His funeral was held at High Noon at a funeral home, and, though the little gods of fate seemed to will that we should arrive there too late for the services, we did visit Swan Point Cemetery, with its many tombs, winding lanes and exquisite monuments—and did I imagine it, or did the spirit of our late beloved friend and fellow-writer hover over us as we bowed our heads in reverence and respect to the memory of one of the finest men—yes, and greatest geniuses, who ever walked this earth? A man little-known, perhaps, by the majority, but a man who, to those who came in more than casual contact with him, exemplified all that is fine and good in a fellow human being. —Muriel E. Eddy, “Howard Phillips Lovecraft” in Rhode Island on Lovecraft (1945) 21-22
From the very first, Muriel E. Eddy’s memoirs of H. P. Lovecraft were fairly rose-tinted—and, occasionally, given to flights of imaginative fantasy like the above. The Eddys did not make it on time to Lovecraft’s funeral; such things happen, but they did apparently visit his grave periodically. Lovecraft’s grave, initially unmarked, was not the point of pilgrimage for fans and admirers that it is today; but he had long known and expected this to be the resting place for his mortal remains, in the family plot, and it is clear from Lovecraft’s letters to the Eddys that they were well aware of that.
H. P. Lovecraft was an atheist and materialist; he had no expectations for survival of consciousness after death. His afterlife, as it is, lay in the publication of his work, the memories of his friends, and increasingly his appearance as a fictionalized character in various works. Muriel E. Eddy was, apparently, not a materialist, and was at least open to the idea of ghosts or consciousness that survived after death. At least, she was willing to write about it for Fate Magazine, which offered $5 for tales of evidence of existence after death. This was not exactly new territory for Muriel, who had sold a “psychic experience” to The Occult Digest in 1939. So it was that in the October 1956 issue of Fate, “Message in Stone” appeared.
Message in Stone
We were greatly saddened when Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the famous Rhode Island writer of weird and uncanny tales of the unknown, died in March, 1937. Mr. Lovecraft had been a friend of the family for years. He often had brought his weird writings, still in manuscript form, to our house, reading them aloud in his sepulchral voice and awaiting our approval or disapproval. He considered the Eddy family “good critics.” I still can see him, sitting in our humble abode and reading his famous horror tale, “The Rats in the Walls,” which has been reprinted frequently since his untimely demise.
We often discussed the mystery of death and one night Lovecraft expressed the opinion that the human brain was practically indestructible. He believed that, whether or not his body was embalmed, his brain would continue to function. He said that if his brain continued to “work,” as he believed it would after death, he would send a message in some material form that we could understand.
At that time he was in excellent health and death seemed distant. However, shortly afterward Howard Phillips Lovecraft suddenly became seriously I’ll and died in Jane Brown Hospital in Providence, R.I., in March, 1937. He was only 47 years old.
After the funeral I often visited his grave and placed floral offerings there. The grave is in Swan Point Cemetery and is marked by a tall granite shaft.
One night in September, 1937, I had a very vivid dream about Howard Phillips Lovecraft. In my dream I visited his grave, now covered thickly with grass, and was on my knees, parting the grass as I hunted for something.
My dreams haunted me and early the next day, a Sunday, I drove out to the cemetery. I felt driven by an invisible force.
As I stood beside Lovecraft’s grave, I seemed to hear his sepulchral voice again, intoning the words, “If my theory is correct, if my brain continues to function after my death, I will send you a message in some material form that you can understand.”
My eyes scanned the grass on the burial plot, still wet with dew, and then I glimpsed something white shining on Lovecraft’s grave. Stooping, I parted the heavy growth with my hands and picked up a heart-shaped stone, as smooth as satin and about two inches across. It was milky white and looked oddly like a quarried stone of the translucent variety. I recalled that Lovecraft’s grandparents, long dead, had owned a stone quarry in East Providence.
How the stone happened to be lying on Lovecraft’s grave may be only a matter of conjecture. However, he had known that I collected odd-shaped natural specimens, such as unusual shells, odd bits of wood and minerals, especially stones and rocks of unusual formation.
I could find no stone in the cemetery that resembled even remotely the one I found on Lovecraft’s grave. —Providence, R. I.
[Fate Magazine (Oct 1956), 103-105
Some of the details in the piece are correct, others likely honest mistakes. The description of the grave is accurate; at the time, there was no individual marker for HPL, only the granite shaft for the family plot. Lovecraft was 46 at the time of his death, but if Muriel E. Eddy was counting by year, it’s an easy mistake to make. The Phillips did not own a quarry in Providence, but they owned a small mortgage on such a quarry, and in Lovecraft’s letters he talks about sometimes getting mineral samples from there for his friend James F. Morton, who was curator of a museum of geology in New Jersey.
As for the more imaginative part of the Fate piece—there is no account in Lovecraft’s letters or other memories of him hoping for the functioning of his brain after death. However, it is notable that several of his stories for Hazel Heald, notably “Out of the Æons” (1935) and “The Horror in the Burying-Ground” (1937) both deal with a kind of living death, with the mind functioning in a paralyzed or petrified body. Muriel E. Eddy claims to have introduced Heald to Lovecraft, and Heald features prominently in Eddy’s later memoirs, so possibly she remembered either the stories or Lovecraft writing or talking about the stories.
Another likely influence on “Message in Stone” is the magician Houdini, whom both Lovecraft and her husband C. M. Eddy, Jr. had worked with:
I remember Mr. Eddy’s painstaking revision of Houdini’s “Thoughts and Feelings of a Head Cut Off”….an experience which the master magician had undergone in his youth. Harry Houdini said in his story that somewhere in his travels he came across an ancient supersitition that if a head was severed quickly and unexpectedly from a body, the brain in the head kept on thinking for several seconds! […]
I am quite sure this story was never offered for sale by Harry Houdini, as it lacked the ring of veracity . . . perhaps it was somewhat exaggerated! When we told H.P.L. about it, he exclaimed, “Oh, what I could have done with that story, but perhaps Houdini wouldn’t have liked it if I’d changed it too much. I took a lot of liberties with his ‘Pharaoh’ story and he seemed satisfied, but this one!” And a far-away look was in his eyes. . . .
Later on, were were discussing the possibility of the truth of a brain functioning after death, and Lovecraft averred that perhaps the brain did function . . . for a few minutes after the death of one’s body. It was a weird subject, and there I ended! I sometimes wondered what Lovecraft’s true feelings regarding this matter really were. […]
My husband spent some time investigating Spiritualism at Lake Pleasant, Massachusetts, for Harry Houdini, and when he returned home with much data about some of the mediums he’d met, Lovecraft came over to see us and seemed much interested in the subject. He scoffed at the idea of communion with the dead, and said that, in his opinion, death was the absolute end. —Muriel E. Eddy, “A Gentleman from Angell Street” (1961) in A Gentleman from Angell Street20-21
The Harry Houdini Circumstantial Evidence blog relates a possible manuscript related to this story, titled “Thoughts and Visions of a Head Cut Off.” Houdini is an important connection as well because of a tradition that began after his death; his wife Bess began to hold séances annually on Hallowe’en, in an attempt to contact her husband’s spirit. Muriel was aware of this:
By the way, Houdini’s last desire was that on every Hallowe’en his resting-place should be visited by friends to see if his (Harry Houdini’s) ghost appeared. . . . he made light of ghosts and Spiritualism, you jnow. As Lovecraft was a “ghost-writer” also for Harry Houdini . . . . . . well! Mrs. Harry Houdini . . . and Harry’s brother Hardeen . . . have joined the ranks of every human’s ultimate glory . . . . could not supervise the weird visition at Houdini’s grave this Hallowe’en. I supose that trek will now be abandoned . . . . Houdini proved his own point . . . he STAYED dead! Somtimes, in a joking mood, Lovecraft used to say that . . . . . PERHAPS . . . . the human brain NEVER stopped functioning . . . . . even after death. A weird thought, and, visiting H. P. L.’s grave one day recently . . . . . your friends the Eddys . . wondered . . . just vaguely. But OF COURSE H.P.L. was just joking! —Muriel E. Eddy to Winfield Townley Scott, 2 Nov 1945, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Muriel’s information was a little out of date; while Bess Houdini died in 1943 and Theodore Hardeen in 1945, Bess had passed the séance tradition on to Walter B. Gibson in 1936, who in turn would ask Doroth Dietrich to carry on the tradition, which is still ongoing.
Something said in jest would definitely be more in keeping with what we know about Lovecraft, and of course Muriel E. Eddy would have had to play up the belief in his posthumous existence to get published in FATE Magazine. Her account, minor enough as it is, caught the attention of at least one journalist, who distilled it for a fluff piece to fill a few column inches:
“Message in Stone” was never republished, and the whole incident is largely ignored in Muriel E. Eddy’s most well-known memories. Yet in H.P.L.: The Man and The Image (1969), she ends a rambling collection of memories with the note:
On one of my visits to H.P.L.’s grave, I found a heart-shaped stone. I wondered if he had seen it there, what type of storey might have been concocted by his fertile brain.
Muriel E. (Gammons) Eddy was born in Taunton, Massachusetts in 1896. She started to write poetry and fiction at a very early age. Muriel was educated in Attleboro Falls, Massachusetts; Redlands, California; and the Horace Mann School in San Jose, California, where she lived during her early teen years. Her father owned a movie theatre during that time, and it was there that she would spend many hours watching the motion picture shows, and writing stories and poems. Upon returning to Massachusetts, much of her poetry was published in her hometown newspaper, The Attleboro Sun.
Being the avid reader that she was, Muriel read all that she could, including the various magazines sold at the local newsstands. One of these held a letter to the editor from Clifford Eddy, Jr. Muriel wrote a letter to him and a correspondence ensued; they were both twenty-one. At the time, the two found they had many common interests: their love for writing, reading habits, their fertile imagination, and their almost twin birthdays (his, January 18, 1896; hers, January 19, 1896). They married the following year on February 10, 1918, eventually settling in Providence, Rhode Island.
Muriel continued writing, all the while raising three children. Her short stories in many different genres including romance, mystery, personal adventure, and suspense were published in the various magazines of the day such as Ghost Stories, Scarlet Adventuress, Complete Detective Novel Magazine, True Confessions, MidnightMagazine, and The Occult Digest. […]
Muriel and Clifford met H. P. Lovecraft and maintained a close friendship with him until his death in 1937. —Jim Dyer, “Introduction” in In the Gray of the Duski-ii
A few letters from Lovecraft to Muriel, and to her husband C. M. Eddy, Jr., survive; so there is no doubt that they did correspond. Beyond that bald fact, the correspondence of Muriel E. Eddy and H. P. Lovecraft gets complicated.
The difficulty comes from the fact that Muriel, more than most of Lovecraft’s friends, memorialized her and her husband’s relationship with Lovecraft. While her major memoir is “The Gentleman from Angell Street” (1961), she also published “Howard Phillips Lovecraft” in Rhode Island on Lovecraft (1945), “Message in Stone” in Fate Magazine (Oct 1956), “Memories of H. P. L.” in The Magazine of Horror (Winter 1965-1966), “Lovecraft’s Marriage and Divorce” in Haunted (Jun 1968), and H. P. L. “The Man and the Image” (1969) (also partially reprinted as “Lovecraft: Among the Demons”), not to mention miscellaneous letters, notes, and probably a few reprints under different titles.
While that sounds substantial, most of these are relatively minor pieces, largely repetitious or filled with Muriel’s own speculation. Digging into the minutiae of what Muriel wrote and when, and trying to cross-reference her statements made through several decades versus the facts given in Lovecraft’s letters and other sources, reveals a great deal of omission, correction, and even contradictions.
To give an example, take this snippet from one of her later, self-published memoirs:
One day he walked all the way up to the top of the First Baptist Metting House in Benefit Street to sign his name in the guest book. He wrote, “H. P. Lovecraft, Esq., Gentleman.” He signed many of his letters to my husband and me with that phrase, and also “your obedient servant.”
*********
Our friendship with Howard began with letter writing, although we also lived in Providence – because he hated to use the telephone or any other mechanical device such as the typewriter. He always wrote in longhand, and later I was to type many of his manuscripts.
We wanted very much to meet him in person, and he finally came to our house one afternoon in August, 1923. —Muriel E. Eddy, H. P. L. “The Man and the Image” (1969)3
There is no doubt that Lovecraft did often sign his letters in just this way; we have numerous surviving examples to attest to that. So far, so good. Several of Lovecraft’s letters also attest to how much he detested typing, and his penchant for writing longhand; this is also verified by surviving manuscripts in Lovecraft’s writing. How much Muriel E. Eddy did typing for Lovecraft is more debatable; we cannot point to a typescript and say “Yes, Muriel typed this for Lovecraft.” We do have letters from Lovecraft where he mentions that C. M. Eddy, Jr. typed for him:
I gotta new way to get all my old manuscripts retyped in double-spacing, too. It’s the new local boy Eddy, what I was tellin’ ya about. I revise his stuff; and for every story I jazz up, he types one for me. —H. P. Lovecraft to Maurice W. Moe, 19 Oct 1924, Letters to Maurice W. Moe 139
Does this mean Muriel E. Eddy didn’t type Lovecraft’s manuscripts? No. But it also means that without supporting evidence, we’re left to take her word on the matter. This becomes important because some of the most interesting and critical points in Muriel Eddy’s memoirs of her friendship and correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft are less well supported by outside evidence.
