Her Letters to Lovecraft: Alice M. Hamlet

New England Conservatory of Music Yearbook, 1920

Alice Marion Hamlet was born 24 April 1897, the only child of Lanna and Grace Hamlet, in Boston, Massachusetts, where she would live most of her life. Most of her life was devoted to music; she was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, where she also did advanced studies. U.S. Federal census records for 1930, 1940, and 1950 list her profession as “music teacher” or “piano teacher,” and the newspapers in Massachusetts, New York, and New Hampshire are dotted with notices for her students’ recitals and other notices. Her obituary showed she worked as a music teacher for some 60 years, and never married or had children.

What the census and newspaper data does not show is the other side of Alice M. Hamlet. The literary side of her which found expression in amateur journalism, the reader of fantasy who became a critical influence on H. P. Lovecraft, with whom she corresponded for some years. Exact details of this side of Alice Hamlet are sketchy; none of her letters to Lovecraft or from Lovecraft to her are known to survive, so we are left with a very incomplete picture of their relationship. Yet what we can piece together, through references in Lovecraft’s correspondence and essays, paints a picture of two people who found common interests and enthusiasms.

The first notice we have of Alice M. Hamlet in Lovecraft’s works is a note in the United Amateur for March 1917:

“Pioneers of New England”, an article by Alice M. Hamlet, gives much interesting information concerning the sturdy settlers of New Hampshire and Vermont. In the unyielding struggles of these unsung heroes against the sting of hardship and the asperity of primeval Nature, we may discern more than a trace of that divine fire of conquest which has made the Anglo-Saxon the empire builder of all the ages. […]

[145] “To a Friend”, by Alice M. Hamlet, is particularly pleasing through the hint of the old school technique which its well-ordered phrases convey. The one weak point is the employment of thy, a singular expression, in connexion with several objects; namely, “paper, pen, and ready hand”. Your should have been used. The metre is excellent throughout, and the whole piece displays a gratifying skill on its author’s part.
H. P. Lovecraft, “Department of Public Criticism” in United Amateur 16, No. 7 (Mar 1917), Collected Essays 1.141, 145

Lovecraft had been elected president of the United Amateur Press Association in 1917; based on these comments Alice M. Hamlet was already a member of the United, although David Whittier later claimed to have recruited her in 1919 (see Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany). The comments on her poetry are typical for Lovecraft of the period; he was a stickler for metrical regularity and language, but less expressive of the content of poetry. Perhaps this notice started their correspondence, perhaps that came later.

It interests me to hear of your first perusal of “A Dreamer’s Tales.” Mine was in the fall of 1919, when I had never read anything of Dunsany’s, though knowing of him by reputation. The book had been recommended to me by one whose judgment I did not highly esteem, & it was with some dubiousness that I began reading “Poltarnees—Beholder of Ocean.” The first paragraph arrests me as with an electric shock, & I had not read two pages before I became a Dunsany devotee for life.
H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 14 Apr 1929, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 172

By the fall of 1919, Hamlet and Lovecraft were apparently corresponding and such good friends that she began to recommend or lend books to him. An envelope from Hamlet to Lovecraft postmarked 12 October 1919 survives, which attests to the correspondence. Perhaps it was that letter when she informed him that Lord Dunsany was coming to Boston, and invited Lovecraft to come hear him speak.

Lovecraft would recount the adventure in some detail in a letter:

At 7:00 a party consisting of Miss H., her aunt, young Lee, & L. Theobald set out for the great event. Arriving early at the Copley-Plaza, we obtained front seats; so that during the address I sat directly opposite the speaker, not ten feet from him. Dunsany entered late, accompanied & introduced by Prof. George Baker of Harvard. […]

[146] Egged on by her aunt, Miss Hamlet almost mustered up courage enough to ask for an autograph, but weakened at the last moment. Of this more anon. For mine own part, I did not seek a signature; for I detest fawning upon the great. […] Of course, I could have taken the Prov. train at the adjacent Back Bay, but I hate that bleak barn, & wished to get in the train as soon as it was made up; enhancing myself in a seat & beginning to read Dunsany’s “The Gods of Pegãna”, which Miss H. had kindly lent me. The H.’s invited me to stay all night, but I am a home-seeking soul & the hour was not late. […]

[147] The one sequel to the lecture does not concern me, but deserves narration (an unconsciously egotistical sentence!). Mss H. could not quite give up the idea of an autograph, so on the following day wrote a letter to Dunsany, enclosing several tokens of esteem for him & for his wife; the greatest of which was a genuine autograph letter of Abraham Lincoln. Soon afterward she received a most courteous reply from His Lordship, written personally with his celebrated quill, & containing a pleasant enclosed note from Lady Dunsany! Of this letters from so great an author, Miss H. is justly proud in the extreme; & she will doubtless retain it as a treasure of priceless worth. I will here present a verbatim transcription!

“My dear Miss Hamlet:—

Thank you very much for your kind letter & present, & for the charming little presents to my wife. I had not seen the Lincoln letter before, & I am very glad to have it. It is a stately letter, & above all, it is full of human kindness; & I doubt if any of us by any means can achieve anything better than that.

With many thanks,
Yours very sincerely,
Dunsany

P. S. I’ll write plenty more for you.”
H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 9 Nov 1919, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner and Others 145, 146, 147

The aunt was Eva Thompson, who lived with Alice and her parents in Dorchester; “young Lee” is unidentified; and “L. Theobald” was one of Lovecraft’s pseudonyms. As well as the Lincoln letter, Alice M. Hamlet had sent Dunsany a copy of the Tryout (Nov 1919) that contained Lovecraft’s poem “To Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany.” Dunsany replied graciously to this poetic dedication with a letter that was published in the Tryout (Dec 1919). The episode also produced an unexpected sequel:

Well, I got news this trip, fellas! EDWARD JOHN MORETON DRAX PLUNKETT, 18th BARON DUNSANY, is the 1920 Laureate Judge of Poetry for the United Amaeur Press Association! Yep—’s true! I thought of the thing a month or two ago, but did not dare write Ed. THen I decided that he might prove kind if he letter came from one with whom he had previously corresponded, so I asked Miss Hamlet to write him, which she did ℅ the J. B. Pond Lyceum Bureau. For a long time no answer came, and we gave him up for lost. Miss Durr asked asked me to find another judge, and I wrote a Capt. Fielding-Reid of Baltimore, one of the Bookfellows. But Friday Miss Hamlet received a telegram from Ed accepting the post!!!
H. P. Lovecraft to the Gallomo, Apr 1920, Miscellaneous Letters 101

Miss Durr is Mary Faye Durr, president of the UAPA for the 1919-1920 term. Alice Hamlet later gave her impressions of Lovecraft and the Dunsany lecture:

From then on I was one of the “amateurs”. Eventually I put out a little mimeographed paper in conjunction with a John Smith of Orondo, Washington. It was probably through that little literary effort that Mr. Lovecraft became interested in my work. He was very helpful and friendly in his criticisms and suggestions and I greatly appreciated it. But on to Mr. Lovecraft himself: As I remember him he was tall and large-boned—with a long jaw—or perhaps I should say chin—from the lower lip downward. He was rather dark complexioned and was extremely pale. Evidently he was not in very good health. He had severe headaches and never was known to go far from his home—except to hear Lord Dunsany at my invitation. Mr. Lovecraft’s style of writing was highly imaginative as was Dunsany’s and I thought Mr. Lovecraft would greatly enjoy hearing the Irish poet. There was this difference between the writers’ literary output—Lovecraft resembled Edgar Allan Poe, with his stark and wild imaginings: Dunsany wrote in almost Biblical style, with prose that was almost poetry. Mr. Lovecraft’s vocabulary was very extensive, at times Johnsonian, and his letters were long and examples of a skilled writer who knew what he wanted to say and how to say it. The attendance at the Dunsany lecture was surely a milestone in his life—and a great inspiration to me and one of my treasured memories. The young man who went with us was Ed Lee. He was not “literary” and probably Mr. Lovecraft and I were both a sort of gentle amusement to him!

As far as I can remember, he (Lovecraft) went back to Providence the night of the Dunsany lecture. He was immensely impressed and I can well imagine the occasion was a spur to his writing professionally. I never considered Mr. Lovecraft handsome and I am sure he was never interested in me as a girl! We merely had similar tastes which made for a congenial acquaintance. He was always courteous—“the old school gentleman”—although he must have been in the early thirties (his age) when I knew him.
quoted from “Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany”

This lecture and its aftermath were not the end of Lovecraft and Hamlet’s association, which continued through their mutual involvement in the United. Hamlet herself was one of the manuscript managers for the association, along with Olga Zeeb. When Lovecraft addressed a recruit to the amateur organization, he wrote:

I trust you will call upon our MS. Managers, Misses Hamlet & Zeeb, whenever you need copy.
H. P. Lovecraft to Arthur Harris, 16 May 1920, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner and Others 242

Alice M. Hamlet would enter United politics herself, being elected 2nd Vice President in 1920, when Lovecraft served as Official Editor. They seemed to still be on good terms, as he apparently gifted her a copy of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales and Poems in Prose (1918), along with a poem “With a Copy of Wilde’s Fairy Tales.”

The culmination of their growing friendship occurred 4-5 July 1920, when Lovecraft came to Boston to attend a gathering of amateurs who could not attend that year’s national convention in Cleveland. It was the first time since 1901 that he had slept under someone else’s roof away from home (LWH 49-50)—as a guest of Alice M. Hamlet (chaperoned by her aunt); Edith Miniter amusingly referred to the arrangement in her coverage of the get-together:

I was tucked up in my crib hours before the house was still. Mrs. THompson and her niece, Miss Hamlet, took Mr. Lovecraf with them to Dorchester, ’cause he said he’d just go[t] to have a “quiet room to himself,” and there’s no such thing here, though there’s 18 rooms and 6 halls in this establishment.
Edith Miniter, “Epgephi Maisuings” in Epgephi (Sep 1920)

Perhaps the book was a gift on this occasion, or soon after as thanks for her hospitality. By the end of the year, Lovecraft noted:

Our new Second Vice-President, Miss Alice M. Hamlet, is taking a post-graduate course at the New England Conservatory of Music, and bids fair to become one of Boston’s most accomplished musical instructors.
H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes” in United Amateur 20, No. 2 (November 1920), Collected Essays 1.264

Despite her studies, Hamlet was apparently still active in amateur journalism, and even worked to recruit new members such as Myrta Alice Little, who would also become one of Lovecraft’s correspondents.

