational Guidance Association). One of her articles was titled “Guidance versus Knights of the Road” (1932).

More interestingly I have also found some of the titles of her other fiction or poetry, as listed in The FictionMags Index…

   “Le Silent”, (short story), The Tryout Feb 1918.
   “To Autumn”, (poem), The Vagrant Jun 1918.
   “War Literature”, (article), The Tryout Apr 1919.

I’ve encountered no mention of her story “Le Silent” online, but the title makes it sound as if it might have been of interest to Lovecraft. Faig wonders why Lovecraft collaborated with her, and suggests i) her election as an officer of the United amateur movement in July 1920 and ii) the striking blank verse extracts she borrowed (uncredited) from Elizabeth J. Coatsworth to adorn “Poetry and the Gods”. Lovecraft had two poems (“A Winter Wish” and “Laeta: A Lament”) in the same Feb 1918 Tryout issue, and so (if The FictionMags Index is correct, and they haven’t mis-labelled a poem as a story), he would have seen her earlier work. Perhaps “Le Silent” is why he collaborated with her? The story “Le Silent” doesn’t appear to be online, nor is it collected anywhere that I can find details for.

The article by Faig in The Fossil #341 reports one other story by her, but it is not “Le Silent”…

   “S.T. Joshi credits Miss Crofts with at least one further story in the amateur press, “Life” (United Amateur, June 1921)”.

I cannot find online details of that story either, and neither “Life” nor “Le Silent” appears to be available online or collected. Nor can I find any trace of them being described or dismissed by Lovecraftians.

I can add just a little more to the work on Crofts published in The Fossil, in the form of this school art worksheet by her, in The School Arts Magazine, Vol.20, Sept 1920 to June 1921…