All of Muriel E. Eddy’s memoirs agree, for example, that Lovecraft first came to visit the Eddys—who lived in Providence, Rhode Island, just a couple of miles from Lovecraft’s front door—in 1923. However, according to Muriel, they actually came into contact years earlier.
Cliff and I met Howard Philips Lovecraft in 1923. We were introduced by their mothers, who were both active in the women’s suffrage movement. — Muriel E. Eddy, “Introduction” in Exit to Eternity (1973)iii
The 19th amendment granting women’s suffrage in the United States passed in 1919, and Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft died in 1921, so this hypothetical first contact would have been c. 1918-1919. Yet there is no mention of the Eddys in Lovecraft’s correspondence before 1923, and the earliest surviving letters from Lovecraft to the Eddys dates to 1923. There is no reference in Lovecraft’s letters of his mother ever attending a suffragette meeting. However, Muriel expanded on this early contact:
Meeting Howard Phillips Lovecraft “in person” was the culmination of months of letter writing. Though we lived but a few miles apart, it had been necessary to contact H.P.L. (as we later learned to call him) by mail, during his mother’s lifetime. […] She said she preferred that we enter into correspondence with Howard, as generally speaking, he hated to talk over the ‘phone, not caring for modern-day inventions or mechanical instruments. […] So we wrote to H.P.L., and found him a willing and eager correspondent. Letters flew thick and fast between us, and he invited us to join the United Amateur Press Association, to which he belonged. He also sent us many copies of The Tryout, a small monthly booklet for amateur writers published by C. W. Smith up in New Hampshire, to which he was a faithful contributor, writing for it under various pen names, one of which was L. Theobald, Jr. We, too, were soon steady contributors to this small magazine. — Muriel E. Eddy, “The Gentleman from Angell Street” (1961) in The Gentleman From Angell Street(2001), 3, 4-5
While there are no letters from this period to attest to a “thick and fast” correspondence, Lovecraft was definitely keen to recruit fellow-writers to amateur journalism, and the United Amateur Press Association was his personal preference. That being said, The Tryout was associated with the rival National Amateur Press Association, and I’ve yet to find either of the Eddys on the rolls of the UAPA or NAPA. However, in 1918 Muriel E. Eddy did publish a few poems in The Tryout. That much, at least, seems to suggest that they may really have been in contact with Lovecraft as early as 1918.
August Derleth, who presumably got the data directly from C. M. Eddy, Jr. or Muriel Eddy, wrote a slightly more detailed account of Lovecraft coming into correspondence with the Eddys:
By one of those coincidences that are found so frequently in life, however much their incidence may be ridiculed in fiction, Mrs. Sarah Lovecraft and Mrs. Grace Eddy, two ladies of Providence, Rhode Island, who were allied in interest in the movement for women’s suffrage early in this century, had sons who were bending their efforts toward success at writing. Early in 1918, during a lull in a telephone conversation about the goal toward which both worked, the disclosure of their sons’ spare time activity was made, though Clifford M. Eddy Jr. was then courting and shortly married another writer, Muriel Gammons, and it was not until September of that year that Muriel Eddy sent H. P. Lovecraft a note, enclosing a poem of her own and one of her husband’s. Lovecraft responded out of his enthusiasm for fellow writers— and amateur pressdom— as he did in many other cases— with an application blank for each inviting them to join the United Amateur Press Association, and signed his note, “H. P. Lovecraft, Director.” The Eddys accepted Lovecraft’s invitation to join the association, but they did not actually meet one another until the summer of 1923. — August Derleth, The Dark Brotherhood and other pieces (1966), 97
Muriel went on to write:
All of his letters were interesting and instructive and helped us a great deal. Then the letters became fewer and fewer, and it was evident that Howard was under some sort of stress about which he preferred not to talk. Finally, we knew the reason. His mother had become a patient at Butler Hospital, and his two aunts had taken over the running of the Lovecraft household. […] After her death, we began to hear from him again… and after over a year of intermittent writing back and forth, we had the temerity to invite him to visit us…never dreaming that he would accept the invitation! — Muriel E. Eddy, “The Gentleman from Angell Street” (1961) in The Gentleman From Angell Street(2001), 5
Lovecraft’s letters after his mother’s death do show his great bereavement at her loss; at the same time, his involvement with amateur journalism and relationships with individuals like Winifred Virginia Jackson and Sonia H. Greene were undergoing a profound shift; it would not be unusual if a correspondence was allowed to lapse after a while, only to pick up again after things had settled for a period.
Two letters from H. P. Lovecraft to Muriel E. Eddy survive from this period, dated 5 September and 20 October 1923. Both of the Eddys were active writers during this period, though Muriel also had to keep house and watch the children (Clifford b. 1918, Fay b. 1920, and Ruth b. 1921—Muriel’s pregnancies might have been another reason the correspondence lapsed; it was a busy few years). C. M. Eddy, Jr. appears to have had at least occasional other employment as a theater promoter and other jobs. Still, money was obviously tight, and it was going to get tighter. There is evidence from city directories and other sources that the Eddys moved frequently in the 1920s.
The 5 September 1923 letter opens with Lovecraft enclosing several of his weird fiction manuscripts, and a discussion of the May 1923 issue of Weird Tales. This was obviously part of an ongoing discussion about pulps, because Lovecraft wrote:
I never saw The Thrill Book, & was distinctive tantalized by what you say of “The Sargasso Sea”. —H. P. Lovecraft to Muriel E. Eddy, 5 Sep 1923, Miscellaneous Letters 156
Much of the letter is, unfortunately, not available; the partial transcription included in Miscellaneous Letters is taken from a dealer’s listing. The end of the letter, however, is a brief postscript that says simply: “P.S. Batch of new Tryouts just came—I’ll enclose a copy.” This would be another point in support of Muriel’s claim that Lovecraft had approached the Eddys about joining amateur journalism.
The 20 October 1923 letter opens “My dear Mrs. Eddy:—” and an enclosed story revision—”The Ghost-Eater” for C. M. Eddy, Jr. (which would be published in Weird Tales Apr 1924). The fact that Lovecraft is addressing this business matter through Muriel may suggest that she was the primary point of contact, at least at first, although as with the case of Fritz and Jonquil Leiber, perhaps Lovecraft alternated letters between the two, keeping up a parallel correspondence. The letter goes on to thank her for her comments related to The Poetical Works of Jonathan E. Hoag (1923), which Lovecraft had edited and written the critical preface to.
Taken together, these letters show an active and literary correspondence, mixed with a bit of revisory business. “The Ghost-Eater” is the earliest story of Eddy’s that Lovecraft is known to have touched-up, and might represent C. M. Eddy’s early attempt to crack Weird Tales as a market. Other stories Lovecraft had a greater or lesser hand in were “Ashes” (WT Mar 1924), “The Loved Dead” (WT May-Jun-Jul 1924), and “Deaf, Dumb, and Blind” (WT Apr 1925).
There is a gap in the extant Lovecraft-Eddy correspondence; this is no doubt due in part to Lovecraft’s elopement with Sonia H. Greene to New York in March 1924. Muriel wrote that she saw the announcement in the paper where Lovecraft advertised for the typescript of “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” (for Harry Houdini), which he had lost on the trip:
I was so sorry for Lovecraft and so intrigued with the expected sight of the advertisement that, impetuously, I sat down, and clipping out the notice, I pasted it on a sheet of note-paper and drew a heavy black edge around it, writing underneath, “My deepest sympathy”.
In the very next mail came a printed announcement of Howard’s marriage to Sonia. They were married March 3, 1924, in St. Paul’s Church in New York City. Was my face red when that announcement arrived…after having just sent Lovecraft a note of sympathy! […]
[19] Lovecraft initially seemed overjoyed and exhilarated, sending us smiling snapshots of himself, also of Sonia, but not taken together. At first his letters were typical missives, then they dwindled, and finally, we did not hear from him at all. — Muriel E. Eddy, “The Gentleman from Angell Street” (1961) in The Gentleman From Angell Street(2001), 15-16, 19
The Eddys were definitely included on the list of those to be sent the engraved wedding announcement:
About the announcements—the engraved cards ought to come today, and the envelopes are already here and addressed. Of Providentians I have remembered Harold, Ronald, and Eddy—the only ones I think would be really interested. — H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 18 Mar 1924, Letters to Family & Family Friends 1.113
The others mentioned are probably Harold Bateman Munroe and Ronald K. Upham.
We know that the correspondence with the Eddys continued during Lovecraft’s New York period (1924-1926), but also that there were gaps—understandable given Lovecraft’s often upset situation (and possibly the Eddys’ as well). For example, in his letters to his aunts, Lovecraft mentions:
I had a piquant note from Eddy today, and must answer it soon. My correspondence and amateur work, however, have had to be greatly neglected on account of this rush order for three chapters of a book of American superstition. — H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 30 Mar 1924, Letters to Family & Family Friends 1.131
And in the opening of a letter to C. M. Eddy, Jr., Lovecraft apologizes:
Once more a prodigal adopted grandfather sues for pardon anent epistolary delinquencies! — H. P. Lovecraft to C. M. Eddy, Jr., 21 Jul 1924, Miscellaneous Letters 158
It is clear from the surviving letters that Lovecraft continued to have a relationship with the Eddys; after he left Providence, the Eddys’ absorbed some of Lovecraft’s furniture from his aunts (as well as dozens of postcards from Sonia H. Greene, which were sadly destroyed). Lovecraft wrote a letter of introduction for C. M. Eddy to Harry Houdini, and C. M. Eddy apparently did some work for Houdini. Lovecraft certainly helped revise or amend some of C. M. Eddy’s fiction for Weird Tales, and they were to collaborate on The Cancer of Superstition for Houdini, a project cut off by the magician’s untimely demise.
There is some indication that Lovecraft may have had a falling-out with, or at least frustration with, the Eddys in late 1925/early 1926. A pair of letters suggests frustration:
Strange case—but as I just wrote A E P G on a card, I’m through with freaks & paupers & plebeians & odd fish at last. It took a long time to shew me how profitless they all are—Arthur Fredlund, Herbert Benson, Eddy, &c—but I now see how asinine it is to bother with them. They give no pleasure in the end, & become an intolerable nuisance & parasitic pest. — H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 22 Dec 1925, Letters to Family & Family Friends 1.520
As for me, I’m sick of Bohemians, odds & ends, freaks, & plebeians—C. M. Eddys & satellites & miscellany &c. They amuse me for a while, but begin to after a time to get frightfully on one’s nerves. People get one one’s nerves when they harbour different kinds of memories & live by different kinds of standards& cherish different kinds of goals & ideas. — H. P. Lovecraft to Lilian D. Clark, 11 Jan 1926, Letters to Family & Family Friends 2.536
Without the Eddys’ end of the correspondence, we don’t really have an idea of what the problem was, but given the general impression of poverty that surrounds the Eddys from Lovecraft’s other letters of the period, it probably has to do with the straitened circumstances of the little family.
One thing we don’t get from this period, or after, is a real sense of Lovecraft’s relationship or correspondence with Muriel E. Eddy. With three kids under ten years old, she certainly had her hands full, on top of whatever other efforts she made to support the family while C. M. Eddy, Jr. tried to alternately write and work odd jobs, so it would not be surprising if C. M. Eddy, Jr. took over the bulk of the correspondence chores. We get a picture of the Eddys as a couple in a few letters from Lovecraft:
Orton is now attempting some writing—though of a popular & low-grade sort, for the Macfadden publications. (the same ones which honest Eddy’s wife writes for.) — H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 12 Apr 1929, Letters to Family & Family Friends 2.747
He has so far managed to keep meagrely afloat—with a wife & three children—by undertaking outside work of various sorts; but recent economic conditions have left him jobless & reduced him to such depths of want & peril that nothing short of a miracle—or a flood of fairly lucrative literary chores—can keep him & his flock from actual freezing, starvation, & eviction during the interval before he can again secure some industrial affiliation. — H. P. Lovecraft to Zealia Brown Reed Bishop, 16 Jan 1930, Letters to Woodburn Harris & Others 429
I say the “House of Eddy” because C.M.E. Jr. made it clear last night that his wife does most of the adaptive revision in cases of this kind. He takes care of the grammatical & rhetorical side, while Mrs. Eddy supplies the “human-interest” hokum & blah for which the Macfadden editors are so avid. She, it seems, has produced much of this material, & has helped many beginners to develop into steady sellers. Her help, Eddy says, generally amounts to actual collaboration—although in your case, as I have just warned, you must not let it approach the status of instruction lest the results of Belknap’s lessons be undone. The rates charged by the Eddys for this collaborative revision of Macfaddenistic material would be very reasonable, & they would be glad to discuss the matter of placement with you whenever you wish to write. — H. P. Lovecraft to Zealia Brown Reed Bishop, 29 Jan 1930, Letters to Woodburn Harris & Others 436-437
The last letter from Lovecraft to C. M. Eddy, Jr. is c. 1930, and mentions “The Mound” (1940) by Zealia Bishop. A checklist among Lovecraft’s papers suggest he was still in touch with the Eddys at least as late as 1934, as he apparently sent them postcards from St. Augustine, Charleston, and Nantucket, but these are not known to survive (Collected Essays 5. 267).