For securing Miss Little as a member, credit is due to our energetic Second Vice-President, Alice M. Hamlet.
H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes” in United Amateur 20, No. 3 (January 1921), Collected Essays 1.268

On 17 August 1921, Lovecraft made another trip to Boston to visit his amateur friends. At this point, political divisions between the United and National Amateur Press Associations had risen (and within the United itself), which made for a bit of awkwardness when visiting. Lovecraft wrote of the trip:

The Hub Club meeting was yesterday, but on account of the increasing political gap betwen the (Nationalite) Hub element & the United, she set Wednesday as the day for conferring at length with the United element—W. V. Jackson, Miss Hamlet, Mrs. McMullen, &c. Naturally, the United Day was my day! The conference was to be held at 3 p.m. at the Curry School of Expression on Huntington Ave. near the village square—just across the street from Mr. Copley Plaza’s boarding house where I heard Dunsany lecture in 1919. This hour would have been very convenient for me; but Miss Hamlet, who had also been notified, asked me to precede the event with a Dorchester call—since she did not care to attend the session for fear of meeting some of the National members whom she detests so thoroughly. Alas for the complexity of local feuds! […]

Reaching Back Bay at 1:44, I proceeded to Dorchester for a brief call of courtesy—when lo! I found that my tardiness had set awry a disconcerting amount of preparation which had been made, all unknown to me, in my honour. It seems that the Hamlets had arranged a flying motor trip to Quincy to see poor Mrs. Bell the impoverished invalid, & that they had waited for me until just six minutes before my belated arrival; finally departing lest they disappoint their aged hostess. As a matter of prosaic fact, my loss of this trip caused me no very profound grief; but the Dorcastrians seemed amazingly disappointed. The aunt, Mrs. Thompson, insisted on calling up Miss H. at the Quincy City Home, & Miss H. appeared to view the exploded schedule as little short of calamitious. Considering my insignificance, such concern was of course flattering—but I could not politely leave the telephone & proceed to Copley Square till I had consumed to make another Boston trip before Labour Day, for which the Hamlets wish to prepare some picnic or special event to make up for the present fiasco. Such super-hospitality is very pleasingvbut it does not pay any railway fares! Incidentally—Miss H. has taken upon herself the humane task of trying to rescue Mrs Bell from the institution which so humiliates her. She is trying to look up Bell relatives—the family is old & prominent—& to interest the Uniterian church to which Mrs. B. belongs. A worthy task, though possibly a futile one.
H. P. Lovecraft to Annie E. P. Gamwell, 19 Aug 1921, Letters to Family & Family Friends 1.38

Lovecraft did manage to visit the Hamlets later on the trip:

And speaking of bores—as I puffed out of Haverhill the Hamlet call still lay ahead of me. I had given a forewarning that I might be “unavoidably” delayed till evening, and hoped my prospective hosts would not do anything elaborate—but Gawd ‘elp us! When I finally reached there via B. & M., elevated, and surface car, I found that they had a near-conventions tagged for me! There was an ambitious dinner of lamb and sundry fixings, and many reproaches at my “unavoidable” tardiness. As a local delegate Miss Hamlet had unearthed a literary proteged of hers—the Mildred LaVoie whose name has lingered inactively on our lists since 1916, and who is a young person of undistinguished aspect and ancestry; not uncomely, but more suggestive of the artless nymph than of the fictional titan. This quiet and unassuming individual writes stories, but is afraid to send them anywhere—even to TRYOUT—for publication; hence has remained an amateur nonentity for five years despite the efforts of Miss Hamlet to bring her genius to the world’s notice. I was not vey enthusiastic about the process of LaVoian assimilation till after the maid in question had departed, and Miss H. produced a story of hers which she had secured surreptitiously. Then I perceived that the work was not half bad in its way—shewing at least clear observation, command of detail, and a keener picture of the subject matter than mere words. It is surely with printing, and I shall accommodate Miss Hamlet by placing it somewhere where its appearance will duly surprise its over-modest creator—Lawson’s WOLVERINE ought to stand for it. But after all, I was paid for my politeness in making the Dorcastrian detour. Just before I beat it for the 11:45 I was given the loan of a new book which I am told is the msot horrible collection of short stories recently issued! It is called “The Song of the Sirens” [1919], and is by one Edward Lucas White, who claims he dreamed all the ghoulish things described.
H. P. Lovecraft to the Gallomo, 31 Aug 1921, Miscellaneous Letters 116

No overnight stay this time around—and this was effectively the final direct reference to Alice M. Hamlet in Lovecraft’s letters, though there are a few oblique references to her having introduced him to the works of Lord Dunsany. Why their friendship seems to peter out at this point is uncertain, although it has to be pointed out that Lovecraft met his future wife Sonia H. Greene at an amateur convention in Boston in 1921, and the rise of that relationship seemed to spell the dwindling of Lovecraft’s connections with women amateur journalists such as Winifred Virginia Jackson.

Rumors have connected Lovecraft romantically to nearly every female amateur journalist of approximately his own age he ever interacted with, but Alice M. Hamlet’s connections with him have been too vague to suggest anything concrete in that direction. They must, at the least, have appreciated one another, as the exchange of books showed a remarkable taste for fantasy and weird fiction, rare enough in amateur circles. Whether the friendship continued in letters for a while, or drifted apart as their lives took different directions, we just don’t know.

It is difficult to overstate the impact Hamlet had on Lovecraft, however unintentionally: Lord Dunsany was a powerful and formative influence on his fiction, one which Lovecraft would emulate, and then work diligently to not emulate and find his own voice, throughout his life. She helped draw him further out of his reclusive shell that he had fallen into after his failure to attend college or find a job as an adult. Amateur journalism put him in touch with people he had never met, exposed him to ideas he had never heard of, challenged his views in many ways—and Alice M. Hamlet was a part of that. With that experience, with that encouragement, Lovecraft would ultimately travel further, experience more, think harder, and write better than he ever had before.

Alas, there is too little to say much more about their friendship. The letters are lost to us.

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

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The Rhinebeck Gazette • 28 June 1945

In the aftermath of the deep cut on “The Ten-Cent Ivory Tower” (1946) by John Wilstach, Bill Plott revealed that Wilstach and Lovecraft had been mentioned together before, in a brief news item in The Rhinebeck Gazette, the local newspaper of Rhinebeck, New York, dated 28 June 1945. Armed with this information, the appropriate page was found at the online newspaper archive of the Fulton County History website.

*The Rhinebeck Gazette*, Rhinebeck, NY, 28 June 1945, p4

“Long Pond” is a shallow lake in New York state, located a little over five miles south of Rhinebeck, which itself lies on the east bank of the Hudson River. The 1930 U. S. Census put John Wilstach and his wife at Long Pond Road, which encircles the lake. So we can definitely say that John Wilstach was at Long Pond at the time. What about Lovecraft?

As it happens, we know Lovecraft visited the area twice. The first trip came in May 1929; Lovecraft had taken his first serious trip to the Southern United States via bus, and in New York City he met his friend and fellow pulp-writer Frank Belknap Long, Jr:

From Philadelphia I proceeded to New York, where my young grandchild Frank B. Long & his parents gave me a motor lift up the Hudson shore to Kingston—the ancient town harbouring my artist-fantaisiste friend Bernard Austin Dwyer, whom neither Long nor I had ever met in person before, despite long & interesting correspondence. Dwyer turned out to be as genial & pleasant in person as on paper, & I stayed at his house several days—though Long had to move on & collaborate with his father in a trout-fishing excursion (which turned out absolutely fruitless!). Kingston itself interested me prodigiously, for it is a highly venerable & historical place ful of reliques of the past. The present city is a fusion of two once separate villages—Kingston proper, where my host lives & which is about a mild infland from the Hudson’s west bank, & the river-port of Rondout on the hilly bank itself, where the ferry from Rhinebeck lands & which is now a somewhat picturesque slum.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 29 May 1929, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge 64

The Longs and Lovecraft would have taken the car up the east bank of the Hudson to Rhinebeck, and then the ferry over to the west bank to Kingston (as Rhinebeck is situated some ways from the river, it’s possible the actual drop-off was at Rhinecliff on the river, or that a bus from Rhinebeck took Lovecraft to the ferry). While he was in Kingston with Bernard Austin Dwyer, Lovecraft visited the nearby communities of Hurley (“abt. 3 m. N W of Kingston”) and New Paltz (“16 m. S.”), both on the western side of the river. Lovecraft would then have continued north to Albany, N.Y., and then east to Massachusetts to meet another friend, the printer W. Paul Cook.

Lovecraft mentions this leg of his 1929 trip in varying detail in a number of letters, and the whole trip was recorded in an extensive travelogue, “Travels in the Provinces of America” (Collected Essays 4.32-61). None of these letters or the travelogue mention Wilstach, Long Pond, or any extended stay or exploration of Rhinebeck, though the travelogue mentions the ferry. To give an idea of the scope of the 1929 trip:

I surely had a great trip—over 2 weeks with [Vrest] Orton, over a week more with Long, & then the open road. Richmond—childhood home & favoured haunt of Poe—Williamsburg, 17th century survival & colonial capital of Virginia; Jamestown, birthplace of our culture on this continent; Yorktown, typical Southern colonial village; Fredericksburg, boyhood environment of Genl. Washington; Washington [D. C.]—where I saw the Easter Island images (shades of Lemuria!) in the Smithsonian—Philadelphia, whose new art museum is a breath-taking Greek Acropolis; Kingston, whose ancient stone houses bespeak another culture & another day; Hurley, which a Dutch diplomat has called more Dutch than anything left in Holand; New Paltz, home of the Huguenots; Albany & the Berkshires; good old Athol; Brattleboro & the vivid Vermont hills; & finally home again—best place of all!
H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 5 Jun 1929, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 175

In June 1930, Lovecraft returned to Kingston, N.Y. to visit Dwyer again. There is much less about this trip in Lovecraft’s letters, presumably because he had covered so much of antiquarian interest the year before. A good idea of the trip from one letter is:

My visit with Dwyer in ancient Kingston was extremely delightful. Every clear day we fared forth to the wild and beautiful countryside, & I enjoyed the conversation of one who is in many respects the most spontaneous & [Algernon] Blackwood-like fantaisiste I know.
H. P. Lovecraft to Donald Wandrei, 30 Jun 1930, Letters with Donald and Howard Wandrei 243

This is the last account we have in Lovecraft’s published letters to any visit to the Kingston/Rhinebeck region. Again, no mention of Wilstach or Long Pond. The reason that Lovecraft did not venture up into that part of New York in later trips is given in 1931:

Finally I shall spend a week or two with Belknap in New York & then probably go home at last, since I doubt if I’ll have the cash to visit Dwyer. He has, by the way, returned to his paternal acres in the hinterland; hence is to be addressed no more at Kingston, but at Box 43, West Shokan, N.Y.
H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 25 Jun 1931, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 313

Without a friend in the region to visit, Lovecraft apparently had no reason to visit Kingston.

Just because there is no corroborating record in Lovecraft’s letters of the weird fictionist visiting the Rhinebeck region in the mid-30s, or any mention of John Wilstach at all, does not immediately invalidate the anecdote in the Rhinebeck Gazette, though it may cast a bit of doubt on the account of Lovecraft’s visit. After a decade or so, memories can grow a little fuzzy; possibly Wilstach met the Longs on their fishing trip in 1929 and misremembered Lovecraft as staying with them for the weekend. Possibly Lovecraft did have a lost weekend in New York State and the references were in letters that haven’t survived. Or maybe Wilstach invented the episode, although that would beg the question of why.

