In this week’s ‘Picture Postal’ post, Marblehead. In Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book of story-ideas, we read…

No. 81   Marblehead — dream — burying hill — evening — unreality

It was a story never to be written, though perhaps parts of “The Festival” and the “The Strange High House in the Mist” hint at what it might have been like. Are there then pictures of Marblehead’s ‘burying hill’, which inspired the story-idea? Indeed there are.

Here we can just about see an indication of the wealth of macabre carvings to be found on the stones. We also see the ground in relation to distant buildings further around the coastline.

However, in the above picture we see summer. Lovecraft would have first seen the burying ground in the Christmas-time snow, and toward dusk…

I came to Marblehead in the twilight, & gazed long upon its hoary magick. I threaded the tortuous, precipitous streets, some of which an horse can scarce climb, & in which two waggons cannot pass. I talked with old men & revell’d in old scenes, & climb’d pantingly over the crusted cliffs of snow to the windswept height where cold winds blew over desolate roofs & evil birds hovered…” — H.P. Lovecraft, letter to Kleiner, 11th January 1923.

Yes, Lovecraft was tromping through snow. Evidently at that time, if wrapped up warm and keeping moving, he was not so averse to cold weather. It turns out there are several pictures of the summit in the snow, recorded by Samuel Chamberlain. This photographer seems to have been here c. 1928 onwards, so perhaps the pictures date from a time when Lovecraft was alive and visiting. Here I’ve toned and burned the plain archival scans of the negatives, as the photographer would have done at the time on prints for public presentation…

Compare this with the postcard above, and it is the same view. The same pair of distinctive headstones and fenced plot are seen.

… atop all was the peak; Old Burying Hill, where the dark headstones clawed up thro’ the virgin snow like the decay’d fingernails of some gigantick corpse.” (Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner)

From the round dome of rock above the burying ground, Lovecraft also looked across to the old town. To see his fabled view of Marblehead with its many-lighted windows.

The view across to Marblehead.

Immemorial pinnacle of fabulous antiquity! As evening came I look’d down at the quiet village where the lights came out one by one; at the calm contemplative chimney-pots & antique gables silhouetted against the west; at the glimmering small-paned windows … Shades of the past! How compleatly, O Mater Novanglia, am I moulded of thy venerable flesh & as one with thy century’d soul!

He dates and times the experience very precisely…

… huddled and archaick roofs under the snow in the delirious sunset glory of four p.m., Dec. 17, 1922!!! I did not know until an hour before that I should ever behold such a place as Marblehead, and I did not know until that moment itself the full extent of the wonder I was to behold. I account that instant — about 4:05 to 4:10 p.m., Dec. 17, 1922 — the most powerful single emotional climax experienced during my nearly forty years of existence.

He visited many times thereafter, and in better weather. Here is another from Samuel Chamberlain, looking up at the low rock-dome of the hilltop in the early springtime. With the burial ground running narrowly just below, along a short and turfy terrace.

From the summit, evidently one could also have a view over the ocean below.

On the rocky dome just above the Burying Ground, looking out to sea.

Although a 1909 picture-map shows the Ground is located relatively inland, rather than dropping down to shoreline rocks…

Despite the deathly location from which he took his view, in the waterfronts and lanes of the old town of Marblehead itself Lovecraft felt that he…

“had sojourned for a time in the past itself — not the past of books, but the living, breathing streets. Since then I have dreamt of nothing but Marblehead … old streets and gables and chimney-pots, and the endless maze of fanlighted Colonial doorways. … ancient houses set at all possible angles on moss-grown rock foundations and weird terraces …” (Selected Letters I).

Pictures from the Samuel Chamberlain Photograph Negatives Collection, 1928-1971, held at the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.

I’ve been looking again through the Smithsonian’s collection of online pictures, now they number some 4.5 million. That compares with 2.5 million at launch.