There is a notable gap in the correspondence, near the end of Lovecraft’s life. Muriel Eddy claimed that she was responsible for putting Lovecraft in contact with Hazel Heald, Lovecraft’s last major revision client. If Muriel E. Eddy did this by letter, those epistles do not appear to have survived and are not in evidence from what other correspondence we have. Then again, why would they be? Lovecraft seldom mentioned such correspondence to others.
How do we square this evidence for correspondence—solid (in the form of two letters to Muriel E. Eddy and ten to C. M. Eddy, Jr.) and circumstantial (references to the Eddys in Lovecraft’s other letters)—with Muriel’s own memoirs? Whether or not Muriel was misremembering or deliberately glossing over a few details, it seems clear that Lovecraft’s relationship with the Eddys was not quite as tight as she liked to present, and the impression given is of a friendship occasionally strained by time, distance, and business or financial matters, albeit not a friendship that was ever completely abandoned on either side.
Because so much of the surviving correspondence is between Lovecraft and her husband, it is difficult to get a bead on Muriel E. Eddy’s relationship with Lovecraft. There is a strong impression that at the beginning (c.1918-1924), Lovecraft was writing mostly to Muriel, as he would to any of a number of amateur journalists. As Lovecraft’s business with C. M. Eddy, Jr. waxes—first with revising his work and getting stuff typed, then the Houdini-stuff, and finally the Bishop revising/typing—we see less and less of Muriel.
While there are a few contradictory points in Muriel’s memoirs of Lovecraft, it’s important to point out that she was not necessarily dishonest—memory can get vague and fuzzy, and by the time Muriel was weighing in Lovecraft had been dead for years. As she told the stories over and over, they became more fixed, as evidenced by comparing the earlier memoirs to later ones; repeating narratives makes them clearer in the mind, but it also means a person teaches themself how to tell a story, sometimes adding or removing details, being informed by what other people wrote, etc. Most of Muriel’s comments on Lovecraft’s marriage, for example, are pure hearsay and speculation, and quite often wrong.
It is unfortunate that more of the Lovecraft/Eddy correspondence is not available. Muriel E. Eddy’s memoirs, even flawed, provide a fascinating insight into Lovecraft’s life and work, and also into her own life and that of her husband during this tumultuous but critical period. What drove a woman like Muriel E. Eddy to write to H. P. Lovecraft? What prompted him to write back? How long did they correspond, of and on? We do not have—will never have—all the pieces of the puzzle.
Imagine a young mother, bouncing a toddler on her knee, squinting at one of Lovecraft’s manuscripts and trying to type it out—or perhaps C. M. Eddy, Jr. was there, a rugrat at his foot, as he read aloud while she typed. Or that breathless expectation on a hot summer afternoon in Providence, as a tall man in a straw hat walked up to the door to introduce himself, with a name they had only read in letters up to that point…it’s easy to wax romantic about these relationships. Yet the whole point of tracing such correspondence and combing through these memoirs is to get a better sense of who these people were, and what their lives were like.
Thanks to Donovan Loucks for his help with this one.
In the summer of 1976, a one-shot ‘zine of of weird poetry and art emerged from 5115 South Mead St., Seattle Washington. The publisher titled it Visions of Khroyd’hon, which probably meant nothing to anyone at the time, and it was published in the spirit of good fun:
There are many interesting poetry publications popping up every now & then, and I thought it wou’d be fun if I join’d—if only for a moment—ye crowd and publish’d this first and only issue of VOK. I’ve assembled lots of good poetry here, with a number of talented youngsters contributing clever rhymes, love sonnets, and exciting verse. There’s something for everyone’ I’m sure each reader will be able to find some moments of entertainment. —W. H. Pugmire, Visions of Khroyd’hon 1
Among the contributors were luminaries such as Brian Lumley, H. Warner Munn, J. Vernon Shea, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and William Davis Manly, the latter of whom included several untitled verses, including this one:
Weird and wonderful, these tales, Each an eerie world reveal; Imagination freely sails Reaching worlds that can’t be real— Darkened worlds of daemon-lore.
Time is but a shadow-thing, All reality has flown; Listen—Dagon’s children sing!, Eerily, in tongue unknown. Surely, I can’t ask for more. —william davis manly
It is a poem in praise of weird fiction, from someone who loves the strange, eerie, horrific, and awesome. A paean from one Mythos fan to every other. The artist is unknown, but the subject is writer Fritz Leiber, Jr., and appears to be traced from a scene from the 1970 film Equinox.
Equinox has several parallels with Evil Dead II, including a recording of a professor (Leiber) who unwisely reads aloud an incantation from a very evil book…although the book in Equinox is not specifically called the Necronomicon.
The hidden joke is that William Davis Manly is, like Robert E. Howard’s Justin Geoffrey or H. P. Lovecraft’s Abdul Alhazred, not a flesh-and-blood poet at all, but a character in Pugmire’s stories—a staple name in what would become the Sesqua Valley stories. Pugmire had begun producing poetry under the name William Davis Manly in the 1970s, probably first “The Cryptic Power” in the ‘zine Bleak December #8. The first bit of fiction referencing Manly was “From ye Journal of William Davis Manly” (Old Bones #1, Summer 1976), and in “The Thing in the Glen” (Space and Time Sep 1977) the story begins with a poetic epigraph:
“Beneath the old narcotic moon It preys upon mortality, Hungry to devour hope, And whispering to darkness.” —William Davis Manly, Visions of Khroyd’hon (quoted from Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror 57)
So Pugmire’s poetry ‘zine became, in the context of his Mythos fiction, a volume of poetry, much like Justin Geoffrey’s People of the Monolith in Robert E. Howard’s “The Black Stone.” William Davis Manly (or at least, his legend) would grow and develop in Pugmire’s tales, as would his slightly more diabolical counterpart, the sorcerer Simon Gregory Williams.
There is no definitive collection of W. H. Pugmire’s poetry, and maybe such a thing would be difficult to put together, given how much of it was published in ‘zines and scattered hither and yon. The quality and focus of it varies considerably, as Pugmire was equally disposed to either fulfilling some weird and fantastic corner of the Mythos or just praising his aunt in verse, but for readers who enjoy his fiction, Pugmire’s poetry is an indelible part of his larger body of work.
As far as I have yet been able to determine, the untitled poem from Visions of Khroyd’an has only ever been reprinted in the chapbook Sesqua Rising (2016) by Graeme Davis, which collects many other early Pugmire rarities.
And then the girl behind the counter She asks me how I feel today I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn —final chorus
“Lovecraft in Brooklyn” is the eighth track on Heretic Pride (2008, 4AD) the eleventh studio album by The Mountain Goats, an indie/folk-rock project by singer/songwriter John Darnielle and his collaborators. The song was written and performed by Darnielle, and produced by Scott Solter and John Vanderslice. The tense 3:49 recording is narrated by an individual in a city, expressing muted frustration and horrific fantasies. References to Lovecraft and his work are few and vague, beginning with the second chorus:
Rhode Island drops into the ocean No place to call home anymore Lovecraft in Brooklyn
And ending with a reference to what might be the Fungi from Yuggoth:
Someday something’s coming From way out beyond the stars To kill us while we stand here It’ll store our brains in Mason jars
…or perhaps just a paranoid ramble from an undiagnosed schizophrenic. While nothing happens in the narrative of the song, there is the implicit promise of violence about to occur, and “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” is the narrator’s common reference point for how they feel, a reference that they expect others to understand.
As part of the promotion of the album, comic book artist Jeffrey Lewis produced a three-page comic illustrating Darnielle’s notes about the songs.
American horror icon H. P. Lovecraft moved to Red Hook, Brooklyn to be with the woman he loved. He had never really seen any people who were not white folks from Massachusetts. Immigrants were spilling into Brooklyn from the four corners of the globe. Lovecraft’s xenophobia during his time in Brooklyn resulted in some of the weirdest, darkest images in all American literature; one must condemn Lovecraft’s ugly racism, of course, but his not-unrelated inclination toward a general suspicion of anything that’s alive is pretty fertile ground.
In a 2008 interview about the science fiction influence on his work, Darnielle was asked specifically about the song:
[Charlie Jane Anders]: Your new album includes a song about H.P. Lovecraft, “Lovecraft In Brooklyn.” Why should we identify with H.P. Lovecraft’s feelings of alienation and xenophobia during his exile in Red Hook? What about that image appeals to you? In Lovecraft’s case, that alienation leads to all his best speculative horror… do you think xenophobia creates better speculative fiction than xenophilia?
[John Darnielle]: Well the song is not really about Lovecraft — it’s sung by a guy who’s identifying with Lovecraft at his most xenophobic and terrified. Why does that appeal? I think I’m just attracted to hermits in general — to people who don’t feel like they’re part of the world, who have a hard time feeling like they’re really present in the same space as everybody else. —Charlie Jane Anders, “The Mountain Goats Explain Why Ozzy Osbourne Is A Scifi Visionary” (Gizmodo, 27 Mar 2008)
An apocryphal account of the 22 March 2008 live session The Mountain Goats played at the Black Cat club in Washington, D.C. captures an opener John Darnielle gave before playing this song:
Once again, to express my affection for you, I’d like to play this song about a fellow who is really so filled with anger and rage that the mere sight of other human beings makes him feel even more angry. He’s angry already when he wakes up, before he remembers that there’s other people on the planet. But once he thinks of those other people, then he starts to really get going. And heaven help you if he should have to go and get some kleenex or whatever from the corner store, then he will really be filled with a special kind of contempt. Why? Because you have bodies and they make him sick. That’s what this song is about. I know everyone can relate to the tender feelings expressed in it.
John Darnielle is not a Lovecraft scholar; his understanding of Lovecraft as represented in the promotional materials, lyrics, and intra-show commentary reflects a popular depiction of Lovecraft as an angry xenophobe trapped in a place surrounded by people who weren’t like him, and it made him go crazy. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” reflects the legend of Lovecraft’s 1924-1926 sojourn to New York, much like Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad of Black Tom” (2016) represents an interpretation of “The Horror at Red Hook,” one of the stories Lovecraft wrote during that period, with an emphasis on Lovecraft’s racism.
The reality was more complicated. 1924 wasn’t the first time Lovecraft had been to New York; it wasn’t the first time Lovecraft had been out of state, or seen people of color or different ethnicities. Lovecraft had experiences leading up to his 1924 elopement with Sonia H. Greene, who gave her version of their married life in The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft (1985), which he thought prepared him for life in New York.
As it happened, Lovecraft was wrong. He failed to find employment; soon after marriage, his wife fell ill and required hospitalization and then rest. Without either of them working, money swiftly became an issue. Sonia eventually found a job out in the Midwest, but Lovecraft would not follow her there, so he was left alone, in the poor Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. Largely alone, unable to make his own way, dependent on a wife he didn’t see for weeks and distant aunts, Lovecraft tried to make the best of it with his local friends.
Then thieves broke into his apartment.
Letters from Lovecraft to his aunts Lillian D. Clark and Annie Gamwell show how unhappy he was. While he never blamed the immigrants or people of color for his own failures, his letters to them during this period show how much Lovecraft’s prejudices were exacerbated during this final, stressful period in New York…until, at last, his aunts and wife prevailed upon him to return to Providence, Rhode Island, where he could be happier.
So he did.
Most of Lovecraft’s New York experiences did not make it into his fiction; not even the fiction he wrote while living in and set in the city. “The Horror at Red Hook” is unusual because through Lovecraft’s letters and various anecdotes in memoirs we can trace it back to a specific incident—overhearing some hardboiled toughs talking a little too loudly about criminal goings-on at a local cafeteria—from which Lovecraft spun out his fantasy of an immigrant gang-cum-cult involved in human trafficking, murder, and more esoteric activities.
“The Horror at Red Hook” reads pretty baldly racist; the equivalent today might be a story of an MS-13-type group that was also a survival of ancient Aztec religion that still practiced human sacrifice. That was very explicitly fiction, though—a play on contemporary prejudices, not Lovecraft just putting his own prejudices onto the paper. A fine distinction for a lot of readers who don’t always like to distinguish between what Lovecraft thought and how he portrayed things in the pages of Weird Tales.