If the account of Lovecraft’s visit to Long Pond has to be judged apocryphal until further evidence emerges, the note at the beginning of the article that Wilstach had just sold an article about Lovecraft to Esquire named “An American Eccentric” is interesting. If this was the original title of “The Ten-Cent Ivory Tower,” it means that the article took about six months from submission to publication, and faced at least a few editorial changes during that time, perhaps resulting in some of the oddities in that article. It is notable that this anecdote did not make it into the published Esquire piece, suggesting he either left it out or it was edited out.

While this piece in the Rhinebeck Gazette neither proves or disproves whether Wilstach actually knew Lovecraft in any capacity, it is an interesting addendum to what we know about their potential friendship.

Thanks again to Bill Plott for bringing this to my attention.

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

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Eola Willis

Have met the author of the standard history of the XVIII Cent. Charleston stage, & will this afternoon inspect the interior of one of the typical old (1734) mansions.
H. P. Lovecraft to Richard Ely Morse, 29 Apr 1934, Letters to Hyman Bradofsky and Others 75

According to the 1860 census, Eola Willis was born in 1859 in South Carolina; the oldest of what would be six children. The year after she was born, South Carolina seceded from the Union, setting the stage for the American Civil War. Like many Southern men, her father would join the Confederate Army and he would be associated with running the blockade the Union established around Southern ports and coast. During her earliest childhood, the war was fought and lost; and young Eola would come to adulthood under Reconstruction, until that too came to an end.

Eola Willis distinguished herself as an artist, historian, antiquarian, and author, with an especial interest in the history of Charleston, S.C. Among her publications was The Charleston Stage in the XCIII Century, with Social Settings of the Time (1924). When she met H. P. Lovecraft in 1934, Eola Willis was 74 years old.

You certainly must see old Charleston some day. What a town! I’ve met one of the leading local antiquarians—an old lady named Willis, author of the standard history of the Charleston Stage in the 18th century—& picked up a good deal more of the regional traditions than I ever knew before.
H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 30 Apr 1934, O Fortunate Floridian 138

Lovecraft first visited Charleston, S.C. in 1930, as part of his gradually expanding series of travels to see more and more of the world. That visit resulted in a lengthy travelogue, “An Account of Charleston,” where he exults in the atmosphere of the Southern metropolis. While Lovecraft had long bought into the rose-colored vision of the antebellum South described by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and other Lost Cause supporters, actually traveling to the South let Lovecraft appreciate the architecture and ways of the South in an entirely new way—from the elegant old houses to Jim Crow. In his letters, Lovecraft even suggested he would like to move there, someday…though that day never came…and on his subsequent trips down South, made a point of spending at least some time in Charleston.

On this visit I have met a highly interesting & erudite local antiquarian—an ancient gentlewoman named Miss Willis, author of the standard history of the 18th century Charleston stage. This venerable scholar, descended from the oldest Charleston stock & still inhabiting her well-preserved hereditary mansion (built 1730-34) in Tradd St., has furnished many side-lights on Charleston tradition with which I was previously unfamiliar. Her book is a genuine masterpiece of its kind, & ought to interest you because of its full account of the famous Sully family from which Thomas the artist (his artist-nephew who was Poe’s playmate in Richmond) sprang.
H. P. Lovecraft to Helen V. Sully, 30 Apr 1934, Letters to Wilfred B. Talman et al. 348-349

For Lovecraft, Eola Willis no doubt reminded him of his own aunts, who were both active in society, loved old things, and were painters of some skill. We can only speculate on how exactly they met, but it was undoubtedly a meeting of the minds. Lovecraft’s genuine enthusiasm for Charleston and its history were no doubt matched by Willis’ own affection for her city. From his letters, it seems she even invited him on a tour of her historic home at 72 Tradd St.

An interesting person whom I did meet in Charleston was Miss Eola Willis, Chairman of the local Art Commission & author of the standard history of the 18th century Charleston stage—a gentlewoman of ancient Carolina stock, aged about 70, who is not only an erudite historian & antiquarian, but a water-colour artist of great power, whose views of Carolina scenery are vivid & beautiful.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 22 May 1934, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge & Anne Tillery Renshaw 270-271

Many of Eola Willis’ paintings survive, such as those in the Johnson Collection. Papers and correspondence from her life are archived at the South Carolina Historical Society. Newspaper archives preserve her obituary and articles about her doings. These institutions preserve her legacy for future generations.

Her association with H. P. Lovecraft, however, has proven to be more ephemeral.

Did I mention meeting, in Charleston, an extremely gifted gentlewoman who is chairman of the Charleston Art Commission & author of the standard history of the Eighteenth century Charleston stage? A Miss Eola Willis, who dewells in her centuries hereditary mansion in Tradd street. Her book & anecdotes confirm my belief that the culture of Charleston is the finest that ever flowered in North America.
H. P. Lovecraft to James F. Morton, 19 Jul 1934, Letters to James F. Morton 355

This handful of quotes in Lovecraft’s letters from 1934 is essentially the sum total of his mentions of Eola Willis by name. No letters from Lovecraft to Willis or Eola to Howard have yet come to light. Yet in his 1937 diary, among the list of addresses of his correspondents, Lovecraft includes Eola Willis (Lovecraft Annual 6.176). This opens up at least the possibility that they were correspondents for a time. We can only speculate what they might have discussed, although their common antiquarian interests suggest that might have formed a possible basis for a few letters.

The correspondence between Eola Willis and H. P. Lovecraft must therefore be considered hypothetical, at least until some more definitive evidence emerges.

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

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“The Peace Advocate” (1917) by Elizabeth Berkeley

It is true that I once used the pseudonym of “Elizabeth Berkeley” in conjunction with its more rightful owner W. V. J.—in 1916 the name covered certain verses by both authors, in an effort to mystify the public by having widely dissmilar work form the same nominal hand.
H. P. Lovecraft to the Gallomo, 12 Sep 1921, Miscellaneous Letters 121

Winifred Virginia Jackson was the normal owner of the pseudonym “Elizabeth Berkeley,” but Lovecraft borrowed it from his collaborator for two poems: “The Unknown” (1916) and “The Peace Advocate” which was published in the May 1917 issue of The Tryout.

*H. P. Lovecraft: Writings in the Tryout* (1977)

On 4 April 1917, the U. S. Senate voted to declare war on Germany. Like many Americans, Lovecraft had followed news of the unfolding Great War since its opening stages. Lovecraft was firmly on the side of the Allies, no surprise given his ancestral affinity for the United Kingdom. Having joined amateur journalism in 1914 near the start of the war, Lovecraft found the amateur press an outlet for his thoughts and feelings with essays such as “The Crime of the Century” (The Conservative Apr 1915) and “The Renaissance of Manhood” (The Conservative Oct 1915), and once war was declared, poems such as “The Crime of Crimes: Lusitania 1915” (Interesting Items Jul 1915), “The Volunteer” (Providence Evening News 1 Feb 1918), and “To the Nurses of the Red Cross” (1917).

Lovecraft’s position with regard to the war was complicated. He was not in a normal sense an American patriot, reserving his greatest affinity for England and the British monarchy. His support for the British Empire meant his opposition to the Irish home rule movement and Irish nationalism; Lovecraft’s bitterest anti-Irish statements date from around the period of the Easter Rising in 1916 and its aftermath. Racial hierarchies and white supremacist doctrine in the early 20th century lauded the “Teutonic race,” to which the “Anglo-Saxons” of Britain were either a part or close cousins; which is why Lovecraft decried the war as “The Crime of Crimes”—because white people were fighting white people.

It should come as no surprise that Lovecraft was, once hostilities broke out, in favor of war with Germany, yet Lovecraft was not a war-hawk in the normal sense, later writing:

No—we can’t justly endorse any sort of killing except in defence of oneself, or of some racial or national fabric representing one’s larger self.
H. P. Lovecraft to Robert E. Howard, 7 May 1936, A Means to Freedom 2.929

This is to say, Lovecraft did not advocate wars of aggression, but was impassioned in his support for defensive wars, especially when it was his beloved England and its allies (and later, fellow Americans) who were attacked. The initial neutrality of the United States to the war in Europe incensed Lovecraft, who bitterly attacked Woodrow Wilson’s position, and wrote in letters and essays passages like this:

This neutrality hath been a source of the keenest distress and humiliation to me ever since the war began, since I believe that the rightful place of America is at the side of her mother nation, defending the Anglo-Saxon civilisation and ideals which both countries hold in common. In fact, I have more than once blushed at the base and selfish attitude of the States at a time when all the forces of humanity should be engaged in warding off the Hun. Never before was I more disposed to make ostentation of the legal provision which makes me still able, as the grandson in direct male line of a true-born Englishman, to call myself a rightful British subject. England is my country as well as America—let those call me “hyphenate” who so desire!
H. P. Lovecraft to the Kleikomolo, Oct 1916, Miscellaneous Letters 28

Lovecraft’s dislike of neutrality also found expression in his personal discontent with pacifists and anti-war protestors; those who argued either for concessions to the Central Powers to buy peace, or simply opposed the United States sending troops to join a foreign war, or selling weapons and materiel to the Allies, which would only extend the war and its suffering—or as in the case of the Irish-American John T. Dunn, who opposed aiding Britain because he supported Irish nationalism. Dunn would later be drafted, refused to serve, and was sentenced to prison.

When Lovecraft’s Jewish friend Samuel Loveman faced the draft, the man from Providence had no sympathy:

By the way—our mutual friend & fellow-bard Samuel Loveman is in CLass I Div. A, expecting to be called for active duty. In the first draft he was exempted for poor vision, but the requirements are now less strict. If I were Loveman I should enlist. I have no patience at all with a strong man sans dependents who deliberately stays home till dragged out from under the bed. Loveman admts he is “unpoetically robust” & that his sight is not at all seriously impaired. But Jews will be Jews, & I will judge neither harshly nor hastily. He is certainly a very pelasant & exceedingly gifted person, & now that he is subject to call, shews no sign of timidity or unrest. I trust his career may be honourable, & tht he will meet with an easier fate than the other soldier-poets, Brooke, Seeger, Ledwidge, et al.
H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 23 Feb 1918, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner & Others 103-104

As it happened, Loveman spent most of his military service 1918-1919 at Camp Gordon in Georgia, and did not serve overseas.

A recurring theme in Lovecraft’s war-poems, essays, and letters is masculine identity and its ties with white supremacist national identity. Anglo-Saxons and Teutons were in the racial rhetoric of the day supposed to be warriors and conquerors who had dominated the globe because racial superiority was synonymous with martial superiority. It was a white man’s place to show courage and gladly answer the call. For Lovecraft, these were not just armchair ideals: not long after “The Peace Advocate” was published he attempted to enlist.

