The final part of my notes on Letters with Donald and Howard Wandrei.
We open in late summer 1935, among the letters sent to Petaja.
Various pages. Both 1935 and 1936 appear to have had cold and late spring-times, which did not help to bolster Lovecraft’s failing health.
p. 450. Lovecraft sees a rare “lunar rainbow” in Florida, cast by the full moon, and describes it as “faint but perfect”.
p. 451. He recalls that he had seen Indians (i.e. native Americans) once “in their native habitat” in 1931. These were Seminoles “who still maintain their tribal organisation”. They had a large camp at Musa Isle in the Florida everglades, and did their best to maintain traditional dress and customs under tribal leadership. The forthcoming book Lovecraft in Florida will likely have more details on such visits.
p. 458. Shows evidence that he is aware of the gay movement in Germany, by October 1935. In a brief discussion of Burton’s 1885 musings on a geographical “Sodatic Zone”, he notes… “at present Germany is said to suffer from such perverted attitudes”. Although by that time Lovecraft was increasingly out-of-date re: the Nazi Party under Hitler (who had seized control of the Party in June 1934).
p. 463. He did not actually own a copy of The Witch Cult in Western Europe (1921), and it appears he never had… “I wish I could get hold of it, but it is infernally hard to find”. p. 466 has him stating “I’d give a lot to own a copy”.
p. 468. He would also like to have read the great Finnish epic The Kalevala.. “which I have for years been meaning to read”. Also p. 483, “my long-standing wish to read the Kalevala“.
p. 469. “Choreography [i.e. the dance] is an art I can appreciate even less than music”.
p. 474. Reports that he undertook a “titanic file cleaning” over many days in June 1936, and as a result he has “thrown away a couple of tons of junk”. And among it probably papers and letters that today would fetch substantial sums, and would be of much interest to scholars.
p. 486. Following the letters, a reprint of an article on Howard Wandrei. Wandrei tells the interviewers that he once owned a complete run of the pre-Weird Tales magazine The Black Cat, and Wandrei retails the story that it folded (shortly before Weird Tales appeared on the stands) because it ran one especially gruesome story involving pain experiments on cats and dogs, then a man. The magazine’s circulation vanished as a result, apparently, and it folded. However, the story of that title was actually in The Black Mask in early 1924, and cannot be found in the old The Black Cat. I suspect that a crackly telephone interview allowed the confusion of the two titles. The Black Mask (est. 1920) may well have dipped in circulation as a result, but appears to have run on until July 1951.
p. 488. A dealer-listing of letters from Lovecraft to Wandrei is given. These letters either no longer exist, or else are salted away in a private collection. But the listing does quote a few lines here and there. A 7th November 1935 postcard was sent by Lovecraft from the rooms above the “Julius” bar in New York City, where Lovecraft was staying. Later a long-time and famous gay bar, although its 1935 status is unknown other than it was then the “Julius” bar.
‘Julius’ bar, 155 West 10th St., now No. 159.
Lovecraft assures the recipient of the card that he is “NOT patronising the barroom beneath” his room, although Donald Wandrei is. He had earlier noted Wandrei was living above a “well-known ‘bohemian’ restaurant” in one letter, but that was presumably before his actual arrival. On arrival, and seeing the place, he is obviously more inclined to call it simply a “barroom”. He spent two weeks living there with Howard Wandrei. The address was 155 West 10th St., now numbered as 159 and it has since become one of the most famous bars in gay history.