New York-based rapper and producer Aesop Rock (Ian Matthias) did a remix of “Lovecraft in Brooklyn,” which at 3:31 retains all of Darnielle’s lyrics but quickens the beat and reworks the soundscape with added effects to add to the tension and air of alienation of the song, and providing a densely-packed fourth verse of his own. The added lyrics are grounded much more firmly in Brooklyn itself, and suggest a deeper understanding of Lovecraft’s time in New York (“Summer lovin’ snuck him toward the tarnished arms of liberty”), and perhaps reflect W. Paul Cook’s assessment that Lovecraft’s time in New York was pivotal toward his development as a writer (“Little Howie’s parachute has flowered down the rabbit hole”).
“Lovecraft in Brooklyn” is an expression of the pop cultural phenomenon that is Lovecraft; his legend used to evoke certain ideas, attitudes, and aesthetics completely rather than any attempt to relate a distinct biographical episode from his life. It showcases how Lovecraft’s reputation as a bigot and xenophobe has become so rampant; of course, the fact that he was racist (if not always to the degree or in the way folks like Darnielle portray) cannot be ignored and shouldn’t be downplayed.
While Darnielle’s particular impression of Lovecraft may be factually incorrect, Darnielle was right in that Lovecraft’s legacy continues to be fertile ground for artists to fuel their own imaginations.
All this rivalry, however, was conducted with the utmost good humour, Mrs. Sawyer, for the National, insisted that her society was larger and older—that the United was merely a smaller, later society. To this I replied that the analogy of organic nature held good—the National was the crude, primitive, coarsely organised monster of prehistoric times—the dinosaur or pterodactyl of amaterudom; gigantic in size and anterior in date, but forced in the course of evolution to give way to the later-comer of smaller size but incomparably greater intelligence—the United, corresponding to mankind. This bit of biological repartee seemed well received, judging from the hilarity it caused. — H. P. Lovecraft to Sarah Susan Lovecraft, 24 Feb 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.28
According to the 1880 Federal census, she was born Laura Anna Moody in Massachusetts in May 1865, the youngest of three children of Nathaniel D. Moody and Eliza M. Moody; her older brothers were Everett E. Moody and John T. Moody. The family history is a bit vague; her father served for a month in the Union army in 1864, and by the time Laurie was 15 in 1880 the federal census lists her parents as running an alms-house. Later census records indicate that Laurie A. Moody graduated highschool, and a marriage is recorded 25 November 1885 with Charles Millet Sawyer, a salesman; from that point on, she was known as Laurie A. Sawyer.
The 1900 Federal census lists a child: Marshall M. Sawyer, age 8 (born 18 Jul 1891). However, the census also lists that Laurie bore two children; Lovecraft refers in one letter to “the eldest of the now grown, wedded, and departed Sawyer boys” (LFF1.33), so there was another son the census lists failed to capture. A little digging revealed birth, baptism, and death records, and gravestone for Gerald Francis Sawyer (b. 10 Nov 1889, d. 13 Jun 1897); such childhood mortalities were all too common.
Her profession in 1900 and 1920 Federal censuses is given as “housewife,” while the 1910 Federal census lists Laurie as a bookkeeper at an electrician’s office, and 1930 Federal census lists her doing clerical work at Symphony Hall. She was, at any rate, literate, good with numbers, and had some talent for organization.
Mrs. Sawyer, though widely read, makes less claim to literary achievements than the others; being noted chiefly for a scintillant and inimitable humour which is employed on all occasions both in speech and on paper. Such a perpetual fountain of wit is quite remarkable, and is much more acceptable to amateurdom than the dull and heavy effusions of less gifted but more ambitious scribblers. […34] Subjects tended to change according to audience—thus Mrs. Miniter seemed mainly interested in the past history of amateurdom, Mrs. Sawyer in present amateur controversies, and Miss Jackson in general literary and poetical matters. — H. P. Lovecraft to Sarah Susan Lovecraft, 24 Feb 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.33, 34
It is not clear when Laurie A. Sawyer began in amateur journalism. She is listed in 1909 as the final President of the Interstate Amateur Press Association, and newspaper accounts in 1916 list her among the attendees of the National Amateur Press Association. By the time Lovecraft met her at an amateur gathering in Boston in 1920, Sawyer was a staunch member of the Hub Club, associated with the NAPA, and her house at 20 Imrie Road in Allston, a suburb of Boston, was a gathering place where she hosted dinners. Sawyer’s correspondence with Lovecraft appears to date from after this meeting, as there is a brief reference to it in Lovecraft’s letters:
I have not heard from the Hubited—save the mimeographed Sept. meeting card—for a month or so; not since I sent Mrs. Sawyer those anti-National verses I quoted you. — H. P. Lovecraft to Winifred Virginia Jackson, 7 Oct 1921, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner & Others 335
Lack of further reference suggests that this correspondence was likely brief and impersonal, dealing with amateur affairs, submission and proofreading of poetry to be published in various amateur journals, etc. Which was apparently sufficient contact for her to be included among Lovecraft’s Christmas Greetings. How much they kept in touch is purely speculative, although they met at occasional amateur gatherings in Boston, there would have been a long gap during Lovecraft’s marriage and move to New York.
After the 1930 NAPA convention that they both attended, Sawyer published the one-shot amateur periodical Mrs. Dooley Attends The Convention (Aug 1930). “Mrs. Dooley” was a parody of the popular Mr. Dooley article series that ran in Chicago about a stereotypical Irishman; Sawyer wrote her with a thick brogue, and Lovecraft commented once on her “Dooley papers” which indicates a semi-regular series of such humorous productios (CE 1.296). She describes several of the attendees, including Lovecraft:
Mr. Lovecraft came up from Providence, the same fine lad as iver. Wan thing he did that no wan else has iver done at the Dooley house—he tamed the wild baste we have there that answers fer a cat. Shure she is a baste, she scratches an bites ivery wan what comes near her but he petted her fer a good half hour, while I meself just held me breath ivery minit, I was that scared.
This is a bit of fun—on his 1921 visit, Lovecraft also spent quite some time petting the Sawyer’s cat, which was named ‘Tat’ at that time. In his own account of the July 1930 convention, Lovecraft noted that:
The gathering on this occasion assumed an aspect of happy reincarnation of the Old days, beginning with one of Mrs. Sawyer’s old-fashioned New England bean suppers […] It was symbolic of the spirit of reincarnation and propitious Renaissance that the 1921 convention napkins, properly surcharged for 1930 purposes, were provided for use at this function. —H. P. Lovecraft, “The Convention” in The Tryout (Jul 1930), in Collected Essays 1.363
However, 1930 would not be a happy year overall for Laurie A. Sawyer. On 11 November 1930, her husband Charles M. Sawyer passed away, two weeks to the day to what would have been their 45th wedding anniversary.
The next indication of further epistolary contact is over a decade later, with the death of Edith Dowe Miniter and the disposal of her mother’s cremains:
Regarding the logical person to visit the libitinarius & secure the cinerary reliques—I don’t see why Mrs. Sawyer is so necessarily such. She has (vide suam epist.) merely notified amateurdom of a condition, & left it up to others what to do about it. The only thing necessary in connexion with her is to thank her (which Culinarius can do) & assure her that something will be done. That would constitute no slight—in fact, I fancy she’d even prefer it, since she has plainly stated her inability to get about much now in cold weather (& how I sympathise!). Of course, if some sort of credentials were required to claim the urn, she could be called up or written—but that might not be needed. […] From the tone of Mrs. Sawyer’s letter I see no ground for Cook’s fear that she will obtrusively butt in. — H. P. Lovecraft to Edward H. Cole, 11 Feb 1935, Letters to Alfred Galpin & Others 104
I enclose a letter received today from Laurie Sawyer. She acts very fine about the matter,—willing to help but no obtrusiveness. In fact, her idea is the same as yours and mine. If Cole will do this it will be a magnificent thing.
Hastily Cook […]
The important thing, of course—as Mrs. Sawyer says—is to get the task performed . . . no matter how or by whom!—W. Paul Cook to H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft to Edward H. Cole, 19 Feb 1935, Letters to Alfred Galpin & Others 105
The disposal of Mrs. Dowe’s ashes was a well-meant affair, probably made all the more difficult by having to arrange everything by letter and sorting out who had a sufficient family relationship to the deceased, geographic proximity, and willingness to take action. For more details, see Lovecraft’s correspondence with Mrs. C. H. Calkins. Laurie A. Sawyer is not known to be a relative, and appears to have merely brought the existence of the ashes and the question of their disposal to amateurdom’s attention. It is notable in the 1920 Federal census that there were several lodgers in the Sawyer house on Webster St., including the amateurs Winifred V. Jordan (living with her mother Myra Jackson) and Edith Miniter. That might have made it a convenient hub for amateur activities, and no doubt was a reason why Lovecraft visited Sawyer in 1920 and 1921, and such close proximity might explain how Sawyer knew of the ashes.
After this episode, there is no further mentions of Laurie A. Sawyer in Lovecraft’s letters, and no letters from her to Lovecraft (or vice versa) survive. Presumably, as Lovecraft’s involvement with the NAPA declined, so too did any reason for them to keep in touch.
The 1940 Federal census still lists Laurie A. Sawyer, now widowed, still alive at 74 and at her house on 20 Imrie Road where she had once entertained H. P. Lovecraft, Edith Miniter, and many other amateurs. A social security death index entry for Lauria A. Sawyer, born 3 May 1865, says she died in March 1965. We can only imagine what she might have thought of H. P. Lovecraft, her old associate in amateur journalism, whom she outlived by almost thirty years.
Most science fiction writers were once fans. There’s a habit they have, not of paying back, but of paying forward; I know of no other branch of literature where the established “names” so keenly encourage wannabe writers to become their competitors. —Terry Pratchett, “Paperback Writer” (2003) in A Slip of the Keyboard18
The development of organized science fiction/fantasy fandom in the United States during the 1930s was essential for the culture of writing that exists today. Fandom is older than those first fanzines, but the marriage of genre fiction and the amateur journalism organizational framework resulted in a movement that engaged people of all ages across a relatively narrow common interest, and encouraged recruitment, participation, and publication. Professional writers and fans didn’t just connect, they encouraged each other.
While not every fan was part of organized fandom, nearly every science fiction writer was a fan—and the extent of fandom networks in the United States, especially in the 1940s-1980s, is often remarkable. Big name fans and big name authors past, present, and future rubbed shoulders at conventions, corresponded, contributed to the same fanzines. Before the internet, social media consisted of the letters-columns of fanzines which might be read by as few as a handful or as many as dozens of people. It was smaller, more intimate, with all of its feuds and silliness that comes from people just being people, developing their own lingo and sharing an interest—which might include fiction, poetry, comics, radio, film, television—any media that existed, science fiction and media had touched, and so was fair game.
Over the past decade or so, efforts have been made to preserve and digitize some of these fanzines; to capture these communications (however poorly and cheaply printed) for future generations. While many pages have about as much interest as your average forum thread from the 1990s, there is gold dust among the spill, if you’re willing to sluice it out.
One nugget that emerged from the depths of the Fan History Project (fanac.org) is Lighthouse #15 (1967), which includes “The Invaders vs. The Milford Mafia” by Joanna Russ. For readers used to Russ’ professionally published fiction, stories like “I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket … But By God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!” (1964) and “My Boat” (1976), this is something different. Fanfiction in the oldest sense of the word, not a story based on some fandom, but a story written by a fan, for fans. The title alone might clue savvy readers at the time what they’re in for: The Invaders (1967-1968) was a vaguely Hitchcokian science fiction thriller television series that ran for two seasons on the ABC network, a melodramatic cash-in on the UFO craze with perhaps a more than generous dollop of Red Scare paranoia thrown in.
Of course, alien invasion plots were standard fare for science fiction fans in the 60s and 70s—which is where the Milford Mafia comes in.
The Milford Science Fiction Writer’s Conference in 1956 was formed by three of Futurians: Damon Knight, James Blish, and Judith Merrill. Then as now, science fiction and fantasy fandom had a tendency toward cliquedom, and the Milford conference in particular addressed the literary quality of science fiction. Just as, thirty years before, H. P. Lovecraft had striven to raise the general literary level of amateur journalism, so too did the Milford attendees seek to raise the literary standards of science fiction, which eventually led to the formation of professional writers associations like the Science Fiction Writers of America. Those put out at the high-minded literary standards referred to attendees (or those pushing higher standards) as “the Milford Mafia”—and Russ would be using the term in a jocular fashion, counterpoising the rehashed plots of The Invaders episodes against the higher standards that some folks in science fiction were pushing for.
It’s a fun piece, silly and light-hearted, and in keeping with that spirit, Russ slipped in a little joke about Lovecraft:
Anyhow, here’s this poor slob of an architect, David Vincent, who alone knows that They are invading—though how he could find out, or why on earth he should be an architect, I can’t imagine, unless the Aliens have begun their plan to insidiously warp the human psyche by distorting the lines and angles of our better known architectural monuments like, for example, Grand Central Station. (Something of the sort happens in a Lovecraft story called The Call of Cthulhu, which I offer you free of charge, especially since it isn’t mine.)