Some time ago, impressed by my entire uselessness in the world, I resolved to attempt enlistment despite my almost invalid condition. I argued that if I chose a regiment soon to depart for France; my shear nervous force, which is not inconsiderable, might sustain me till a bullet or piece of shrapnel could more conclusively & effectively dispose of me. Accordingly I presented myself at the recruiting station of the R. I. National Guard & applied for entry into whichever unit should first proceed to the front. On account of my lack of technical or special training, I was told that I could not enter the Field Artillery, which leaves first; but was given a blank of application for the Coast Artillery, which will go after a short preliminary period of defence service at one of the forts of Narragansett Bay. The questions asked me were childishly inadequate, & so far as physical requirements are concerned, would have admitted a chronic invalid. The only diseases brought into discussion were specific ailments from which I had never suffered, & of some of which I had scarce ever heard. The medical examination related only to major organic troubles, of which I have none, & I soon found myself (as I thought) a duly enrolled private in the 9th Co. R.I.N.G.! As you may have deduced, I embarked upon this desperate venture without informing my mother; & as you may also have deduced, the sensation created at home was far from slight. In fact, my mother was almost prostrated with the news, since she knew that only by rare chance could a weakling like myself survive the rigorous routine of camp life. Her activities soon brought my military career to a close for the present. It required but a few words from our family physician regarding my nervous condition to annul the enlistment, though the army surgeon declared that such an annulment was highly unusual & almost against the regulations of the service. The fact is, I had really gotten the best of that astute medicus; for without making a single positive misstatement I had effectively concealed the many & varied weaknesses which have virtually blasted my career. Fortune had sided with me in causing no attack of blurred eyesight to come upon me during the physical examination. But my final status is that of a man “Rejected for physical disability.” On the appointed day I shall register for conscription, but I presume my services will not be desired. My mother has threatened to go to any lengths, legal or otherwise, if I do not reveal all the ills which unfit me for the army. If I had realised to the full how much she would suffer through my enlistment, I should have been less eager to attempt it; but being of no use to myself it was hard for me to believe I am of use to anyone else. […] And so I am still in civil life, scribbling as of old, & looking with envious eye upon the Khaki-clad men who are now so frequently seen upon the streets of the business section & in the cars everywhere. […] Had my enlistment matured successfully, I wonder how I should have kept up! And yet—I will wager that I would have kept up some way or other. Now that death is about to become the fashion, I wish that I might meet it in the most approved way, “Somewhere in France”.
H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 23 May 1917, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner & Others 83-84

The effect on Lovecraft was dejection. While readers today might be glad that Lovecraft did not die as part of the American Expeditionary Force, for Lovecraft it was as those who hold their manhood cheap on St. Crispin’s Day. In a subsequent letter, he lamented:

I am feeling desolate & lonely indeed as a civilian. Practically all my personal acquaintances are now in some branch of the service, mostly Plattsburg or R.I.N.G. Yesterday one of my closest friends entered the Medical (not as a doctor, but as an assistant—carrying stretchers, driving ambulances, &c. &c.) Corps of the regular army. The physical tests for this corps are very light, & in spite of my previous rejection for Coast Artillery I would try to enter, were it not for the almost frantic attitude of my mother; who makes me promise every time I leave the house that I will not make another attempt at enlistment! But it is disheartening to be the one non-combatant among a profusion of proud recruits.
H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 22 Jun 1917, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner & Others 85

As it was, Lovecraft had to content himself by offering what moral support he could, in the form of poems in praise of those who could serve. This is the context we must imagine for when Lovecraft was writing “The Peace Advocate”: fighting had been going on for almost three years, yet the United States retained its stubborn neutrality as the Allies and the Central Powers engaged in bloody trench warfare in Europe, allied shipping faced German submarines, Britain itself was bombed from the air by zeppelins, and around the world the colonies and allies of the two sides clashed in a truly global conflict.

“The Peace Advocate” is a narrative poem about a conscientious vicar who opposes war (implicitly on religious grounds), even as his son goes off to fight, until the invaders literally land on his doorstep, destroying his church. The vicar regains his masculine ferocity (“manhood’s thought,” “with the manhood he had found,” “wak’d to man’s estate”) and fights to defend his home—too late, for his wife and daughter both die in the fray.

The politics and philosophy are not complex, and would be counted as propaganda if published by some government outlet. The fore are faceless, the reasons and causes of the war utterly unknown and opaque. It’s enough that they are the invaders in the universe of the poem. Lovecraft makes no effort to understand the peace advocate’s position or give them any arguments for opposing war; the combat and loss, on the other hand, are effective and brutal to support the moral. In failing to join the fight in time, the vicar has failed as a husband and father…and perhaps importantly, burns his book.

Prieſt. Give peace in our time, O Lord;
Anſw. Becauſe there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God.
1662 Book of Common Prayer

Lovecraft was a materialist and atheist; while not militantly anti-Christian, he did oppose the passivity and turn-the-other-cheek theology as counter to his ideas of the natural character of white people. Influenced by Nietzsche and similar thinkers, Lovecraft attributed this attitude to the Jewish origin of Christianity. As he would put it after the war:

Semiticism has never done anything save harm when forced upon us or adopted by accident. It gave us the puling hypocrises of the Christian doctrine—us, who by every law of Nature are virile, warlike, and beauty-loving pagans and Northern polytheists!
H. P. Lovecraft to Frank Belknap Long, 21 Aug 1926, Selected Letters 2.67

It is a rhetorical trick to make the subject of the poem a Christian priest, because Lovecraft can imply a religious motivation for antiwar sentiment without actually engaging with any religious arguments.

Of all the stanzas in the poem, one in particular stands out in its imagery as possibly being inspired by another poem:

His son had buckled on his sword,
The first at the front was he;
But the vicar his valiant child ignor’d,
And his noble deeds in the field deplor’d,
For he knew not bravery.

While “buckled on his sword” could be a metaphor for joining the Army and taking up arms against the foe, there is a parallel with another very well-known war song:

The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you’ll find him;
His father’s sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
“Land of song!” said the warrior-bard,
“Tho’ all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!”
Thomas Moore, “The Minstrel Boy”

This could be simply parallel imagery: Moore was after all writing specifically from an Irish nationalist perspective, while Lovecraft was in the midst of his anti-Irish period, and there wasn’t much common purpose there. On the other hand, there would be a certain irony in appropriating the image of the boy who clads on his father’s sword to go to war, when the father himself stays home as a take-that to Irish nationalists who refused to fight in Britain’s aid. Lovecraft’s letters are silent on the subject, no doubt to maintain the illusion that “Elizabeth Berkeley” had written the verses.

Lovecraft’s motivations and ideology in writing this piece were wrapped up in contemporary politics and ideas of masculinity, national identity, and racial identity; he failed to attempt to accurately understand or present anti-war arguments in his letters, essays, and poems, because his rhetorical purpose was in support of the side of the conflict he identified with. It is one thing to understand, from an intellectual standpoint and the distance of years, how Lovecraft’s ideas and rhetoric were shaped by the forces of his life…and there are flaws in both.

Yet how would “The Peace Advocate” be received in Ukraine if it was published in 2023? As the men and women of that nation strive to defend their people, their culture, and their borders from the invading military forces of the Russian Federation? Would they not see parallels between the parable of “Elizabeth Berkeley” and Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians and the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa?

While Lovecraft’s ideology is flawed and his rhetoric ignores real tenets of and arguments for pacifism, or conscientious objection, there is an argument to be made that in the face of unprovoked aggression, there exists a moral justification to take up arms and resist. Every individual, and nation, has the right to self-defense—and if necessary, to meet deadly force with deadly force. Slava Ukraini.

“The Peace Advocate” is not one of Lovecraft’s more influential works, in part because he never openly acknowledged authorship and it has seldom been reprinted. There is nothing weird or supernatural about it, there are no connections to the Mythos, and it was written years before Weird Tales first hit the stands or Cthulhu was conceived. That it holds any resonance to events in 2023, over a century after it was first published, is due only to the fact that war is as much a reality today as it was then. In that respect at least, less has changed than we might have hoped.

“The Peace Advocate” may be read in its entirety at https://hplovecraft.com.

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

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Deeper Cut: Jean Ray and Weird Tales

Historical Antisemitism Warning
Some quotes in this article contain antisemitic sentiments from translations of stories written in the 1920s. These quotes are included as part of a discussion of the historical context of antisemitism in relation to weird fiction and Weird Tales. Reader discretion is advised.

The shortest tale, John Flanders’ Nude With a Dagger, was a peach. Let’s hear more from him.
Jack Darrow in “The Eyrie,” Weird Tales Jan 1935

The November 1934 issue of Weird Tales featured a cover by Margaret Brundage illustrating a scene from E. Hoffmann Price’s “Queen of the Lilin”; Robert E. Howard’s latest serial of Conan the Cimmerian, “The People of the Black Circle,” came to its conclusion; and familiar names like August Derleth, Dorothy Quick, Kirk Mashburn, Arlton Eadie, and Paul Ernst all made an appearance. A highlight for many readers was a reprint of “The Music of Erich Zann” by H. P. Lovecraft—and right before it, a new author, one John Flanders with the provocatively-titled “Nude with a Dagger.” Lovecraft must have seen the story, and probably read it, though he made no comment on it at that time. Yet it was not the last time John Flanders would appear in Weird Tales…and Lovecraft would take note of him.

Raymundus Joannes de Kremer (8 July 1887 – 17 September 1964) was a Belgian (Flemish) writer born in Ghent. His first book of weird fiction, Les Contes du Whisky (“Whisky Tales,” 1925) published under the pen-name Jean Ray garnered immediate praise; critic Gérard Harry dubbed him “the Belgian Edgar Allan Poe.” This literary fame was brief; de Kremer was arrested and convicted for embezzlement in 1926, and served two years in prison. On his release, de Kremer wrote to live in multiple languages and under many pseudonyms—weird fiction and detective stories in French as Jean Ray, boy’s adventure stories in Dutch as John Flanders, etc.

The United States possessed both a tremendous appetite for fiction and a considerable production capacity; millions of words were being written every month for pulp magazines in the United States in the 1930s, and some of those magazines were being distributed internationally, or repackaged and produced in localized versions, as sometimes happened in the United Kingdom and Canada. Translations both into and out of English also occurred; a savvy pulp writer who sold only the North American serial rights to a story could have their agent sell the story to international markets. The payments for translation rights were often less than the original sale, but the same story could be sold multiple times to different language markets and make a decent profit. The same was true, to a smaller extent, for stories translated into English for the pulp market. The only trick was finding a pulp willing to pay for them.

Weird Tales represented an unusually approachable market for non-English fantastic fiction. Fantasies and exotica translated into English was nothing new; the 1,001 Nights filtered into English originally from French editions, and Greek and Roman ghost stories would be familiar to Classics students. In his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature” H. P. Lovecraft noted the fame of certain German and French writers of the weird whose work had filtered into English translation, as well as Lafcadio Hearn whose Kwaidan (1904) had helped to popularize Japanese ghost stories and folk tales. Weird Tales had included occasional translations from as early as 1923, under Edwin Baird, and editor Farnsworth Wright continued the practice—not always regularly, but occasionally. This included works like “Fioraccio” (WT Oct 1934) by Giovanni Magherini-Graziani and “The Violet Death” (WT Jul 1935) by Gustav Meyrink…and de Kremer, aka Jean Ray, aka John Flanders.