A few finds…

1) There was a Ward Manor in Red Hook, NYC, of all places. Which may be of interest to Mythos writers. It evidently had antiquarian pretensions and ‘had a lake in the ravine’ in its near 1,000-acre grounds. At the time Lovecraft was in New York it was essentially disused by the owner who preferred to live on Long Island. One recalls the mysterious preserved estate in Lovecraft’s “He”. It was purchased from him in 1926 and fitted out as a children’s home, seemingly after Lovecraft had left the city and returned to Providence. All of which could be setting it up for a role in a Mythos story or RPG.

2) The month of May in the back-alleys of Columbia Heights. The locale was where Hart Crane and Loveman lived.

3) Provincetown waterfront, seen from the sea.

I stopped off at Boston for an all-day boat trip to Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod. This village I found to be somewhat overrated, but the sail – my first experience on the open sea out of sight of land – was well worth the price of the excursion. To be on limitless water is to have the fantastic imagination stimulated in the most powerful way. …” (24th September, 1930

Just over a year later he wrote “The Shadow over Innsmouth”.

4) Brown University Dept. of Mathematics, the “Great Dodecahedron”. Not the Trapezohedron of “Haunter”, but might Lovecraft have seen a range of such models on a visit with Morton? Including a Trapezohedron? Though doubtless Brown was not alone in modelling such things for display, and they would also have been seen in various museums of science and in magazines such as Popular Mechanics etc.

5) My various searches failed to discover an early ‘faery’ skyline of New York from near the Brooklyn Bridge, seen somewhat as Lovecraft had encountered it. The closest I could find at the Smithsonian was this nocturne by Johann Berthelsen, c. 1913.

6) A nice find. A vivid sketch-recording of “Snowstorm in the Village” (1925). Being Greenwich Village, New York City. Evocative of the harsh winters in New York City in those days. Lovecraft moved to his Red Hook room just a day or so before the biggest snowstorm in living memory hit the city (1st-3rd January 1925), so this is the same snowstorm. The central railway seen here is ‘the Elevated’, which Lovecraft often mentions in his New York letters.

This led me to this fine lithograph by Ellison Hoover, held elsewhere, depicting a circa late-1930s snowstorm. In the middle-ground is one of the key New York City libraries which Lovecraft frequented. I seem to recall this library was where he researched a lot of Supernatural Literature during the winter months of 1925/26. I find that New York also saw several very heavy record-breaking snowstorms in February 1926, though Lovecraft’s letters to his aunt at this time don’t mention any problems arising from these.

Many thanks to Martin A. for letting me know that Tuesday’s ‘mystery picture’ of Lovecraft was printed in a higher-res form in the anthology Eternal Lovecraft (1998). I’ve here combined this with the thumbnail of the 1975 MiniCon flyer version that was up for sale, to show what was cropped. Mostly the eerie footprints on the rock. It may also indicate that highlights were blown out on later cropped prints. If you view at 100% and look closely at the face, on the left side there may be indication of the facial scarring caused by his ingrowing facial hairs and ‘tweezers trouble’.

H.P. Lovecraft in August 1922, standing on a promontory rock ledge in an ocean cleft at Magnolia, Mass. Most likely to be in “Rafe’s Chasm”.

A ‘picture postal’ that Lovecraft sent, 1927.

“explored the cliffs of Magnolia, overlooking Norman’s Woe, and containing the celebrated Rafe’s Chasm.”

“the striking sea-cliffs of Magnolia — with the yawning abyss of Rafe’s Chasm”

He later compares it very favourably with “The chasm on M’head Neck”, near Marblehead, which might give Mythos fiction writer an interesting lead on a suitable setting for a tale. If it hasn’t been used already.

Here is the back of a postcard from Lovecraft, dated 29th June 1922 and postmarked “Magnolia Station” for the 30th.

Spent this morning on the rocks while pearl-grey mists surged out of the sky to mix with the sea. Over the cliffs one might see only the abyss of milky vapour, as if it were the void beyond the Edge of the World. Will not return …

I’m still not feeling 100%, what with a lurking and persistent cough. So this week’s ‘picture postals from Lovecraft’ is a quickie and actually a rubbing. A ‘brass rubbing’ as they’ve often known, or a ‘grave rubbing’ when done from stone.