Which is poking fun at a familiar element of Lovecraft’s story:
Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something very close to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing any definite structure or building, he dwells only on broad impressions of vast angles and stone surfaces—surfaces too great to belong to any thing right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphs. I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He had said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours.
For readers who are familiar with Joanna Russ only for her fiction or her writings about fiction, this is an example of the fannish side of her: more playful, with all the in-jokes one would expect of someone that’s been part of the scene for a while. A good-natured piece of fluff that jokes about how bad television writing could be…and, perhaps, how bad science fiction could be, if writers didn’t strive harder.
The notice of the Algiers restaurant is charming; but alas, they spoil it all by babbling of “plain, home cooked food.” Alas, alas—when I crave dishes neither home cooked nor plain, but poisonously spiced with saffron and cardamon [sic] and ginger and fenugreek and cumin and chilis and cayenne and coriander and pepper; when I crave a place serving curry and kous-kous and sheesh kabab and humus bi-tahhini and babaghanouge, tacos, enchiladas, tamales, and what have you, smoking, fuming, exhaling corrosive blasts of weird spices and foreign condiments! But the decorative scheme and the historical note is indeed appealing. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, postmarked 12 Sep 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Weird fiction and exoticism have long gone hand-in-hand; from the 1,001 Nights and William Beckford’s Vathek to when Farnsworth Wright launched Oriental Stories as a companion to Weird Tales, the weird and fantastic in Western literature has often included a fascination for other cultures, far places, the novelty of unfamiliar religions, folklore, art, music, and customs. At its worst, this tendency could lead to the promulgation of stereotypes and prejudice, Yellow Peril stories and Orientalism. Yet for many it represented an honest and active interest in other cultures, at a time when information on those cultures was often scarce and flawed.
Edgar Hoffmann Price (b. 3 Jul 1898, d. 18 Jun 1988) joined the army in 1917. As a private in the 15th Cavalry Regiment, he shipped out to Fort McKinley in the Phillippines with his unit. He passed through Honolulu in Hawaii, then a U.S. territory, to Manila. A few months later the unit returned to the continental U.S. from Manila via Nagasaki, Japan. Although his time in Asia was brief, Price soaked up the local color and remained for the rest of his life a devoted Asiaphile, fond of Turkish coffee, Persian carpets, Buddhism, Islam, and Asian food in general. His early pulp fiction in magazines like Weird Tales often featured Asian and Middle Eastern characters and settings, and his personal memoirs and letters include snatches of Arabic, personal anecdotes from his travels, affections such as signing his letters with a Chinese chop, and in making curry. When Lovecraft met Price for the first time, in New Orleans in 1932, Price reported:
When I mentioned my Indian curry recipe, he sighed. Not even he, with his love of spices from Araby and Ind, would be equal to a pot of curry—he had ingested quite too great a quantity of chili with beans.
Although HPL’s fame rests on his Olympic status in ice-cream eating, I remember him as one who found his peak in dishes featuring coriander, ginger, cardamom, fenugreek, cumin, oregano, tamarinds, and violent little peppers which tender-skinned folk should never touch until first putting on rubber gloves.
In two letters to his friend H. P. Lovecraft, Price gives his recipe for “East Indian curry.” But what is curry?
In the 1930s, “India” and “East India” in common use were synonymous with what was called British India or the British Raj. In 1858, the United Kingdom had taken over direct rule of the territories controlled by the East India Company in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, which would persist until the partition of India in 1947. While the British governed and frequently thought of India as more-or-less a single political and economic unit (notwithstanding the several nominally independent states which administered themselves, though under British suzerainty), the idea of a singular cultural or geographic “India” is a bit of an anachronistic simplification—or, perhaps more accurately, a colonial ideology imposed on the colonized.
The region historically comprising contemporary India (historically referred to as “Hindustan” or “Hind” after the Indus River) was never one single historical state, ethnicity, or identity. Rather, the region has throughout history been a multicultural and multiethnic crossroads; sometimes parts of it have been unified politically, but the peoples and polities of India often remained distinct—and this diversity extended to their approach to food. There was no single national cuisine of India; every individual region had its own peculiarities based on available ingredients, food traditions, and the cultural, social, and religious preferences and mores of the local population.
From Persia came rosewater and saffron; from Afghanistan and Central Asia, almonds, pistachios, raisins and dried fruit; from the Middle East, sweet dishes and pastries. They introduced sherbets and other sweetened drinks; pulaos and biryanis, elaborate dishes of rice and cooked meat; samosa, a meat- or vegetable-filled pastry; dozens of varieties of grilled and roasted meats called kabobs; yakhni, a meat broth; dopiaza, meat slowly cooked with onions; korma, meat marinated in yogurt and simmered over a slow fire; khichri, a blend of rice and lentils; jalebi, coils of batter deep-fried and soaked in sugar syrup; and nans and other baked breads. —Colleen Taylor Sen,Curry: A Global History (2009), 19
The European colonial period in India began with the arrival of the Portuguese in the late 15th century, and introduced new foods from both Europe and the Americas to India, such as chili peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, and turkeys. The Europeans brought along their own preferences and dietary habits, which were adapted to local conditions and ingredients. For example:
Vindaloo is normally regarded as an Indian curry, but in fact it is a Goan adaptation of the Portuguese dish carne de vinho e alhos, or meat cooked in wine vinegar and garlic. The name vindaloo is simply a garbled pronunciation of vinho e alhos. The Portuguese particularly savored the sour, but fruity, taste of meat marinated and cooked in wine vinegar. When they arrived in India, however, they found that Indians did not make vinegar, though a similar sour-hot taste was produced by south Indian cooks using a combination of tamarind and black pepper. Some ingenious Franciscan priests are said to have solved the problem by manufacturing vinegar from coconut toddy, the alcoholic drink fermented from the sap of the palm tree. This, combined with tamarind pulp and plenty of garlic, satisfied the Portuguese cooks. To this basic sauce they added a garam masala of black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, some of the spices in search of which Vasco de Gama had made his way to the Malabar Coast in 1498. But the key ingredient, which gave bite to the granular sauce of vindaloo, was the chili. Like their Spanish counterparts in South America, the Portuguese in India had developed a liking for the fiery taste of the chili pepper and they used it in excessive quantities in a vindaloo. Some recipes call for as many as 20 red chilies. —Lizzie Collingham, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (2006), 67
A masala refers to a pre-prepared mix of spices. While most cooking in India before refrigeration would have been done with fresh ingredients and fresh-ground herbs and spices, each added to the dish separately at the appropriate time, sometimes ground herbs and spices would be pre-mixed together for convenience—an idea universal to many cultures, from French quatre épices and Chinese five spice powder (五香粉) to the pumpkin spice and Italian seasoning blends found in many North American grocery stores. Garam masala is the most common such spice blend, although “common” is perhaps a misnomer, as the ingredients and proportions vary from region to region and taste to taste. Common ingredients include cumin, fenugreek, turmeric, and coriander; other typical ingredients may include cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, dried chilies, black pepper, mustard seeds, curry leaves, fennel, asafetida, and bay leaves, though rarely all of these, and often in varied proportion.
When Europeans began to transmit recipes from India back to their own countries in the 17th century, one of the defining characteristics was the mix of spices used. In The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse, for instance, there is a recipe “To make a Currey the India[n] Way”:
Take two Fowls or Rabbits, cut them into ſmall Pieces, and three or four ſmall Onions, peeled and cut very ſmall, thirty Pepper Corns, and a large Spoonful of Rice, brown ſome Coriander Seeds over the Fire in a clean Shovel, and beat them to Powder, take a Tea Sponful of Salt, and mix all well together with the Meat, put all together into a Sauce-pan or Strew-pan, with a Pint of Water, let it ſtew ſoftly till the Meat is enough, then put in a Piece of Freſh Butter, about as big as a large Walnut, ſhake it well together, and when it is ſmooth and of a fine Thickneſs diſh it up, and ſend it to Table. If the Sauce be too thick, add a little more Water before it is done, and more Salt if it wants it. You are to obſerve the Sauce muſt be pretty thick.
Take two ſmall Chickens, ſkin them and cut them as for a Fricaſey, waſh them clean, and ſtew them in about a Quart of Water, for about five Minutes, then ſtrain off the Liquor and put the Chickens in a clean Diſh; take three large Onions, chop them ſmall and fry them in about two Ounces of Butter, then put in the Chickens and fry them together till they are brown, take a quarter of an Ounce of Turmerick, a large Spoonful of Ginger and beaten Pepper together, and a little Salt to your Palate; ſtrew all theſe Ingredients over the Chickens whilſt it is frying, then pour in the Liquor, and let it ſtw about half an Hour, then put in a quarter of a Pint of Cream, and the Juice of two Lemons, and ſerve it up. The Ginger, Pepper, and Turmerick muſt be beat very fine.
While Glasse uses European cooking terms like fricassee, fry, and stew, the process is reminiscent of an Indian cooking technique:
A common Indian cooking technique with no exact equivalent in the West is called in Hindi bhuna. Spices and a paste of garlic, onions, ginger and sometimes tomatoes are fried in a little oil until they soften. Pieces of meat, fish or vegetables are sautéed in this mixture. Small amounts of water, yogurt or other liquid are then added a little at a time. The amount of liquid added and the cooking time determines whether the dish will be wet or dry. This is the basic technique used in making the dishes called curries. —Colleen Taylor Sen, Curry: A Global History (2009) 24-25
This was the first form of “curry” in English, and while the language is a bit antiquated and the recipe pretty simple and straightforward, the essential takeaway is a dish like a stew or ragout, with a thick, spicy sauce. In a very broad sense, that is the definition of curry as it is currently used today; although in the more British sense of the term “a curry” can be used to refer to almost any dish associated with any of the cuisines associated with India. As Collingham puts it:
The idea of a curry is, in fact, a concept that the Europeans imposed on India’s food culture. Indians referred to their different dishes by specific names and their servants would have served the British with dishes that they called, for example, rogan josh, dopiaza, or quarama. But the British lumped all these together under the heading of curry. —Lizzie Collingham, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (2006), 114
The export food culture from India was (and is) a centuries-long process; new ingredients are swapped in and out, recipes simplified, translated, and transformed by different tastes. Islamic dietary laws are observed by Muslims in India, and similarly many Hindus are vegetarian; these aspects of culture and religion are reflected in their respective cuisines. By contrast, most Europeans did not have the same cultural mores against eating animals except in certain circumstances (such as Catholic fast days), so European curry recipes tend to reflect European eating habits with meat as a major ingredient.
As the British spread throughout India, the uniformity of British experience helped to transmit and to a degree unify disparate aspects of various regional cuisines, or at least to begin to export a version of those familiar dishes back to the United Kingdom and its colonies. It was the beginning of what would become a loose canon of “curry” dishes, including vindaloo, kedgeree, korma, mulligatawny soup, and kebabs/kabobs, but also a growing uniformity in how to prepare those dishes. These were dishes that came from all across India and its many food cultures, but were often transformed, simplified, and then formulated for easy preparation—often using curry powder.
Hannah Glasse in The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy provided instructions for the preparation of spice mixes, and so did many other recipe books. Those that were more accurate to indigenous Indian methods emphasized grinding your own spice pastes and powders, but the simplification and adaption of Indian food in Britain led to the commercialization of these masalas into pre-made curry pastes and powders. Curry powder, which often utilized similar ingredients to various Indian spice mixes, became a defining staple of the more Anglicized recipes, and through the British Empire spread the British idea of “curry from a can” around the world.
Which is about where curry lay in the Anglo-American world in the 1930s. The Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924 prevented immigration from Asia, including British India, into the United States which limited the establishment of Indian restaurants during that period. Nevertheless:
By the end of the 1920s New York had half a dozen Indian restaurants known for their fiery curries, among them The Rajah on 44th Street, west of Broadway, and Ceylon India Inn on 49th Street, which operated until the mid-1960s. Thanks to racial exclusion laws, the country’s Indian population remained very small: only around 3,000 people in 1930, many of them students living in New York City. —Colleen Taylor Sen, Curry: A Global History (2009), 57
While Lovecraft did broaden his culinary horizons in New York City in the 20s, getting his first taste of everything from spaghetti to goulash, apparently he did not visit any of these Indian restaurants. If he had, Lovecraft might have found something very different from what we think of as Indian fast food today. The Indian takeaway fast food revolution in the United Kingdom, which has redefined “a curry” for the 20th century, didn’t take place until after World War II—and many dishes like chicken tikka masala had not been invented yet. The curry tradition that E. Hoffmann Price was familiar with would have been any of dozens of variations of a stew or ragout with a thick, spicy gravy, often served on or alongside rice.