English-language readers first encountered Jean Ray’s fiction in the 1930s, when Roy Temple House, the founding editor of Books Abroad, translated seven stroeis fro the American pulp magazines Weird Tales, Terror Tales, and Dime Mystery. These works all appeared under the Flanders pseudonym. […] House translated other authors from French and German for Weird Tales during the mid-1930s, most notably Gustav Meyrink, but Jean Ray’s ales appear to have dominated his efforts for the pulps. These early translations of the author’s work are competent and flow smoothly. House tok some liberties with his source material: he made significant changes in at least one case, and the titles are often complete different, though to what extant these English titles were his doing or the results of editorial decisions is unclear. His versions are faithful to the overall content, however, if not always down to the level of the sentence or word. A more incisive criticism might be that House did not choose the best of Jean Ray’s material in print by that point, though perhaps not all of it was available to him.
Scott Nicolay, translator’s introduction to Whiskey Tales (2019), xi-xii

It was in these translated stories in Weird Tales in the mid-1930s that Lovecraft got his only taste of Jean Ray’s work—and even filtered through Roy Temple House’s translation and Farnsworth Wright’s editing, he found them worth commenting on, at least in passing. For fans of Lovecraft or Ray, it is worth considering each of these translations in turn.

“Nude with a Dagger” (WT Nov 1934)

The old money-lender bumped into a weird problem that all his hardness could not penetrate.
Weird Tales Epigraph

This story first appeared in Les contes du whisky (1925) under the title “Le Tableaux” (“The Portrait”). Scott Nicolay noted that Jean Ray’s collections work on themes, which are often lost when stories are taken out of that context. In this case, the tale of a pawnbroker and the dead man’s vengeance echoes several other tales in the same book, variations on a theme of supernatural comeuppance. The thrust of the plot is well-worn; Lovecraft assayed something thematically similar in “In the Vault” (1925), and usurers and pawnbrokers are familiar villains from Shakespeare’s Shylock on down. The degree to which translators can take liberties with the original might be glimpsed by comparing two translations:

Gryde chuckled. Having noticed me, he motioned for me to examine a medium-sized canvas standing in the library. I had a moment of astonishment and admiration. I had never seen anything so beautiful before. It was a large figure of a nude man, godlike in beauty, approaching from some far-off realm of clouds and distant thunderstorms, of night and flames.	Gryde sneered. When he noticed me, he called my attention to a moderately large painting which stood against his bookcase. When I caught sight of it, I started with surprize and admiration. It seemed to me that I had never seen anything so perfect. It was a life-sized nude, a man as handsome as a god, standing out against a vague, cloudy background, a background of tempest, night and flame.
“The Portrait,” trans. Scott Nicolay, Whiskey Tales 144	“Nude with a Dagger,” trans. House, Weird Tales Nov 1934

In his notes to the translation, Nicolay notes the provocativeness of the title, and suggests a “bait-and-switch,” a shock to readers expecting a female nude. What strikes me, however, is the last part of the title—”with a dagger” is more than a slight foreshadowing of the story’s end, almost giving the game away, as happened when H. P. Lovecraft’s “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” was published in its pages as “The White Ape.” Weird Tales had a habit of “spoiling” stories a bit in this way, which as much as anything suggests that editor Farnsworth Wright may have had a hand in the title.

Lovecraft never referred to this tale in any of his published letters, though he could hardly have missed it. Weird Tales readers seemed divided on it, with one reader noting it “falls into the class of the stale plot”; another simply called it “rank.” In truth it probably isn’t that bad, but as a small and homely tale of spectral vengeance, it is a little too familiar in outline and bereft of style to have much impact on veteran Weird Tales readers.

“The Graveyard Duchess” (WT Dec 1934)

The tale of a ghastly horror that stalked at night through the cemetery—a blood-chilling story of the Undead
Weird Tales Epigraph

“Le gardien du cimetière” (“The Cemetery Guard”) first appeared in abridged form in Ciné (30 Nov 1919), the complete version in Le journal de Gand (3 Aug 1920), at which journal Ray would be part of the editorial staff in the 1920s, and it was included in Les contes du whisky. Once again, Weird Tales does not go for subtlety: the title, opening illustration, and epigraph all more than hint at the nature of the story and the eponymous duchess. Yet for all that, like many of Jean Ray’s other stories in Whiskey Tales, while the subject matter isn’t terribly original, there is a charm in the manner of the telling, and the manner of the ending fits well with similar stories in Weird Tales. Most of the comments in the Eyrie concerning this issue are taken up with Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and the sensational debut of C. L. Moore, but reader Fred Anger wrote:

John Flanders’ The Graveyard Duchess was next in line; despite its briefness, it was well written, and the hackneyed vampire plot was given a new twist. More from Flanders.

Another reader who enjoyed “The Graveyard Duchess” was H. P. Lovecraft:

The Derleth-Schorer & Byrne stories are both good of their kind, while “The Graveyard Duchess” is really excellent.
H. P. Lovecraft to F. Lee Baldwin, 7 Dec 1934, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin et al. 114

While Lovecraft was not over-fond of vampire tales, he did appreciate those that approached the old idea from a different angle, like “The Canal” (1927) by Everil Worrell. In that respect, “The Graveyard Duchess” as it develops is almost a psychological horror tale until the end, and in the manner of its narration—a frame-story of explaining matters to the authorities—it shares the same basic approach that Lovecraft would take in stories like “The Statement of Randolph Carter” and “The Thing on the Doorstep.” Also like the latter story, the ending essentially involves emptying a revolver into an undead corpse.

The brevity of the story was probably a plus for Wright, who would often be stuck trying to fill the pages between longer stories.

“The Aztec Ring” (WT Apr 1935)

A story of the grim and terrible conflict that took place one night in a pawnbroker’s shop
Weird Tales Epigraph

“Josuah Güllick, Prêteur sur gages” (“Josuah Güllick, Pawnbroker”) was first published in L’Ami due livre (15 Apr 1924); a slightly revised version appeared in Les contes du whisky the next year. This was the story most altered between its initial French version and the English translation that ran in Weird Tales; while readers might guess with the given name “Josuah” or “Joshua” who was depicted as a greedy pawnbroker was intended as a Jewish stereotype character, in the original there is no question of the antisemitism:

When whiskey unlocks the magnificent door to the City of Dreams, I envision myself in a room piled high with all the luxuries I have glimpsed in museums, in the displays of fine department stores, and pictures in fancy books. A huge fireplace surrounds me with its friendly glow, a club chair soothes my limbs, the heavenly liquor casts strange flames at the whims of crystal decanter, and upon the dark marble of a high, high chimney, bold letters are inscribed:

May God punish the Jews!

Alas, all my wealth is there, in the City of Mirages. My stove is more often red with rust than with flames, and the inscription of my contempt is not in golden letters in the beautiful polished stone of a fireplace, but in the aching flesh of my heart—and each night my prayer carries to God the cry of my singular hatred:

May God punish the Jews!
“”Josuah Güllick, Pawnbroker”,” trans. Scott Nicolay, Whiskey Tales 144

Almost twenty years after the Dreyfus affair and eight years before Adolf Hitler would become Chancellor of Germany, antisemitism was still rife in Europe. This style of fantastic tale that centers around prejudice wasn’t unknown in French-language literature at the time; Black Magic (1929) by Paul Morand being another example focused more on anti-Black prejudice and stereotypes. The surprise is not that these words were written as much as that somewhere between Ghent and Chicago, where Weird Tales had its offices, someone had the good sense to strike out these two passages and every other overt bit of antisemitism in the story. There were other, smaller changes to the story, too. Originally the gem set in the ring is an “Inca jewel”; presumably “Aztec” had a bit more familiarity and cachet, and so it became the new title, taking further attention away from the original subject.

Without those passages, the story turns from an explicitly antisemitic morality play to a more generalized anti-usury story—very much in the vein of “Nude with a Dagger.” Readers gave it faint praise, noting “The Aztec Ring was very good of its type.” Lovecraft was more blunt:

“The Aztec Ring” & “The Man Who Could Not Go Home” are routine stuff.
H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 20 Apr 1935, O Fortunate Floridian 255

Lovecraft, who increasingly copied portions of his letters to multiple correspondents to help deal with his massive correspondence, said the same thing to Emil Petaja (LWP 429). It is perhaps worth noting that this was the second time Jean Ray and Lovecraft appeared together in Weird Tales though neither under their real name: Lovecraft was represented by “Out of the Æons” as by Hazel Heald.

“The Mystery of the Last Guest” (WT Oct 1935)

Out of the black night came a grisly horror—a tale of stark terror
Weird Tales epigraph

“Le Dernier Voyageur” (“The Last Guest” or “The Last Traveller”) was first published in La Revue Belge (1 May 1929), and then republished in the collection La croisière des ombres: Histoires hantées de terre et de mer (“The Shadow Cruise: Haunted Tales of Sea and Air,” 1932). These were the stories that came out of Jean Ray’s two years of incarceration, where his mind could roam free, even if his body could not. As with Whisky Tales, the collection has a theme that works better together, one story dovetailing with another, than apart. In truth, the stories in La croisière des ombres verge much more closely on the kind of fiction that William Hope Hodgson and Algernon Blackwood would write than the earlier stories of supernatural vengeance and comeuppance; it would have been fascinating to get Lovecraft’s comments on Jean Ray’s “The Mainz Psalter”—but instead, the last tale of John Flanders that Lovecraft read was “The Mystery of the Last Guest.”

In the original French, there is a certain playfulness and precision of language that is lost; set as it is in an English seaside resort, some of the original lines were in English, and the names like Buttercup and Chickenbread are, as Nicolay points out, very Dickensian. Like “The Graveyard Duchess,” the horror is initially very much psychological rather than supernatural, only at the end does Ray leave some evidence to suggest the unseen reality. Unlike that earlier tale, his development of the plot is slower and more careful, the tension building steadily to a revelation …and then a kind of afterthought or meditation. It is without question the weirdest of the four John Flanders stories, and even in House’s translation probably scans the best. Readers of Weird Tales appear to agree when they wrote:

The Mystery of the Last Guest left me all goose-pimples. Flanders is always good. […]

The Mystery of the Last Guest by John Flanders is an excellent tale of a dreadful menace, which is suggested, making the story extra creepy. […] My selections for first, second, and third places are, respectively, The Mystery of the Last Guest, The Cold Grey God, and In a Graveyard.
Weird Tales Dec 1935

Despite the accolades, the praise for Flanders was entirely overshadowed by praise for C. L. Moore, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and other popular and prolific writers. While Farnsworth Wright wouldn’t give up on using the occasional translation in Weird Tales, the experiment with John Flanders seems to have run its course by the end of 1935. Whether this was a matter of cost or lack of reader response or both, no one can say now. It probably didn’t help that Jean Ray happened to hit the page at the same time as startling new talents like C. L. Moore.

