A new seven part Ken Burns documentary series on Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. Perhaps relevant to those seeking to understand the context for Lovecraft’s post-1935 turn away from “fascistic socialism”, toward broadly supporting FDR in the later New Deal period (albeit via his own idiosyncratic ‘aristocratic’ misunderstanding of the New Deal)…

“No monk in his cell was ever more withdrawn from the excitements and occupations of ordinary life than that beaked and bony dreamer, sitting in his aerie on “The Ancient Hill”. Yet such was the scope of his intellectual curiosity that he even developed an academic interest in government and a singularly romantic conception of the New Deal, gorgeously complicated with Utopian ideologies that would have astonished even Mr. Roosevelt. Who, in Lovecraft’s opinion, was about to produce an authentic Millennium out of his presidential hat. The embroideries contributed by Lovecraft included adequate provisions for indigent gentlemen and scholars, baronial largesse for the peasantry, liberal endowments for those desiring to practise the arts and sciences, a stiff educational test for voters, and the gradual substitution of an aristocracy of intellect for the present aristocracy of wealth.” (E.A. Edkins)

A very nicely designed and illustrated 1943 booklet, While Benefit street was young by Margaret Bingham Stillwell (1887-1984). A short but vivid first-hand childhood account of a street and area that Lovecraft knew well, around the turn of the century. Written by an academic who was, back then, a slightly older youth than Lovecraft was (circa age 14-ish, to his 11-ish?). Sadly there’s no Kindle or OCR version, but it can be freely read online at HathiTrust.

Encyclopedia Brunoniana states that the booklet was…

intended to defend the street of her childhood from a reputation of sordidness and disrepair suggested by David DeJong’s [David Cornel De Jong] novel, Benefit Street. … She continued her campaign with the publication in 1945 of The Pageant of Benefit Street [144 pages, sadly not online].

Lovecraft on the vexed question of Scottish independence, on which the Scots vote next week.

“North and South Britons” was published under the pen name “Alexander Ferguson Blair” in The Tryout, May 1919. Presumably his poem was written in response to the increasing likelihood of Irish independence following the end of the First World War, and a consequent fear that the Scots would also ask for independence.

North and South Britons

Man is so much with prejudice imbu’d,
That love and hate arise from latitude;
What else can cause such petty strife to breed
Along the Cheviots and flowing Tweed?
No sober sense could disagreement bring
‘Twixt Britons with one country and one King.
Beyond the seas, the Colonies are built
Alike by men of breeches and of kilt;
On fields of war, with blood of heroes dy’d,
Stand sturdy Scots and Saxons side by side:
In harmony the martial music comes
From Scottish bagpipes and from English drums;
Amid such scenes none stops to boast his birth
As being north or south of Solway Firth;
There Fife and Devon, Ayr and Dorset blend,
And all for one united land contend.
How strange that men, so brotherly abroad,
Cannot be brothers on their native sod!
Would that each Scot and Saxon might be free
From local feuds, and childish jealousy.
Who shall the one above the other place,
When both are mix’d in one imperial race?
Rule on, belov’d Britannia, rule the waves—
No Britons, North or South, shall e’er be slaves!

A Tree in the Wind (Scott Hansen) has been lucky enough to find a set of the Selected Letters. He kindly shares his luck by providing 64 pages of his favorite letters from the expensive Vol. 1.