After Price and Lovecraft met in New Orleans in 1932, they continued to keep in touch by mail, and in one letter Lovecraft confessed:
Another bit of ignorance. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted East Indian curry—a delicacy so universal in Bayonne that you even feed it to the dogs around the city gate. But if it’s what I think it is, I’d like it—for as you know from my response to chili con carne, I’m all for high seasonings. I suppose the Hindoos go in for that kind of thing because they have a genial climate plus a lack of that refrigeration which makes unseasoned meats dependable. I believe Worcestershire sauce (a favourite with me) is based on some sort of East Indian recipe, is it not? —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, postmarked 2 Mar 1933, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price67
This admission of ignorance requires a bit of explanation. Bayonne in France was where Price was stationed during World War I; presumably Lovecraft’s comment on curry was in response to something Price had mentioned at some point, either in person or in a letter that does not survive. “Genial climate” is a discreet reference to the tropical heat of India, since Lovecraft was sensitive to cold and enjoyed semi-tropical climates like that of Florida; “lack of refrigeration” is a reference to the popular (though false) stereotype that Indian cookery used spices to cover up the taste of spoiled meats, which wouldn’t keep in the heat. The reference to Worcestershire sauce reflects a legend used to promote Lea & Perrins’ sauce:
Many years ago Mrs. Grey, author of ‘The Gambler’s Wife’ and other novels, well known in their day, was on a visit at Ombersley Court, when Lady Sandys chanced to remark that she wished she could get some very good curry-powder, which elicited from Mrs. Grey that she had in her desk an excellent recipe, which her uncle, Sir Charles, Chief-Justice of India, had brought thence and given her. Lady Sandys said that there were some clever chemists in Worcester, who perhaps might be able to make up the powder; at all events, when they drove in after luncheon they would see.
Messrs. Lea & Perrins looked at the recipe, doubted if they could procure all the ingredients, but said they would do their best, and in due time forwarded a packet of the powder. Subsequently the happy thought struck some one in the business that the powder might, in solution, make a good sauce. The experiment was made, and by degrees the thing took amazingly. All the world, to its remotest ends, now knows of Worcestershire sauce as an article of commerce; and, notwithstanding that, in common with most good things, it is terribly pirated, an enormous trade is done in it. The profits, I am told, amount to thousands of pounds a year, and I cannot but suppose that liberal checks, bearing the signature of Lea & Perrins, have passed from that firm to Mrs. Grey, to whom it is so indebted for its prosperity. —“History of Worcestershire sauce,” New York Times, 9 Feb 1884, quoted in History of Worcestershire Sauce(2012) by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi
Shurtleff and Aoyogi go on to quote Brian Koegh’s The Secret Sauce: A History of Lea & Perrins:
The section titled “The Sandy’s family” (p. 29-30) debunks the myth of an early and oft-repeated connection between “Lord Sandys” and the invention / discovery of Worcestershire sauce. It states: “… no Lord Sandys (either as Sandys of Hill) was ever a governor of Bengal, or as available records show, ever in India. The identity of the nobleman thus remains an intriguing mystery.”
While the Lea & Perrins legend was basically public relations and embellished over time, it struck a chord with consumers (like Lovecraft), and there is probably a note of truth in it insofar as the original recipe derived from soy sauce, catsups, and Indian spice mixes, tweaked for British tastes.
Which is a long way to say that Lovecraft was effectively ignorant of Indian food except that it was supposed to be spicy. E. Hoffmann Price decided to educate his friend by sending him a recipe for a curry:
East Indian Curry: a dish prepared perfectly in but 2 places holy Shamballah, and the Throne Room.
Directions: Into a small pot put a tablespoon of butter, brown a finely minced, small onion, then a finely minced clove of garlic; add sliced mutton (raw or roasted) veal, chicken, as you wish; add suitable amount of curry powder (conglomerate of from 5 to 10 spices—coriander, turmeric, ginger, cardamon [sic], cloves, pepper, god knows what, including fenugreek) and sauté the meat (if raw, until done; if previously cooked or roasted, until permeated with the fragrance of spices) then add 4 cloves, a cup of soup stock, let simmer 20-30 minutes, then add cup of cream or evaporated milk, thickened with spoonful dissolved cornstarch; stirr [sic] smooth, and when well wobbled around, you are ready to serve, by dumping the tawny, golden curry into the center of a fortress of cooked rice, which forms a parapet about the edge of a platter. May be garnished with sliced, cooked eggs.
Curry may be made, substituting cooked eggs for meat.
A glass of sherry may be added just before serving. Optional.
Lemon rind may be grated into the simmering hell brew. Optional.
It is a dish for gods and demons, and for men also. Oh, divine Curry! It is the peer of dishes, and withal simple.
Get a 15¢ can of curry and try it. Cross[e] & Blackwell has a very good powder, uniform of strength, excellent of flavor, but it costs about 50¢ (though the bottle hold more than a small spice can. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, postmarked 10 Mar 1933, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Crosse & Blackwell produced one of the first British commercial curry powders, and helped define the taste of Anglo-Indian curry. The pre-mixed spice was ideal for feeding masses of troops, and was adopted by the British Navy for that purpose, which introduced it to Japan. C&B curry powder became the standard for Japanese curry in the early 20th century, until the curry scandal of 1931, when it was found that many of the curry powders sold in Japan were local mixes being sold fraudulently under the C&B brand. Since then, Japan has embraced many different curry powders, and the C&B brand has now been sold and resold. The old jars of vibrant yellow powder are no longer for sale, although the curry powder itself continues to be produced for the Japanese market.
Tracing Price’s recipe back to an original source is tricky. It contains similar elements to several contemporary recipes, and it has features of a number of Anglicized Indian foods, including the inclusion of sliced hard boiled eggs and fried onion (common garnishes), the use of lemon rind (in place of tamarind) to add a note of sour. Curry powder instead of individual spices is highly characteristic of British curries, but unusually Price does not use the curry powder with flour to form a roux, which is also a common attribute of early 20th century recipes. The use of evaporated milk and cornstarch to thicken the gravy seems characteristic of an early 20th-century recipe, since evaporated milk became widely available commercially in the 1920s. While stewing meat in wine harks back to the Portuguese tradition, the addition of sherry “just before serving” seems more like Price’s personal taste. Perhaps like many cooks he simply adjusted the recipe to taste and available ingredients over time; he notably doesn’t give any directions for the soup stock.
Lovecraft was delighted:
Your explanation of the inward nature of curry is surely a tantalisation of the palate! I must sample this gift of the Djinns, in all its perfection, either at the Peacock Thone or in the Citadel of Holy Shamballah, before I make the final incantation precipitating me into Avichi. In the interim, if I can find any 15¢ cans (what’s the make?) I shall make this one of my regular dietary items in place of Campbell’s soups & Heinz’s beans & spaghetti. We shall see . . . . but I won’t make the mistake of confounding any base commercial imitation with the real thing, as prepared according to the precepts in the Book of Dzyan. —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, postmarked 24 Mar 1933, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price 73
References to Shamballah, Avichi, and the Book of Dzyan reflect the fact that Lovecraft and Price had been discussing Theosophy, a new religion which drew in part on Eastern esoteric religion for its lore and trappings. The “Peacock Throne” would be Price’s own home; Price had made a habit of reference to Tawûsî Melek (rendered as Malik Taus and variations), the “Peacock Angel” of Yazidi religion, in several of his stories, and Lovecraft had made it a nickname for Price himself.
Lovecraft, like many men during the 1920s and 30s, was raised completely ignorant of cooking. He learned during his brief marriage and years of bachelordom to produce some simple meals so as not to be eating out for every meal, but even these were largely based around pre-packaged or canned foodstuffs, such as the increasingly popular canned spaghetti dinners. This also suited Lovecraft’s pocketbook, since canned goods were generally relatively cheap and kept for long periods of time.
Price, unfortunately, appears to have lost Lovecraft’s question on curry brands in a flurry of short responses on postcards (and Lovecraft appears to have misunderstood that Price was talking about canned curry powder, not a meal-in-a-can). When E. Hoffmann Price made it to Providence in late June 1933, he made his curry for Lovecraft and his friend Harry K. Brobst. In his memoir, Price recalls:
The curry and its preparation fascinated HPL, all the more so because of our discussions of it by mail. At last, he was observing the process, sampling from time to time, as I developed the sauce in which cubes of mutton would simmer.
“By building it up gradually,” I told him, “I’ll get exactly to your taste. At the moment, we have something for women and children, and the American public—a pallid, gutless gravy. Yes, the odor is delightful, but—”
“Bland,” he conceded, as did Harry, after sampling.
I added more spice. After this has blended into the sauce, I asked, “Still more chemicals and acids?”
“Savoury. By no means lacking in fire, but this is not the blighting, blasting, searing mixture you described. Harry?”
“I’m still with you.”
More spicings, more samplings.
Finally HPL said, “To assert that this would raise blisters on a cordovan bot would be poetic exaggeration. Another increment of spices would make your description a statement of fact. If Harry agrees, be pleased to serve us this ambrosia and nectar.”
A few decades later, Brobst remembered the event but had little to add:
We made some Indian curry, and we had some beer—we had a pleasant evening. —Will Murray, “An Interview with Harry K. Brobst” in Ave Atque Vale 322
Price went on to add that Lovecraft relished the curry and rice. This may be why soon after the visit that Price repeated a slightly simplified version of this recipe was later included in another letter:
Indian Curry: In a small pot dump some butter, and brown therein minced onions (1/2 a small onion); when beginning to brown, it is desirable but not necessary to add a clove of minced garlic, & brown. Add 1 cup of thinly sliced veal, lamb, mutton, or chicken—either fresh or previously roasted or cooked. In either case, add 2 teaspoons of curry powder, and let the mixture simmer until, in the case of raw meat, it is done, or if roasted meat is used, until well saturated by the fragrant spices. Then add 1 cup of soup stock or lacking that, a cup of bouillion [sic] made of beef cubes. Let simmer 10 minutes; add 2/3 cup evaporated milk or cream, which has been thickened with teaspoonful cornstarch, and heat until sauce is smooth & thick. Serve with cooked rice. An egg Curry is made as above except that in lieu of meat being sauté[e]d, a curry flavored gravy is prepared & thickened, and into it hard cooked eggs are sliced—and served as noted. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, 15 Jul 1933, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Lovecraft duly responded:
Thanks abundantly for the mystical curry formula. I’ll certainly have some adept prepare a brazier full before long, to offer up to the gods of Shalmali & Shamballah —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, 19 Jul 1933, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price 88
Taken together, these recipes and descriptions should be enough to make a reasonable approximation of Price’s dish.
An Interpretation of E. Hoffmann Price’s Curry
1 tbsp. [14 g] butter* 1/2 small onion [~60-65 g], minced 1 clove garlic, minced 1 cup [340 g] meat (veal, lamb, mutton, or chicken), thinly sliced** 2 tsp. [10-12 g] curry powder*** 4 whole cloves 1 cup [340 g] soup stock**** 2/3 cup [115 g] evaporated milk 1 tsp. [5-6 g] cornstarch; stir this into the milk before cooking 3 hardboiled eggs, peeled and sliced 1-2 cups [340-780 g] rice***** 2 tbsp [28-30 g] sherry****** 1 tsp. [5-6 g] grated lemon rind
* Many traditional Indian dishes call for ghee (clarified butter), and if you have that, use it. Price would probably have been using regular salted butter from the supermarket. Almost any other cooking oils (e.g. coconut, olive, avocado, lard, schmaltz, etc.) can work, just avoid ones with a low smoke point (e.g. salad oils, etc.). ** Price doesn’t specify the cut of meat, but generally you’ll want something without bones or excess fat (i.e. bacon is going to make a quite greasy curry). If it’s a very tough piece of meat like beef brisket, marinate it in yogurt overnight. Price specified “raw or roasted,” and the recipe works whether the meat is pre-cooked or raw, but if the meat is uncooked it will need to cook longer in the pan. Remember to wash your hands & cooking area after handling raw meat! *** Crosse & Blackwell curry powder is still available in Japan, and possibly on the international market. In a pinch, S&B Oriental Curry Powder is generally much more available and has a very similar flavor. **** You can purchase stock or bouillon or make your own (handy 1926 recipe for go-getters); ideally, the stock should complement the meat (e.g. beef stock for veal, chicken stock for chicken, etc.) Prepare the stock before you begin cooking your curry. ***** Price doesn’t specify the amount or type of rice or how he cooks it, so it’s up to you. Electric rice cookers were first introduced in 1923, so feel free to use one, but Price would have boiled his rice in a pot on the stovetop. While any rice you like will do, Price probably would have reached for Basmati rice if it was available. Rinse the rice to remove any powder that will make it extra sticky, and remember to add a pinch of salt and a tsp. [5-6 g] of butter or oil per cup of rice to the water when cooking. ****** Price does not specify the type of sherry (a fortified wine traditionally made in Spain’s Jerez de la Frontera region), and maybe didn’t know the difference between cooking sherry and a drinking sherry like Amontillado. Use a cooking sherry or a dry drinking sherry like Fino. Price specified “a glass” (~4 ounces/113-115 g), but that’s probably excessive if you’re just looking to add the flavor of the wine. If you don’t drink alcohol, skip this, or use 1 tbsp [14-15 g] of white wine vinegar, just to get some of the flavor. Price would have left this out when making curry for Lovecraft, who was a teetotal.