The first note Lovecraft received on “The Mystery of the Last Guest” came from Price:

In my hasty critique of WT shorts, I overlooked John Flanders’ story—I hereby make an amendment of the blanket indictment. His drawing of the characters was quite delightful and the ending—striking, when it got under one’s skin.
E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, 4 Oct 1935, MSS. John Hay Library

To which Lovecraft replied:

The Flanders story is really quite notable—with some actually convincing atmospheric touches. I’ve seen fairly good stuff of his before—especially a yarn called “The Graveyard Duchess.”
H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, 13 Oct 1935, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price and Richard F. Searight 205

Which pretty much set the stage for Lovecraft’s further comments:

October W T a trifle better than Septr. Moore & Flanders yarns good—Binder & Russell mediocre.
H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 6 Oct 1935, Essential Solitude 2.710

There was certainly some powerful atmosphere & suggestion in the central parts of that Flanders tale.
H. P. Lovecraft to Richard Ely Morse, 13 Oct 1935, Letters to Hyman Bradofsky and Others 105

W T of late has been lousy. “Vulthoom” & the Bloch item only decent Sept. features, & Oct. saved only by “Cold Grey God” & a tale by one John Flanders.
H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 21 Oct 1935, O Fortunate Floridian 300

W T is rather lousy of late. In the Sept issue “Vulthoom” & “Shambler form the Stars” barely save it from being a total loss, while “Cold Grey God” & “Last Guest” perform a similar service fro the Oct. number.
H. P. Lovecraft to Lee McBride White, 28 Oct 1935, Letters to J. Vernon Shea et al. 362

Oct. W T certainly beat the Sept. issue. I liked the Flanders tale exceedingly, & believe the author will be worth watching. He had another good thing some months ago—“The Graveyard Duchess.”
H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 12 Nov 1935, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin et al. 299

The pithy comments on the contents of Weird Tales were typical of Lovcraft’s letters; he rarely went into great detail about the stories he enjoyed or why he enjoyed the, although those occasional discussions are a real treat. In the case of John Flanders, he appears to have made enough of an impression to have been more than a blip on Lovecraft’s radar—but there would, sadly, simply be nothing more forthcoming from John Flanders in Weird Tales.

Dime Magazine and Terror Tales

Jean Ray had three other stories published in American pulps during this period:

“A Night in Camberwell,” Terror Tales (Sep 1934): “La nuit de Camberwall” first appeared in L’Ami du Livre (15 Nov 1923), collected in Les contes du whisky. A noir-esque vignette with no supernatural element.
“If Thy Right Hand Offends Thee,” Terror Tales (Nov 1934): “La dette de Gumpelmeyer” (“Gumpelmeyer’s Debt”) first appeared in Le journal de Gand (11 Oct 1922), collected in Les contes du whisky. A Jewish jeweler accidentally cuts off a hand; guilt or something more weighs on him. An antisemitic parable-cum-conte cruel in line with Ray’s other stories of the period, but notable for the image of severed or disembodied hands that reoccurs in his work.
“The Broken Idol,” Dime Mystery Magazine (Jul 1935): “Le singe” (“The Monkey) first appeared in Le journal de Gand (18 Mar 1921), collected in Les contes du whisky. A collector has bought an ivory statue of Hanuman, but does not heed the warning and suffers the consequences. Of a piece with “The Aztec Ring,” minus the antisemitism.

Terror Tales and Dime Mystery Magazine were both entries into the “shudder pulps” or “weird menace”; they rarely dealt with supernatural or super-science threats, but often included stories of weird crimes, bondage, torture, sadism, and excessive violence and cruelty. They formed minor competitors to Weird Tales, which sometimes dabbled in publishing weird menace stories itself. Given that several of the tales in Les contes du whisky have no supernatural element, if Weird Tales rejected them then the weird menace pulps may have been the only likely market—or vice versa.

There are no comments about these stories in Lovecraft’s letters, and he generally didn’t take these magazines. However, Lovecraft claimed to have purchased the first (Sep 1934) issue of Terror Tales (ES2.655, LPS 127, 326), so he probably did read at least “A Night in Camberwell.” This piece is unlikely to have raised Lovecraft’s appreciation for John Flanders.

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Florence Riley Radcliffe

Those Virginia pictures probably came from some member of that Poetry Circle branch in Washington–whose personnel persistently & rather insanely address me as “Judge” because I judged a poetry contest of theirs six years ago.
H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 20-21 May 1930, Letters to Family & Family Friends 2.841

According to census data, Florence Riley Radcliffe was born in January 1870, the first surviving child of Dr. Samuel J. Radcliffe and his wife Florence C. Radcliffe. She was joined by a little sister, Mary L., about four years later. We get only the barest outline of a life from the census data—Florence R. Radcliffe never married, her formal schooling stopped with the 8th grade, she lived all her life in Washington, D.C. with her parents and her sister, having never married. The 1900 census lists her occupation as “Author”; 1910 working in accounting for some government office; 1920 a telephone operator at a bank; by 1930 the 60-year-old Florence is listed as a “nail cutter.”

Beyond the census data, we know one thing for certain: Florence R. Radcliffe was a poet. She was a member of the American and British Poetry Societies, and the American Poetry Circle. Her first encounter with H. P. Lovecraft came in 1924, when Lovecraft served as judge for a poetry contest held by the League of American Penwomen. Four years after that contest, Lovecraft received a letter from one of the participants, Elizabeth Toldridge of Washington, D.C., sparking a correspondence that would last the rest of his life. In 1929, we get the first mention of Toldridge’s fellow Washingtonian and American Poetry Circle member Florence R. Radcliffe:

Incidentally, I trust that Miss Radcliffe will persevere in her idea of having a book, & that she will entrust its publishing to the able & conscientious W. Paul Cook. You might shew her the two Recluse Press products sent under separate cover—fair specimens (except for one hideous misprint in the Loveman book, due to an 11th hour text change & not really Cook’s fault) of Athol typography & workmanship. As to my ‘not being interested in her poetry’—I’m sure here’s nothing in the two printed specimens I ahve seen to warrant such a prophecy. I would be glad to see more, if you have any easily transmissible copies; though as I have previously pointed out, I am no authority whose verdict can be considered of any ultimate value.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 21 Feb 1929, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge 34-35

At the time, W. Paul Cook of Athol, Mass. published a few small works through his Recluse Press, including The Hermaphrodite (1926) by Samuel Loveman; Cook was also busy with a small edition of Lovecraft’s The Shunned House, but this particular endeavor would end in disarray—not that Lovecraft knew that at the time. He was simply trying to promote his friend’s printing business.

In the beginning, neither Lovecraft nor Radcliffe wrote to one another directly, so their first correspondence happened through the medium of his letters to Toldridge. We can get a sense of their correspondence during this period through passages like this one:

Oh, yes—& you need not hesitate to send specimens of Miſs Radcliffe’s work when you have some on hand; although as always, I must not be regarded as any supreme authority or final arbiter of merit. If suggestions will assist, well & good—but I can’t guarantee the insight & acumen of my suggestions! Incidentally, I am sure that Miss R’s recent depreciation of all her work is based on modesty rather than on impersonal analysis. In the matter of the last line of “Love”, she is entirely in the right; for so far as I can see, the editor’s substitution produced a wholly false, & unintended, & peculiarly meaningless implication—i.e., an implication that the answer to life is the fact that he who love knows that answer! Puzzle—find the sense! In the original, the idea is clear—that love provides an answer to life because the process of loving provides a sense of the adequacy of living. In other words, the editor’s unwarranted liberty placed the substance of the last line in the position of being the answer referred to in the line preceding; whereas the poet’s intention was obviously to have it form the reason for the condition referred to in that preceding line. So much hinges on one apparently insignificant conjunction! But I have known errors in mere punctuation to produce almost equally great distortions of meaning.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 8 Mar 1929, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge 44-45

The connection seems to have finally been made in 1929, when Radcliffe sent Lovecraft some of her poetry for review and comments. Very little of this correspondence survives; there are two letters from Radcliffe to Lovecraft and a handful of her poems listed in the inventory at Brown University in Providence. Lacking Lovecraft’s side of the correspondence, we have to rely on his letters to Toldridge with their small asides about her friend. For example:

I appreciated yours of the 27th with enclosures, & am glad you found the “Brick Row” lines worth reading. If the thing appears in print* I’ll send a pair of copeis for you & Miſs Radcliffe.

* It has appeared–this morning. Copies enclosed.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 8 Jan 1930, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge 120

This was “The East India Brick Row,” a poem Lovecraft composed on the demolition of several old brick warehouses in Providence, which was published in the local paper. It was probably this poem which caused Radcliffe to write back:

Dear Judge Lovecraft;

Thank you so much for the copy of your delightful poem – it expresses so beautifully all that I would like to say.
Florence Radcliffe to H. P. Lovecraft, 23 Jan 1930, MSS. Brown University Library

A follow-up to this exchange on the demise of old landmarks in the name of progress is recorded in Lovecraft’s letters to Toldridge:

Not long ago I received from her a magazine with a very appealing poem about the Great Falls of the Potomac, which I believe are imperilled by some miserable mechanical water-power project.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, mid-Mar 1930, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge 137

A series of dams had been proposed along the Potomac River to generate hydroelectric power and for flood control; they never came to pass, and both Radcliffe and Lovecraft would likely be happy to know that the natural features were eventually protected as part of Great Falls National Park. Radcliffe wrote a poem “Sanctuary” on the beauty of the Great Falls, which was included in her letter dated 6 Apr 1930.

Florence Radcliffe was 60 years old in 1930, and had been working in some form for her entire adult life. Reading between the lines a little, by now she was probably on the verge of retirement, if not from lack of work opportunities than from ill-health:

I’m sorry, likewise, to learn that Miss Radcliffe’s health continues to be so unsatisfactory.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, Aug 1930, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge 155

The nature of the illness is undisclosed in Lovecraft’s letters, and the possibilities are too numerous to invite speculation. She was unwell, and Lovecraft gave his sympathy and continued to correspond with her, as he did with many older people. The primary topic, besides her health, seemed to be her ongoing desire to publish a book of her poetry. Lovecraft tried to help as best he could:

I am sorry likewise to hear of Miss Radcliffe’s continued indisposition, & hope that rest & interesting activities may bring about a decided improvement. In time I am sure that you & she can issue your respective collected verse, even though a resumption of Cook’s enterprises seems unfortunately unlikely. When in Vermont I shall inquire further into the conditions & prices of the Stepehn Daye Press—Orton’s venture, which I think I mentioned to both you & Miss R. Last week I returned Miss Radcliffe’s book of manuscripts for safety’s sake; since my room is likely to be upheaved by a wholesale cleaning during my absence, & I don’t want any important items to be lost or mislaid.
H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 29 Apr 1931, Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge 182

Vrest Orton was a friend of Lovecraft’s in Vermont. Ultimately, however, it appears none of Lovecraft’s suggestions for printers panned out in the end. The references to Radcliffe get fewer in his letters to Toldridge, so there is little data to go on. They must have still been in touch as late as 1934, because Radcliffe is listed among those correspondents to whom Lovecraft sent postcards on his trip to Nantucket (Collected Essays 5.267), and the final reference to her in his letters to Toldridge is in 1936.