Last I heard such things were frowned on by Lovecraft’s cemetery, even when using specialist soft-wax and paper materials that don’t damage or mark his plain grave-marker. But a while back such rubbings could be found listed on eBay. Above is a pleasing and clear one I snagged then, now able to be enlarged a bit by AI.

I’m uncertain if Lovecraft ever habitually ventured into Swan Point Cemetery for walks while alive, though he certainly anticipated the outcome of his…

ancient plan of shuffling off to a Swan Point subterranean repose. […] among the sepulchres of Clark ancestors extending back to 1711. Green wooded slopes rise beside the mournful spot, and close by is a great hollow tree inhabited by a woodpecker

I seem to recall he didn’t favour it as a destination for walks, other than that fateful walk on a “June day in 1917” which began his weird fiction writing career. But if he ever did explore properly then this spot then would have surely attracted his attention. The cemetery’s “rock garden” overlooking his beloved Seekonk…

This week on my regular Friday ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’, new pictures of Pascoag and Chepachet. Readers will recall these places provide the opening to Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”…

Not many weeks ago, on a street corner in the village of Pascoag, Rhode Island, a tall, heavily built, and wholesome-looking pedestrian furnished much speculation by a singular lapse of behaviour. He had, it appears, been descending the hill by the road from Chepachet; and encountering the compact section [of stores etc], had turned to his left into the main thoroughfare where several modest business blocks convey a touch of the urban. At this point, without visible provocation, he committed his astonishing lapse; staring queerly for a second at the tallest of the buildings before him, and then, with a series of terrified, hysterical shrieks, breaking into a frantic run which ended in a stumble and fall at the next crossing. […] A police surgeon with relatives in Chepachet had put forward that quaint hamlet of wooden colonial houses as an ideal spot for the psychological convalescence; and thither the sufferer had gone, promising never to venture among the brick-lined streets of larger villages till duly advised by the Woonsocket specialist with whom he was put in touch. This walk to Pascoag for magazines had been a mistake, and the patient had paid in fright, bruises, and humiliation for his disobedience.” (The Horror at Red Hook)

The map and the Lovecraft’s “turn to the left” both suggest that police detective Malone was walking via the Putnam Pike west out of Pascoag, and then up the Reservoir Road alongside the northern and eastern part of the giant Pascoag Reservoir (expanded c. 1860).

As he approached the urban centre he would have encountered places that looked similar to this…

But then one of the plain brick “modest business blocks” in Pascoag reminds him of Brooklyn and triggers his terror…

The taller central building was the Music Hall.

Overpainted version of the above, people removed.

Lovecraft knew Pascoag by September 1923 and he visited again in September 1926. For him it recalled — despite its red-brick “touch of the urban” — the “half-forgotten, beautiful simple America” that still existed away from the populous centres.

This area was touched on in Lovecraft’s journey to find the mysterious Dark Swamp…

The tavern lyes on the main Putnam Pike; but shortly after quitting it and passing the reservoir we turn’d south into the backwoods, coming in proper season to Squire Reynolds’ estate. He told us, that we had better take the right fork of the road, over the hills to reach the Dark Swamp…

And finally here are two pictures of the smaller magazine-less Chapachet, with its obviously rather sleepy Post Office and bridge, out of which detective Malone was venturing in “Red Hook”…

This week in my regular ‘picture postals from Lovecraft’ post, two newly-colourised additions to my Handicraft Club post from a few years ago.

Here we see the corner of Benefit and College Streets, Providence. Behind the magnolia trees are the headquarters of the Handicraft Club. A house in which Lovecraft’s aunt lived in 1927, and Lovecraft undoubtedly visited her there.

The side-buildings on the right were also part of the Club. Lovecraft was very familiar with this spot, and would later live further up the hill at No. 66.