0) Prepare the rice and boil the eggs. When finished cooking, toss the rice to fluff it up, then keep the dish covered.
1) In a medium sauce pan, place the heat on medium high, melt the butter, and sauté the onion and garlic for 3-4 minutes, but don’t let it brown. Then lower the heat.
2) Add in the curry powder—the oils will accentuate the flavor of the spices—and stir until the powder is absorbed by the liquid; let it cook for 1-2 minutes. If you burn the curry powder (you should be able to smell it before you see it blacken if you do), rinse out the pan and start over with fresh ingredients at a lower heat.
3) Add the meat. Toss lightly, so that the meat is evenly coated, then let it cook. Eating raw or undercooked meat is dangerous, so make sure the meat is cooked thoroughly, which should take 8-10 minutes depending on the thickness. Stir to keep anything from sticking to the bottom of the pan, and so the meat cooks through. For thicker cuts of meat, cook longer. If something starts to burn, you’ve gone too far; take it off the heat for a minute, add a little water, and stir, then move it back onto the heat and keep an eye on it. Repeat as needed.
4) Toss in the whole cloves and add the soup stock; try to avoid anything sticking to the bottom of the pan. Wait for the stock to begin to simmer.
5) Stir in the milk and cornstarch slurry. Adding colder liquid will lower the heat of the whole sauce, so do it gradually and try and keep it simmering.
6) Stir until the color is and consistency is even—probably a bright yellow or brown; there might be pools of oil on the surface, that’s fine, the rice will soak it up. Let it simmer and reduce until the gravy is thick enough for your liking, stirring occasionally.
7) Sample the curry and add spice to taste. If you’re adding in the sherry, do it now, stirring constantly, but don’t let it continue to cook for more than 3-4 minutes.
8) When everything is simmering, consistent in color, and hot enough for your taste, turn off the heat, and pour or ladle the curry onto the serving-dish with the rice. Price and many others liked to have the rice around the edges of the serving-dish.
9) Add sliced hardboiled eggs and sprinkle on the lemon rind just before serving.
For the example dish above, I cut up a lamb chop (the bones are in the pot in the back burner, to make stock). I used S&B curry powder and bismati rice, but left out the sherry. No points for presentation.
The resulting mix isn’t hot in terms of Scoville ratings; the spice blend in commercial curry powder tends to be stale and can be a bit bland for those used to cooking with fresh spices and whole chilies. However, if it doesn’t make your tongue burn it is pleasantly aromatic and piquant, and goes well with fluffy rice. Price’s curry is a long way from the actual Indian dishes that inspired it.
Yet once you appreciate the basic nature of the recipe, you can also see how flexible and easy it was to tweak to individual tastes. Chicken on sale at the supermarket? Make a chicken curry. Leftover turkey from Thanksgiving dinner? Turkey curry. Vegetarian? No problem; switch out the meat for your mixed vegetables of choice and the meat stock for vegetable stock. Allergic to dairy? Swap out the butter for coconut oil and thicken the sauce with an equal amount of coconut milk or almond flour instead of evaporated milk. Not hot enough? Add more spice. Fresh spices, different spices. Want to throw some sultanas or chutney in there? No one can stop you. Price himself often varied things a little:
Kiki & Potlikker have licked the East Indian curry from a plate, and seem to relish it. Potlikker’s 1st experience at curry. This was a blighting, blasting, devastating curry of intolerable power. It was worthy to be served in Malayan or Javanese style—with 5 servants to approach with trays of “sanbals” or relishes—embalmed Chinese eggs; mangoes; minced coconut; pickled walnuts; slices of pineapples; chutney; dried Bengal fish, faintly suggestive in odor of zoological specimens not thoroughly preserved; and numerous other relishes. 40 assorted “sanbals” is adequate; but I had to content myself with pickled beets & cauliflower. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, postmarked 23 Oct 1936, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Kiki and Potlikker were two of Price’s cats; the word he’s looking for is usually rendered in Latin characters as sambal, which refers to a spicy Indonesian chili sauce or paste, or a dish that uses sambal as an ingredient. While European food culture typically serves food in courses, Indian and Southeast Asian food cultures tend to present all the food at once at the beginning of the meal. Thus, a diner at a formal or elaborate meal might be confronted with a table covered with many bowls or plates, with a number of differently-compounded dishes, relishes, and condiments to try. Many of the items Price lists are part of authentic Indian dishes, and might easily find themselves in an Anglo-Indian curry, or accompanying one.
Curry in Context
“Authenticity” is a bit of an odd concept when talking about something practically unrecognizable compared to its source. While Price may have thought he was making an authentic Indian dish, what he was actually making was a translated, redefined Anglo-Indian fusion cuisine dish—and if you look at it as an example of that tradition, it is as authentic as any other curry descended from Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy and its many culinary literature cousins.
To E. Hoffmann Price and H. P. Lovecraft, curry was an exotic food item, a literal taste of a distant culture that they had read about all their lives but had never—and would never—experience for themselves. Their reactions to Anglo-Indian food in their letters are rife with ignorance, stereotypes, and an Orientalism verging on mysticism, but also enthusiasm to try new things and appreciation for something different from their standard bill of fare. In an era when there was so little Indian food made in the United States, where legal barriers prevented immigration and discriminated against immigrants—this little home-cooked meal was almost as close as they could get to a taste of India.
Price was one of the few pulpsters who had met Lovecraft and his contemporaries in person, and over the long decades of his life, he became something of a memoirist, writing the stories of his visits with friends long dead. The tale of that pot of curry was told and retold, over and over. To give a taste:
But in other fields we see each other eye to eye: blistering hot and blighting chili con carne, East Indian curry that would raise welts on a pack saddle, and devastating coffee, night-black and strong enough to tan an ox-hide, are among his greatest gustatory delights. —E. Hoffmann Price, “The Sage of College Street” in Amateur Correspondent (May-June 1937)
He relished highly spiced dishes; and when, a year or so later, I saw him in Rhode Island, he asked me to make him the Indian Curry I had described. The spices—coriander, ginger, cardamon, fenugreek, pepper, Lord alone knows what else—caught his ear, and the blistering, blasting sauce tickled his palate. —E. Hoffmann Price, “Howard Phillips Lovecraft” in The Acolyte (Fall 1944)
While Harry was getting the six-pack, I was making the curry, and HPL was sampling it.
“Is it hot enough for you?”
“Ah, a few more spices from Araby and the Indies would help.”
So I dumped in more curry powder, and yet more. When it was hot enough to raise blisters on a pack saddle, he said, “It is just about right.” —E. Hoffmann Price, “Reminiscences of HPL” in HPL (1971)
In this way, Price’s curry has become a small part of the myth and legend of H. P. Lovecraft.
Hay quienes consideran el género de TERROR como un subproductio. Es cierto que, como en todo, a veces domina una calidad ínfirma, pero no sólo en los Comics. También en cinema, televisión, literature…
Tal vez porque el tema se ha explotado a fondo con abusos commerciales aprovechando que a la gente le gustan las emociones fuertes y muchos, sin saberlo, las utilizan para liberarse de sus propios miedos. Pero también es cierto que otros se han servido de sus miedos para expresar sus sentimientos y emociones segun su condición psicológica dando lugar a las mejores obras del género. Tal as el caso de POE, LOVECRAFT, KAFKA, y muchos más.
El experto en la materia no dejará nunca de reconocer que el TERROR es un tema de gran interés que además nos revela la personalidad más intrínseca de sus autores. Por eso, repito, el TERROR no se debe subestimar a la ligera sin un previo análisis.
Conociendo lo suficiente (presumo) sobre la vida atormentada y la obra de Los maestros del terror, he seleccionado una serie de relations pasándolos al Comic, Bien adaptando fielmente algunos, Bien dando mi toque personal a otros.
Y aquí está el resultado: Este libro con el que deseo rendir homenaje a los «GRANDES DE LO MACABRO».
Espero que lo pasen de miedo.
There are those who consider the TERROR genre as a by-product. It is true that, as in everything, sometimes a low quality dominates, but not only in Comics. Also in cinema, television, literature…
Perhaps because the topic has been thoroughly exploited with commercial abuse, taking advantage of the fact that people like strong emotions and many, without knowing it, use them to free themselves from their own fears. But it is also true that others have used their fears to express their feelings and emotions according to their psychological condition, giving rise to the best works of the genre. Such is the case of POE, LOVECRAFT, KAFKA, and many more.
The expert on the subject will never fail to recognize that TERROR is a topic of great interest that also reveals the most intrinsic personality of its authors. Therefore, I repeat, TERROR should not be underestimated lightly without prior analysis.
Knowing enough (I presume) about the tormented life and work of The Masters of Terror, I have selected a series of relations, transferring them to the Comic, either faithfully adapting some, or giving my personal touch to others.
And here is the result: This book with which I wish to pay tribute to the “GREAT OF THE MACABRE.”
I hope you have a scary time.
Introduction to Homenaje: Grandes de Los Macabro (1985)
English translation
Joan Boix (born Juan Boix Sola Segales in Badalona, Spain) is not well-known to English-reading audiences, although he has had a long career both in Spain and internationally, able to turn his hand from everything from romance comics in the 1960s to being one of the artists that drew The Phantom comic strip in the 1990s. Yet for those who appreciate horror comics, Joan Boix holds a special place for his work in that field. Even there, in English his work is a bit of a footnote: a story in Marvel’s Monsters Unleashed #5 (1974), which was reprinted in the Monsters Unleashed Annual (1975). Yet his Spanish-language work, never translated into English, is his best. And in 1985 he published a collection of adaptations of classic horror fiction: Homenaje: Grandes de Los Macabro (Tribute: Greats of the Macabre).
“La Maldicion del Amuleto” is an adaption of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Hound.” In Spanish, the story is typically translated as “El Sabueso,” and while there are many words for dog in Spanish (perro, can or canino, cacharro (“puppy”), chandoso, etc.) “sabueso” has the specific meaning of a hunting dog; we might even say “bloodhound” in English. Which is a nice shade of meaning, given the context.
Boix’s tastes in terms of illustration are gloriously Gothic, redolent of an 18th-century macabre that recalls the horror films of Hammer Films in Britain and Profilmes in Spain. There’s that sense that Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, or Paul Naschy could step onto the panel at any time, and be right at home.
The starkness of the black-and-white works to Boix’s advantage; there are single panels that could be glorious two-page spreads, with a lot of detail that might have been muddied by a careless colorist. The chiaroscuro effect is glorious, the kind of deep shadows that drink in the light which would inspire the likes of Mike Mignola’s signature aesthetic.
For sheer joie de morte, however, Boix’s tendency to revel in a single panel is hard to top. It’s a world where the moon is always full and glaring like the eye of some forgotten God, where every tombstone is encrusted with grave-mould, and the collection of the pair of necrophiles would put Hammer’s prop department into giddy ecstasies of macabre delight.
I think quicksilver leaps along his veins, And if you look too deeply in his eyes, You’ll see behind the ice-thin laughter there The smouldering glimpse of fateful sorceries.
I think that if you listen while he speaks You’ll catch a foreign ac[c]ent on his tongue, That hints a language built of stars and wine A syntax all with fiery jewels strung.
I think that if you miss him some dark night You should not be surprised or wonder where He’s gone; look up, Arcturus greenly burns— Do you not see him on that shining stair? —Evelyn Thorne
The second issue of Alan H. Pestetsky and Michael DeAngelis’ fanzine Asmodeus (Fall 1951) was devoted primarily to Clark Ashton Smith. Lovecraft had been receiving accolades in The Acolyte in the 1940s, so it was only fair. The issue republished a poetic tribute by Lovecraft to his friend, as well as “The Cup-Bearer” (1951) by Lilith Lorraine, and buried among other works was the above dedication by Eveyln Thorne.
While she is mostly forgotten now, in the 1950s Evelyn Aixa Thorne was actively involved with science fiction fandom, not necessarily a Big Name Fan, but not insignificant either. A brief biographical essay in Poets in the South says she was born in Nebraska in 1898, educated in the College of Puget Sound and the University of Arizona, and lived all over the country “working as an interior decorator, an X-ray txnician, and a botancial illustrator” (78). She married William Richmond Tullos in 1946, they divorced in 1952, remarried in 1954, and remained married until his death in 1974.