In many ways, Florence Radcliffe’s letters to H. P. Lovecraft were the shadow of Elizabeth Toldridge’s own correspondence. While we can’t but guess at the true extant, she found in Lovecraft someone who encouraged and praised her poetry, who shared her appreciation for old landmarks, a sympathetic ear for her pains and praise for her small victories when a poem was placed or an honorable mention awarded. A small friendship via letters, but perhaps a light in the waning days of life.

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

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Bertha Rausch

Bertha M. Rausch 1935 Rhode Island Census Card

Bertha was born c. 1863 in the Kingdom of Hungary, and her native tongue was Magyar. In 1882 she emigrated to the United States, and in 1883 she married Anthony Rausch, another Hungarian immigrant who was about 11-12 years her senior and had immigrated in 1875. The 1900 census data lists Anthony Rausch as a confectioner, living in Providence, Rhode Island with his wife and two daughters, Flora Marie (b. 1888) and Isabella (b. 1900). The decades of census data and the occasional newspaper article trace the broad strokes of their lives: in 1910 they were in New York; in 1920, Fort Meyers, Florida, now sans children. Then in 1926:

In 1930, the widowed Bertha M. Rausch was living a retired life in Providence, Rhode Island, alone in a rooming house; her daughters were grown, her husband was dead. No doubt she took some comfort with her friends and neighbors, such as Annie E. P. Gamwell—and when in early 1936 Annie fell ill and had to be hospitalized, Bertha came a-calling:

Awakened 9 a.m. by bell—Mrs. Rausch calling. She was tremendously sorry to hear you are ill. Is moving back to #67.
H. P. Lovecraft, diary for Monday, March 30, 1936, Letters to Family & Family Friends 2.992

Presumably, Lovecraft had at least heard of Mrs. Rausch of old from his aunt, if they had not met before. #67 refers to a house on Slater Avenue, where she and Annie had once been neighbors. It isn’t clear how Bertha learned of Annie’s illness—perhaps they still met on occasion, or kept in touch, or had friends in common that passed on the news—but after her visit, it would only be polite of Lovecraft to write her a letter. So he did.

Then wrote Rausch & Sisson notes & mailed them. Then dinner.
H. P. Lovecraft, diary for Monday, March 30, 1936, Letters to Family & Family Friends 2.992

Charles Peck Sisson and his wife Margaret A. Sisson were members of the Providence Art Club, as was Annie; Lovecraft’s letter to (presumably) Margaret Sisson is not known to survive, but the full letter to Bertha M. Rausch is preserved at the John Hay Library in Providence:

As might be expected, the letter is principally concerned with Lovecraft’s aunt and an invitation for Mrs. Rausch to visit her friend at the hospital, whenever it is convenient. Whether or not she did, we do not know—but we know that Bertha kept in touch with Annie, and scarcely a year later when Howard himself was dead, she returned the letter to her friend. On the envelope, Annie wrote:

The letter my dear Howard wrote to Mrs. Rausch when I was ill—She was so pleased with it & savied it & brought it to me after my beloved Howard’s death.

If this correspondence seems unusually brief, well, so it was: Bertha was Annie’s friend, and Lovecraft as the conscientious nephew was serving as his aunt’s secretary and factotum during the period of her hospitalization and convalescence, all while managing his own correspondence and writing. We are fortunate at least that Bertha and Annie both thought so well of Howard’s letter that it was preserved, and was finally kept along with his other papers as an eloquent testament to the care he devoted to his aunt during Annie’s presumed battle with breast cancer and recovery.

An abridged version of this letter was first published in Arkham House’s Selected Letters V; the full text of the letter was published by Hippocampus Press in Letters to Family and Family Friends.

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

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Jennie K. Plaisier

Further versified contributions are those of Mrs. Jennie M. Kendall and Dr. O. M. Blood. Mrs. Kendall’s ballad is marked by attractive animation and commendable correctness, but Dr. Blood should exercise more care in his use of rhyme and metre.
H. P. Lovecraft, “Department of Public Criticism,” United Amateur Sep 1918 in Collected Essays 1.205

She was born Jane Irene Maloney in 1882 (according to her grave marker)—but she was better known throughout her life as Jennie. The daughter of Irish immigrants and raised in Chicago, Jennie was listed as a student in the 1900 Federal census, and the 1910 census gives her profession as a stenographer. Yet beyond her professional duties, Jennie Maloney was a noted amateur journalist involved with the National Amateur Press Association. She was elected as Corresponding Secretary of NAPA in 1905, and in 1908 she served as Historian under Official Editor Frank A. Kendall. In 1911, Jennie and Frank married; they both continued in amateurdom, and the union produced a daughter Betty.

In 1913, Frank Kendall was elected as President of NAPA. Unfortunately, on 23 November 1913, only four months into his term, he died from meningitis. Jennie Kendall was elected to fulfill the remainder of her late husband’s term, incidentally becoming the second female president of NAPA. By the time H. P. Lovecraft joined amateur journalism in 1914, her term would have ended. While raising her child as a single mother, Jennie would continue as an amateur journalist, and that is apparently how Lovecraft first knew her—as Mrs. Jennie Kendall. (See A History of the National Amateur Press Association.)

It is not exactly clear when Lovecraft and Jennie fell into correspondence, though it may have been as early as the 1920s. The Rainbow Vol. II, No. 2 (May 1922) by Sonia H. Greene (ed.) includes a poem “The Distant Forest” by 9-year-old Betty Jane Kendall, and precocious as that young amateur journalist might have been, it was probably her mother that stamped and mailed the poem in when Lovecraft & Greene needed material. No doubt Jennie and Lovecraft read of each other in amateur journals, but if they had any correspondence during this time, it has not come down to us.

In 1920, Jennie remarried to John Plaisier, a schoolteacher, and she took his name, becoming Jennie K. Plaisier. In 1935, Jennie, Lovecraft, and amateur Vincent B. Haggerty were elected to serve as a panel of judges for the awarding of the NAPA laureateships for 1935-1936…and there they ran into the bane of every small organization’s existence: petty politics.

My letter to Mrs. Plaisier was sent to Haggerty for reading & forwarding on Nov. 2; but he seems to have been slow in attending to the matter, since I’ve just had a note from Mrs. P. dated Nov. 6 & containing no sign of his having received my commiseration. Fortunately I had an extra carbon of my letter, which I’ve now sent her. […] Smith’s position is an extremely destructive one. A liberal attitude toward red tape regulations is all that has kept the National—or any organisation—a living institution—indeed, if this quibbling ultra-constitutionalism were retroactive, it would illegalise half our existing laureate awards & wipe out of technical existence the administration of some of our most useful & counterfeit officers! Rigidity is death to progress. I have fought legalism in amateur journalism for 20 years, & certainly don’t want to see it employed today for the gratification of a private grudge!
H. P. Lovecraft to Edward H. Cole, 19 Nov 1935, Letters to Alfred Galpin & Others 133

Two works in Ralph W. Babcock, Jr.’s amateur journal the Red Rooster (May 1935) were up for a laureateship, but he had made an enemy of fellow-amateur Edwin Hadley Smith. The quarrel was personal, but it played out in amateurdom: Smith brought up an obscure and unused rule in the NAPA constitution in an effort to show that Babcock’s publication with the items in question did not meet the legal definition of an amateur paper, and so were ineligible for any award. Smith wrote to Lovecraft to declare the works invalid; Lovecraft demurred. As Lovecraft put it:

I think I may have a fight on my hands—with our dear old pal Hadley. he has challenged the story & history laureate awards on the ground that they did not appear in a properly published paper—all of this of course being an effort to give Babcock a jolt, since the May Red Rooster is the paper in question. I disapprove of the use of virtually obsolete legal technicalities as adjuncts to private vengeance, hence as Exec. Judge will not give a decision until I have had proof that the original spring edition of the Rooster lacked the normal matter & circulation which would make it a paper. Smith is pretty well riled up about this, & would like to force my resignation if he could. Mrs. Plaisier is on his side, & Haggerty won’t vote because he was laureate judge of history.
H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 13 Dec 1935, O Fortunate Floridian 305

Old Hadley is trying to bulldoze me into giving an early decision in his favour—for it appears that my vote would be decisive. In response, I urbanely tell him to go to hell. Mrs. Plaisier—the chairman of the judges—seems to be in his favour, while Haggerty refuses to act because he was laureate judge of the disputed history entry.
H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 15 Dec 1935, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin et al. 304

Whether Lovecraft told Edwin Hadley Smith to go to hell or not, his letters to Jennie Plaisier were no doubt much more formal and cordial, as untangling the truth of the matter and negotiating the dispute with his fellow judges required an exchange of more than a few letters between Lovecraft, Plaisier, and Haggerty. Eventually, a compromise was reached: Babcock declined the history laureateships, while the other went to Richard Foster for his piece in the Red Rooster.

The final verdict was released in a joint letter by Lovecraft, Plaisier, and Haggerty titled “Report of the Executive Judges” and dated 25 Apr 1936, along with various other bits of business. It was, to put it simply, a busy year, and must have generated a fair bit of correspondence between Lovecraft and Plaisier. Most of this, however, has not come to light. The “Reporter of the Executive Judges” has been reprinted in the Collected Essays volume 1 and the volume of Miscellaneous Letters, but only a part of a single letter from Lovecraft to Plaisier has seen print.

This letter fragment is dated 8 Jul 1936, and deals exclusively with Lovecraft’s politics…and his shift in politics over the course of his life:

Dear J. K. P.:—

[…]

Regarding extra-associational politics—I can sympathize very strongly with you in your state of isolatoin, since my own position is very similar. The background surrounding me (despite some wavering on my aunt’s part in response to my repeated arguments) is solidly old-guard Republican, whereas I myself have been increasingly a left-winger ever since the advent of the depression began to force me into real thought on the subject of economic and political trends.

I used to be a hide-bound Tory simply for traditional and antiquarian reasons—and because I had never done any real thinking on civics and industry and the future. The depression—and its concomitant publicisation of industrial, financial, and governmental problems—jolted me out of my lethargy and led me to reëxamine the facts of history in the light of unsentimental scientific analysis; and it was not long before I realised what an ass I had been. The liberals at whom I used to laugh were the ones who were right—for they were living in the present while I had been living in the past. They had been using science whilst I had been using romantic antiquarianism. At last I began to recognise something of the way in which capitalism works—always piling up concentrated wealth and impoverishing the bulk of the population until the strain becomes so intolerable as to force artificial reform. Sparta before Agis and Cleomenes. Rome before the Gracchi and Ceasar. Always the same story. And now accelerated a thousandfold through the unprecedented conditions of mechanised industry. Well—I was converted at last, and in the spring of 1931 took the left-wing side of social and political arguments for the first time in a long life. Nor has there been any retreat. Instead, I have gone even farther toward the left—although totally rejecting the special dogmatisms of pure Marxism, which are certainly founded on definite scientific and philosophical fallacies. I am all for continuous development and revolutions—and it seems to me that the nations with a naturally orderly and liberal tradition have a very fair chance of developing in the proper direction without any cataclysmic upheavals. Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries are far ahead of the United States, but even the latter is coming along despite its ingrained tradition of harsh acquistiveness. So today I am a New Dealer—perfectly conscious of the waste and bungling necessarily connected with experimentation, but convinced that open-minded experiment with all its faults is vastly better than efficient and economical progress toward the wrong goal.