I’ve had a Covid-like cold and no appetite for the last week, and a certain amount of brain and eye-fog. An AI doc (the only sort you can get in the UK, these days) had earlier chewed on my demographics and the weather/dates, to predict the strong likelihood of this happening. I very rarely get ill, otherwise. The AI was right, and not even wearing a mask for a while (as was suggest) prevented it. I suppose I should think myself lucky, though, because at least it wasn’t the ‘flu.

Anyway, for this reason my regular ‘Picture Postals’ post is necessarily short this week. Just the one picture, but a fine one. The steps of Lovecraft’s Public Library in Providence. Note the rather creepy-looking lamp-holders that once hung over the entrance.

This week for my regular ‘Picture Postals’ blog post, some sketch views by the artist “Jas F Murray” whose full name was James Francis Murray (1899-1990). He ‘worked over’ much of the same antiquarian and coastal territory as Lovecraft, but some 15 or 20 years later. I’ve picked out a few postcard sketches from his very prolific output. The picks are either of Providence, or of places known to Lovecraft, or are coastal scenes evocative of Innsmouth. There are probably hundreds more of his scenes floating around, from which a larger selection might be made.

Providence:

The tentacular tree at the Betsy Williams House. Note the ‘face’ to be found in the tree.

The Van Wickle Gates at Brown University, a stone’s throw from Lovecraft’s final home.

The State House, whose distant exterior oriented him when glimpsed in distant views while out walking, and whose fine interior he came to admire in letters.

Evocative of Innsmouth:

Some places Lovecraft knew:

‘Mother Ann’, near Gloucester.

‘House of the Seven Gables’, Salem.

‘Witch House’, Salem.

Pioneers’ Village, Salem.

Conant, the key Puritan founder of Salem.

‘Gardener’s Court’, Nantucket. (Partially reconstructed picture, blurred on right-hand-side)

This week on ‘Picture Postals’, a peek inside the glasshouses of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. The ornamental Japanese Gardens there became one of the key places that Lovecraft loved the most in New York City, a refuge from the harsh city outside. I’ve previously had posts here on the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens – part one and part two and I noted various influences, including on his New York friend Belknap Long via Long’s wartime “Curator of the Interplanetary Gardens” series of sci-fi plant yarns for boys.

The glasshouses were very near the Japanese Gardens, on the terraces that ran into them, and we know from the letters that Lovecraft went inside.

Seen here before, my newly colourised view of one of the conservatories (aka glasshouses, greenhouses, hothouses or now just ‘houses’) as seen in 1936. Probably the “Palm House”.

But now we can follow Lovecraft inside. Here we see an admittedly later view, on the painted cover of New Yorker magazine from 1950. It appears to also be the “Palm House”.

There was also an “Economic House” (fruits and useful produce), which has this superb 1927 archival view of the interior by Louis Buhle. Near perfectly timed for showing us what Lovecraft encountered in the mid 1920s. I’ve here colorised it…

As with the boys seen here, Lovecraft was early fascinated with such things and recalled…

“In childhood I used to haunt such places [florists’ shops] about February, when the strain of hated winter became unbearable. I liked to walk through the long greenhouses & imbibe the atmosphere of warm earth & plant-life, & see the vivid masses of green & floral colour. One of my early doggerel attempts was a description of an hypothetical glass-covered, furnace-heated world of groves & gardens …” (Selected Letters Vol. III, page 138).

Something which would appear in the alien gardening of his seminal science-fiction story “The Shadow out of Time”…

“The omnipresent gardens were almost terrifying in their strangeness, with bizarre and unfamiliar forms of vegetation nodding over broad paths lined with curiously carven monoliths. Abnormally vast fern-like growths predominated; some green, and some of a ghastly, fungoid pallor. Among them rose great spectral things resembling calamites, whose bamboo-like trunks towered to fabulous heights. Then there were tufted forms like fabulous cycads, and grotesque dark-green shrubs and trees of coniferous aspect. Flowers were small, colourless, and unrecognisable, blooming in geometrical beds and at large among the greenery. … Fungi of inconceivable size, outlines, and colours speckled the scene in patterns bespeaking some unknown but well-established horticultural tradition.” — “from The Shadow out of Time”.