Thorne is probably best-remembered as co-publisher/co-editor of the New Athenaeum Press with Will Tullos, which published Epos: A Quarterly of Poetry, from 1949 until 1975, which published three of Clark Ashton Smith’s poems. She was also associate-editor of Challenge (1950-1951) under Lilith Lorraine, who also published some of Thorne’s poetry elsewhere. Her books of poetry were Design in a Web (1955), Ways of Listening (1969), and Of Bones and Stars (1982); she also published anthologies of poetry from Epos.
There is a certain incestuous quality to fantastic poetry in the 1950s, an intersection between the “little magazine” movement and science fiction/fantasy fanzines which echos the intersection between amateur journalism and science fiction fandom in the 1930s. That Evelyn Thorne knew and appreciated Clark Ashton Smith as a poet is clear. The reference to “Arcturus” in particular is curious; Smith refered to Arcturus in three poems first published in The Star-Treader and Other Poems (1912): “To the Sun,”“The Song of a Comet,” and “Saturn”—all cosmic poems that echoed or were influenced by Smith’s mentor George Sterling’s “The Testimony of the Suns” (1903).
A detail Smith no doubt appreciated, when he read that tribute.
S. Lilian Middleton-McMullen, whose works are now distinguished by publication in poetry magazines all over the country, is a discovery of Winifred V. Jackson’s, and an added plume in the cap of that noted poetess. She is a native of Ireland, of a loyal British Unionist family, and inherits a trace of French blood through a great-grandmother. In her heredity there is a definitely artistic element, as shewn by the fact that both her mother and sister are poets of no mean skill.
Mrs. McMullen was educated in English private schools, and originally specialised in music; being a violoncellist and pianiste of great ability, and to some degree a composer. At an early age she was given to the writing of verse, but these older specimens are notable only for grace and correctness. Amateurdom has seen two of them—“Late Autumn” in The Tryout, and “The ‘Cellist” in The United Co-operative. They are, quite obviously, juvenalia; though of unusual merit for such work. —H. P. Lovecraft, “The Poetry of Lilian Middleton” dated 14 January 1922, Collected Essays 2.51-52
Susan Lilian Smith was born in Ireland on 18 February 1886. According to the 1910 Federal census, she emigrated to the United States in 1909; as did Michael J. McMullen (b. 1883). The Massachusetts Marriage Index records a wedding in 1910 in Somerville; their first child, Kenneth Barry McMullen, was born on 16 March 1910. The young family are recorded in the Bronx, New York City, with Michael J. McMullen listed as overseer of a drug warehouse. A second son, Edwin Robinson “Robin” McMullen, followed on 10 July 1913.
By the time of the 1920 Federal census, the family was situated in Newton, Massachusetts, about 7 miles from downtown Boston, in their own home on Morton Street; Michael J. McMullen is listed as a broker. By this time, Susan Lilian McMullen and her sister had already been recruited for amateur journalism, and H. P. Lovecraft took notice of her.
The Silver Clarion for February is of ample size and ample merit. Opening the issue is an excellent poem in heroic couplets by Mrs. Stella L. Tully of Mountmellick, Ireland, a new member of the United. Mrs. Tully, whose best work is in a lyric and religious vein, is one endowed with heriditary or family genius; as the Association no doubt appreciated when reading the poetry of her gifted sister, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen of Newton Centre, in the preceding issue of The United Amateur. —H. P. Lovecraft, “Department of Public Criticism” (Mar 1919), United Amateur, Collected Essays 1.225
One of the editors of The Silver Clarion was Winifred Virginia Jackson, and Mrs. McMullen and Mrs. Tully were apparently two of her recruits for the United Amateur Press Association. Lovecraft mentions her poetry a few times in his editorials, and it was generally positive. At this stage in his life, Lovecraft was getting out and meeting amateurs more often with occasional trips to Boston, and it was on one such trip he met S. Lilian McMullen in the flesh:
Mrs. McMullen was present, & prepared to argue over a criticism I had recently applied to one of her verses; but I quickly ended the argument by calling in as my ally the omniscient James Ferdinand [Morton], from whose decisions there is no appeal. (The question had to do with the use of “mirror” as an intransitive verb. Such usage is incorrect.)[…]The best feature was Mrs. McMullen’s pathetic poem “Desiree Logier”, which is to appear in the July United Amateur. (I tried to get that poem on the front page, but Mrs. Renshaw overruled me.) —H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 10 Sep 1920, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner172
While a full record of her amateur and on-amateur writing isn’t available, it seems at some point between 1920 and 1921 she began to sometimes use the pseudonym Lilian Middleton. Her interests ran strongly to poetry and music, and she wrote both; Lovecraft noted:
The United takes pride in the new laurels of its scintillant and versatile members, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen (Lilian Middleton), who is now writing songs for professional publication with the music of Ernest Harry Adams. The latest of these to appear is “The Bumble Fairy”, a dreamily exquisite piece already sung by several vocalists of note. […]
The Boston Amateur Conference of February 22, held at the Quincy House, was successful from every point of view […] A musical programme featuring Mrs. McMullen’s “Bumble Fairy” proved a delightful interlude. —H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes” (Jan 1921), United Amateur, Collected Essays 1.269
Lovecraft would write at rather more length about the conference in a letter to his mother, which reads in part:
Samuel Loveman’s paper was very poetic—he had asked me to read it, but Mrs. Miniter (in charge of the programme) thought she had better assign it to Mrs. McMullen, who had not felt equal to preparing a paper of her own. Mrs. McM. read it with great success—but not without having to ask me beforehand how to pronounce the name of the neo-Platonic philosopher Plotinus! […] Following this, a musical programme was rendered with great success, the chief ingredient being the McMullen-Adams song, “The Bumble Fairy”, which you played the other day. Mrs. McM was reluctant to sing it, not possessing a voice quite up to her own standard of excellence; but her scruples were entirely unnecessary, since the rendition proved phenomenally pleasing. I was immensely glad to hear the piece played properly, and found that in my own crude picking out I had not correctly interpreted the time. This Ernest H. Adams is certainly a composer of the greatest possible ability, and I think Mrs. McM is singularly fortunate in her opportunity to write words for his airs. Neither suffers by comparison with the other—it is an ideal “team.”
[27] Mrs. McMullen was very glad to hear that you liked “The Bumble Fairy”, and bade me thank you for your favourable opinion. It appears to me that she is destined for professional prominence at an early date—sooner perhaps than many amateurs of even greater genius, such as Winifred V. Jackson and Samuel Loveman. […] The overwhelming majority were adherents of the rival on National Association (which is, of course, now friendly with the United), but the Jackson–McMullen–Theobald group formed a compact minority of purely United enthusiasts. —H. P. Lovecraft to Sarah Susan Lovecraft, 24 Feb 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.26, 27
Lovecraft and McMullen were, despite any disagreement over metrical regularities, apparently on friendly terms. It is difficult to say when exactly they began to correspond, what prompted the correspondence, how extensive it was or what subjects they covered. None of their letters survive, and we have fewer hints in Lovecraft’s essays and correspondence than usual. We know that Lovecraft included her among his Christmas greetings, and we know that her poem “The Crock of Gold” appeared in his own amateur journal The Conservative (Mar 1921), which suggests she mailed it to him, unless she handed it to him in person at one of the amateur gatherings.
Yet the relationship was probably cordial, not close.
In August 1921, Lovecraft attended an amateur gathering in Boston at the McMullen’s house on Morton St.; McMullen had won the poetry laureateship for 1921:
The Hub Club meeting was yesterday, but on account of the increasing political gap between the (Nationalite) Hub element & the United, [Edith Miniter] set Wednesday as the day for conferring at length with the United element—W. V. Jackson, Miss Hamlet, Mrs. McMullen, &c. […]
[39] After a short argument at this temporary halting-place, the expedition proceeded to 53 Morton St., which I have of course seen before. Here I met Mrs. McMullen, & had the honour of breaking to her the pleasing news that she has won the United’s 1921 Poet-Laureateship. […] After this non-esssential digression the evening assumed more of the aspect of an ordinary amateur gathering, the company being augmented by the arrival of W. V. J., Miss Crist, Mrs. Wurtz, & a neighbour of Mrs. McMullen’s whose name has slipped my memory but who ought to be remembered for the menagerie which she brought with her—two large collie dogs, & the most exquisite kitten I have beheld in aeons. Mrs. McMullen averred that the latter small gentleman was brought especially in my honour, my liking for the feline species being well known in amateurdom. […] Mrs. McMullen played & sang her “Bumble Fairy”, & Mrs. Renshaw sang two songs (of which she wrote the words) in an excellent contralto, with Miss Crist as accompanist. I inflexibly refused all requests for song, & categorically denied the accusation of W. V. J., Mrs. Miniter, & Mrs. McMullen that I could sing. […] So I let mesdames Renshaw & McMullen bear off all the honours. […] Pure literature, grammar, technique, ancient balladry, & the Irish situation (the McMullens are loyal British subjects & Protestants from Ireland) all received attention; & even D. V. Bush & remunerative endeavour were discussed. —H. P. Lovecraft to Annie Gamwell, 19 Aug 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.38, 39, 40
The Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) was a point of contention for Lovecraft, who was a lifelong Anglophile and was in favor of the British in the conflict. This put him at odds with anti-British, pro-independence amateur journalists like the Irish immigrant John Dunn, and exacerbated anti-Irish (and in a general sense, anti-Celtic/Gaelic) and anti-Catholic sentiments in Lovecraft. That the McMullens were both loyalists and protestants were both definite points in their favor as far as Lovecraft (and presumably his aunts) were concerned.
A few more notes on S. Lilian McMullen/Lilian Middleton appear in Lovecraft’s editorials. Later in 1921 he noted:
The continued successes of our Poet-Laureate, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen (Lilian Middleton), cast additional lustre on the United as amateurdom’s chief source of authentic creative artists. Poetry by Mrs. McMullen appeared on the editorial page of the New York Times for October 15; a distinction which can be appreciated by those familiar with the standards of that celebrated publication. […303] Honours come rapidly to our poets. On November 5 The Literary Digest reprinted a poem of Mrs. McMullens’ from the New York Times […] —H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes,” Nov 1921, United Amateur, Collected Essays 1.302-303
The poem was reprinted in the Literary Digest and several other newspapers.
In late 1921 or early 1922, Lovecraft wrote “The Poetry of Lilian Middleton”, the draft is dated 14 Jan 1922. It is not clear where this was intended to be published, but an abbreviated version of it was published in “The Vivisector” column in March 1922 (CE 1.315-316). How much contact Lovecraft had with S. Lilian McMullen after that is doubtful, one of his last words on her from this period was:
A special word is due the excellent portraits of eminent amateurs, among which is the first likeness of our poet-laureate, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen (Lilian Middleton) ever published in Amateur Journalism. —H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes” (May 1922), United Amateur, CE 1.317
This was in reference to The Rainbow Vol. II, No. 2 (May 1922), which was edited by Sonia H. Greene, and is the only photo of S. Lilian McMullen I’ve found. Readers who turn to read Lovecraft’s “Celephaïs” in that issue may have wondered who that woman was, whose portrait and poem graced the page immediately proceeding Lovecraft’s. Now they do. Her work in that journal suggests that she and Lovecraft may have been in contact at least briefly in early 1922…but after that their relationship seems to break off, or at least the references in editorial and letters dwindle to nothing.
We can only speculate as to the reasons. It seems likely that McMullen and Lovecraft’s friendship was largely based on their common friendship with Winifred Virginia Jackson, and his relationship with Jackson cooled off after Lovecraft met Sonia H. Greene (his future wife) at that August convention in 1921. So too, the McMullens may have experienced difficulties of their own that limited S Lilian McMullen’s further participation in amateur journalism.
The Boston Globe, 21 Aug 1925, p.9
The Boston Globe, 8 Dec 1925, p.19
Taken together, these two snippets paint a picture of strained finances, and perhaps a strained marriage. Michael J. McMullen’s business either failed or his debts grew too much; the wife and children were sent out of the country while he tried to settle affairs, which probably included the selling of or foreclosure on the house at 53 Morton St. What happened to Michael J. McMullen between 1925 and 1930 is unknown; in the 1930 Federal census, S. Lilian McMullen is listed as “widowed,” and she and her sons were renting at Crafts St. in Newton.
Despite this hardship, S. Lilian McMullen persevered. She was naturalized a citizen of the United States of America on 5 April 1954, and according to her obituary finally passed away in 1981 at the age of 95, with 4 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren, and interred in Chatham, Mass (Findagrave).
Who was H. P. Lovecraft to S. Lilian McMullen? Like so many women who interacted with Lovecraft, there is no record in their own words to guide us. Their paths crossed just a few times in the early 1920s, and she made enough of an impression that he wrote in praise of her poetry and songs. We have, for the most part, only Lovecraft’s own sparse comments to guide us. Their legacies are different: Lovecraft’s legacy was literary, and his heirs are his readers; hers was her children, and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren. It would be interesting to know if any of her family were aware of her connection with Lovecraft…or if they still have any or her songs and poetry to remember her by.
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein 