“In Memoriam” (1937) by Hazel Heald

Hazel Heald had three letters published in the pages of Weird Tales.

The first was published in the more-or-less immediate aftermath of Lovecraft’s death. Lovecraft died on 15 March 1937; in May 1937, “The Horror in the Burying-Ground” was published in Weird Tales, the last of the stories attributed to Heald and probably ghosted by Lovecraft, and then in the month after that, we get her acknowledgement of his death:

From Mrs. Heald
Hazle Heald writes from Newtonville, Massachusetts: “I want to express my sorrow in the passing of H. P. Lovecraft. He was a friend indeed to the struggling author, and many have started to climb the ladder of success with his kind assistance. To us who really knew him it is a sorrow that mere words cannot express. His was the helping hand that started me in the writers’ game and gave me the courage to carry on under the gravest difficulties. But we must try to think that he is ‘just away’ on one of his longest journeys and that some day we will meet him again in the Great Beyond.”
—Weird Tales (June 1937)

While stopping short of acknowledging that Lovecraft was a collaborator or ghostwriter, this was Heald’s first public acknowledgement that the woman praised as “veritably a female Lovecraft” (Weird Tales Jun 1935) owed more than a debt of inspiration to the man himself.

The second letter, published a couple months later, is effectively a memoir of her time and relationship with Lovecraft that Heald; the longest piece on Lovecraft by Heald that would be published during her lifetime:

In Memoriam
Mrs. Hazel Heald writes from Newtonville, Massachusetts: “A brain like H. P. Lovecraft’s seldom was found—uncanny in its intelligence. he was ever searching for more knowledge, gleaning by endless hours of study a richer and fuller understanding of people and of life. Being a great traveler, he reveled in the study of old cities and their hidden lore and would walk many miles to inspect some historic spot. he was a real friend to all who knew him, always ready to give his valuable time to aid some poor struggling author—a true guiding star. He was very partial to dumb animals, especially cats, signifying that interest in several of his tales. He would step out of his way to pat some forlorn alley cat and give it a friendly word, and the kittens of a neighbor furnished him unbounded enjoyment. He was an ardent lover of architecture and all the fine arts, and a day spent in a museum with him was time well spent. by endless hours of toil he worked far into the night giving the world masterpieces of weird fiction, sacrificing his health for his work. Lovecraft was a gift to the world who can never be replaced—Humanity’s Friend.”
—Weird Tales (August 1937)

In an era when fans and scholars tend to highlight Lovecraft’s cosmicism, and even his supposed misanthropism, the characterization of the benevolent, friendly Lovecraft might strike many readers as odd—yet this was part of his immediate legacy. Those who wrote about Lovecraft in the wake of his death weren’t his harshest critics or his most bitter foes, but his friends, those whom he had loved, even when he had argued with them; whom he had helped and corresponded with over years, even when they disagreed on many subjects.

Hazel Heald had corresponded with Lovecraft, he had visited her at her home and eaten dinner at her table, they had gone to view museums together. She wasn’t writing from ignorance of Lovecraft, but from personal experience.

Weird Tales would change. In 1938, the magazine was sold to the publisher of Short Stories, a more general fiction pulp headquartered in New York City. Editor Farnsworth Wright went with the magazine, and Dorothy McIlwraith, editor of Short Stories, also became his assistant editor at Weird Tales. The geographic shift caused other changes: Margaret Brundage’s delicate pastels had to be shipped under glass, an expensive option that meant the disappearance of her characteristic covers. With the death of Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft and the virtual retirement of Clark Ashton Smith from writing, new authors needed to be found. The look and feel of the magazine was shifting; and though none of the readers knew it, Farnsworth Wright would soon be fired and McIlwraith would take over as editor.

In February 1939, WT changed size, moving from 128 pages to 160 pages and using a cheaper, thicker pulp paper. Hazel Heald’s final letter is a concise comment:

Mrs. Hazel Heald writers from Somerville, Massachusetts: “Your improved and larger magazine contains a feast of reading enjoyment.”
—Weird Tales, Aug 1939

This was the last word Hazel Heald published in Weird Tales.

The first two letters (“From Mrs. Heald” and “In Memoriam”) were republished in H. P. Lovecraft in “The Eyrie” (1979), and “In Memoriam” was republished as a standalone mini-essay alongside other memoirs in Lovecraft Remembered (1998). Its inclusion in the latter volume might feel like filler; there aren’t many facts to latch onto, no dates or places. With Lovecraft’s letters, her letters to August Derleth, and Muriel Eddy’s fond memories, we have enough context to say that Heald was no doubt recalling her own museum visit with Lovecraft, and the carefully-worded emphasis on support for struggling authors maintains the fiction of Lovecraft as a teacher or reviser rather than a ghostwriter.

Yet this is the most Heald published about Lovecraft, and this memoir—brief as it may be—is at least a genuine expression of her view of Lovecraft, the Lovecraft that she knew and wanted other people to know.

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Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

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