His poetry is abundantly seeded with arboreal nooks and verdant pastoral scenes, although except for a few strange fungi these are usually cultivated within the fences of poetical convention. Part of the attraction of such garden places was often the sense of their being frozen in time…

“I am very fond of gardens — in fact they are among the most potent of all imaginative stimuli with me” [real] “old-fashion’d gardens, stone walls, sloping orchards, and picturesque lines of barns and sheds became so overwhelmingly pervasive that one felt almost opprest for lack of opportunities for instant lyrical utterance. Here, indeed, was a small and glorious world of the past completely sever’d from the sullying tides of time” (Selected Letters III).

In the Wandrei letters (p. 252, 253, 265) we also encounter various extended musing on his ‘ancestral’ memories of deep woods, forests, including “vast-boled, low-branching, palaeogean forests”. But his ideal was a cultivated dream-garden, as if encountered deep in his Dreamlands…

“the experience of walking (or, as in most of my dreams, aerially floating) through aethereal and enchanted gardens of exotick delicacy and opulence, with carved stone bridges, labyrinthine paths, marble fountains, terraces, and staircases, strange pagodas, hillside grottos, curious statues, termini, sundials, benches, basins, and lanthorns, lily’d pools of swans and streams with hers of waterfalls, spreading gingko-trees and drooping, feathery willows, and sun-touch’d flowers of a bizarre, Klarkash-Tonick pattern never beheld on land or beneath the sea.” “… a type of dreamlike scene which I have always envisaged as a sort of imaginative phantom — The Gardens of Yin, as it were” (Selected Letters III).

“There is somewhere, my fancy fabulises, a marvellous city of ancient streets & hills & gardens & marble terraces, wherein I once lived happy eternities, & to which I must return if ever I am to have content.” [Returning down] “bewildering avenues to all the wonders & lovelinesses I have ever sought, & to all those gardens of eld whose memory trembles just beyond the rim of
conscious recollection”. (Selected Letters II).

He was lucky enough in his life to encounter two real ornamental gardens that came very near to his ideal.

This week on ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’, a glimpse of the winter we’re now leaving behind. Here’s a rare view looking up College Street in a New England winter after snow. Lovecraft would later live at No. 66 College Street, at the top of the rise seen here.

With thanks to the Providence Public Library, picture extracted from the John Hutchins Cady Research Scrapbooks Collection. Here newly colorised and contrast balanced.

Lovecraft would increasingly dread having to venture out in very cold weather. Though he did, well wrapped-up.

He once penned a little-known Dunsanian fragment based around the idea of winter and spring…

… And it is recorded that in the Elder Times, Om Oris, mightiest of the wizards, laid crafty snare for the demon Avaloth, and pitted dark magic against him; for Avaloth plagued the earth with a strange growth of ice and snow that crept as if alive, ever southward, and swallowed up the forests and the mountains. And the outcome of the contest with the demon is not known; but wizards of that day maintained that Avaloth, who was not easily discernible, could not be destroyed save by a great heat, the means whereof was not then known, although certain of the wizards foresaw that one day it should be. Yet, at this time the ice fields began to shrink and dwindle and finally vanished; and the earth bloomed forth afresh.” (Lovecraft’s unused ‘transcription from the Eltdown Shards’, Selected Letters V, March 1935)

And here is his beloved Angell Street with the leaves off, but about to “bloom forth afresh” as the earliest spring starts to bud on the trees…

View down Angell Street, Providence.

Up and down this colonial hill [College Hill] I have walk’d ever since I could walk at all — and it has always exerted upon me the greatest possible fascination, even though my native part of Angell Street is somewhat farther East [along the hill], in a decidedly newer (middle and later Victorian) district. Let no one tell me that Providence is not the most beautiful city in the world! Line for line, atmospheric touch for atmospheric touch, it positively and absolutely is! Colour, shade, contour, diversity, quaintness, impressiveness — all are there” (rhapsody on his return home to the city, Selected Letters II, May 1926).