The entire basic philosophy upon which old-time Republicanism is founded is at best a barbarous one, and at present an obsolete and unworkable fallacy. it leads only to increasing stress and ultimate explosion. Laissez-faire economics under present conditions means the permanent displacement of more and more persons from the industrial fabric. it is time that the state adopted general public welfare, rather than the protection of heavy individual profits, as its guiding policy and aim.

It may possibly interest you to see the general formulation of my new position which I prepared in the earlier days of my conversion—hence I am sending a couple of documents which you needn’t read through if they promise boredom. Some of their phases may seem rather out-of-date in 1936, but the general picture of my philosphical orientation still holds good. Pardon the illegible condition of the 1934 newspaper letter—a rough draught of something that was never printed! it is sometimes amusing to show these things to people who knew me in my Tory days, and who still have not kept track of my evolution. Poor George W. Macauley—still a stubborn reactionary—was almost paralysed by the horrible transformation which had come over the old gentleman! No need to hurry about returning the stuff—and no need to read it if it looks excessively dull.

Yrs. most sincerely,
H. P. L.
H. P. Lovecraft to Jennie K. Plaisier, 8 Jul 1936, Letters to Hyman Bradofsky & Others 389-390

These views track with the development of Lovecraft’s politics over the course of his life; whether the subject came up as a result of the dispute of amateur constitutionalism or arose separately—other amateurs had noted the same shift in Lovecraft’s politics, which were very different in the mid-1930s than they had been during his days publishing his amateur journal The Conservative. Whatever the case, it seems clear that their correspondence continued for a little while after their mutual service on the Executive Judgeship was completed. They may have continued writing to one another as late as 1937, for Jennie K. Plaisier’s address is listed in Lovecraft’s 1937 diary (see Lovecraft Annual #6.171).

After Lovecraft’s death, Jennie wrote of their friendship:

I mourn him very much, as we had become very fond of each other during the Executive Judgeship days that you caused us so many gray hairs. I shall miss his letters and his helpfulness a great deal. I have quite a bit of his work on hand that he had sent to me and it may be valuable material. We shared the same political outlook. He was won over to my “modern revolution” theor from an old rock-bottom republicanism and during the last campaign had quite a time with his relatives and friends because of his attitude to the “new Deal.” These are not idle words when I say his passing is a great loss for A.J.
Jennie K. Plaisier to Edwin Hadley Smith, 26 Mar 1937, MSS. Brown University Library

The 1936 letter fragment was first published in Selected Letters 5.279-280, an expanded version with more of the letter was published in Letters to Hyman Bradofsky & Others 389-390.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard & Others (2019) and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos (2014).

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“The Rats in the Walls” (1956) by H. P. Lovecraft

Racist Language

The following article deals explicitly with racist language in a historical context. Frank discussion of these matters requires the reproduction of at least some samples of these pejoratives. As such, please be advised before reading further.

As I have said, I moved in on July 16, 1923. My household consisted of seven servants and nine cats, of which latter species I am particularly fond. My eldest cat, “Nigger-Man”, was seven years old and had come with me from my home in Bolton, Massachusetts; the others I had accumulated whilst living with Capt. Norrys’ family during the restoration of the priory.	I moved in on July 16, 1953. My household consisted of seven servants and nine cats, of which latter species I am particularly fond. My eldest cat, Black Tom, was seven years old and had come with me from my home in Bolton, Massachusetts; the others I had accumulated while living with Capt Norrys’ family during the restoration of the priory.
“The Rats in the Walls” (Weird Tales Mar 1924)	“The Rats in the Walls” (Zest Jan 1956)

In January 1956, the premiere issue of Zest: The Magazine for Men debuted on the newsstands of the United States. Zest was one of a crowd of men’s magazines, from the upscale Playboy (which featured nude photographs of women) to men’s adventure pulps like Cavalier and Swank. Weird fiction in these magazines wasn’t unknown; Playboy had reprinted William Hope Hodgson’s “The Voice in the Night” in the July 1954 issue. The point of such magazines was not just titillation, but adult entertainment of a broad, masculine stripe—everything from frank articles about sex to lurid tales of escapes from Nazi death camps, real and imagined.

In that context, the decision of a new men’s magazine with a broadly scattershot tabloid approach to content reprinting an H. P. Lovecraft story isn’t necessarily that odd. “The Rats in the Walls” was broadcast on the cover as “The greatest horror story ever told!” and the copyright notice was to H. P. Lovecraft—by then dead almost 19 years, and with August Derleth and Arkham House acting in de facto control of the estate. Presumably, Derleth would have been happy to let them reprint the story for a modest fee.

What sets the 1956 version of “The Rats in the Walls” apart, however, is not the simple fact of its publication but the editorial changes that went along with it. The story was initially set in 1923, the year it was written, and features as background the Great War. In the Zest version, the setting is shifted to 1953, post-World War II. The story was also abridged, jettisoning some of Lovecraft’s verbiage, taking a hatchet to his paragraphs so that they would more easily fit in the three-column magazine format, and perhaps most notably, changing the name of the cat from “Nigger-Man” to “Black Tom.”

For all that Lovecraft has a reputation as a racist, much of that reputation is based on his private letters rather than his published fiction. Lovecraft used the word “nigger” just 31 times in five stories—”The Rats in the Walls” (19), “Medusa’s Coil” (6), “Winged Death” (3), “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” (2), and “The Picture in the House” (1)—although he occasionally used other similar terms (“Nig” for the black cat in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, “darky” and “darkies” once each in “Medusa’s Coil,” etc.). More important than how often or not Lovecraft used these terms was why and how he used them; in many instances, the terms are used by racist characters, and we know they’re racist because they use those terms; the use of pejoratives was a way for Lovecraft to establish that part of their character.

In the case of “The Rats in the Walls” and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, however, things are different. The use of the terms “Nig” and “Nigger-Man” are very specific references to black cats, and rather than being narrative contrivances to announce a character as being racist, they are expressly drawn from Lovecraft’s own life:

I can assure you that Nigger-Man is (or was, alas!) a glorious and purring reality!
H. P. Lovecraft to Edwin Baird, 3 Feb 1924, Letters to Woodburn Harris and Others 49

Nigger-Man (or Nig) had been the name of Lovecraft’s own childhood pet, a black cat that the family had adopted and named at an unknown point. The first reference to “Nig” is in a letter from Whipple Phillips (Lovecraft’s grandfather) to a young HPL in 1895. We don’t know if a young H. P. Lovecraft named the cat himself, or if one of the adults named it. We do know that whoever named it, the adults apparently tolerated the name, which wasn’t an unusual name for an animal with black coloring at the time; the cat aboard the Terra Nova during Robert Falcon Scott’s 1910-1913 Antarctic expedition carried the name, for example. It isn’t clear when the use of the word declined as a pet name in the US, but anecdotal evidence suggests after WW2.

In later life Lovecraft would refer to black cats by similar names:

When I speak to little Sam I call him all sorts of things—“Little Black Devil”, “Old Nigger Man”, “Spawn of the Shadows”, “Little Piece of the Night”, “Old Black Panther”, “Little Onyx Sphinx”, “Child of Bast”, & so on, & so on ….. Not excluding the succinct & universal “kittie”!
H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 10 Aug 1934, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin, etc. 200-201

The cat vanished in 1904, the tumultuous year that saw the death of Lovecraft’s grandfather, which forced Lovecraft and his mother to move from the family home into reduced quarters, and began the long slide into genteel poverty. Lovecraft never again could afford a true pet, though he enjoyed neighborhood kitties like the above-mentioned Sam Perkins and remembered his former cat for the rest of his life.

Editor Edwin Baird had already published stories that contained the word “nigger” in Weird Tales, and the use of the name for black-furred pets was so common during the period as to be almost innocuous; no doubt he didn’t think twice about publishing “The Rats in the Walls” in 1924. Nor did editor Farnsworth Wright, who succeeded Baird, change the cat’s name when he reprinted “The Rats in the Walls” in the June 1930 issue of Weird Tales. Twenty-six years later, however, the editor at Zest apparently thought differently. So it was that the 19 instances of the cat’s name were deftly replaced.

It would not be the last time.

In terms of textual traditions, the Zest text of “The Rats in the Walls” is largely a dead end, rarely reprinted and largely ignored by both scholars and readers, a curiosity for collectors but not much more. None of Arkham House’s reprints of “The Rats in the Walls” ever replaced the cat’s name. Three years later when another men’s magazine, Sensation, reprinted “The Rats in the Walls” it was somewhat garbled and chopped-up, but the cat’s name was intact. The main textual tradition of “The Rats in the Walls” kept the cat’s name, even as societal views on the acceptability of that name gradually shifted.

Before 1971, the resistance to changing the name came from Arkham House, who insisted they owned the copyrights to Lovecraft’s fiction and who handled licensing and reprints; after the death of August Derleth in 1971 the control Arkham House used fell apart—and, more importantly, a “pure text” movement grew within the burgeoning community of Lovecraft fans and scholars. They wanted to read what Lovecraft actually wrote, warts and all, rather than what editors had made of his stories. For example, the ending of “Medusa’s Coil” (1939) by Zealia Bishop & H. P. Lovecraft was bowdlerized in its first publication, changing Lovecraft’s “a Negress” to “a loathsome, bestial thing, and her forebears had come from Africa.”

In adaptation and translation, however, English-language scholars and editors had less sway, and subtle shades of meaning came into play. In Maria Luisa Bonfanti’s Italian translation “I ratti nel muro,” the cat becomes Moro (“Moor”) and Jacques Papy’s French translation “Les rats dans les murs” calls it Négrillon (“Pickaninny”); Bob Jennings in adapting “The Rats in the Walls” to comics for Creepy #10 (Jul 1968) re-named the cat Salem; Richard Corben in Skull Comix #5 (1972) it was Nigaman; Vicente Navarro and Adolfo Usero in Lovecraft Un Homenaje en 15 Historietas (2013) it was Negro (“Black”); and Horacio Lalia in Le Manuscrit oublié (2000) used “Blakie” or “Blackie.” Dan Lockwood in The Lovecraft Anthology Vol. 1 (2011) simply left the cat’s name out, though the puss otherwise retains its accustomed role. The picture is further complicated when various of these adaptations are themselves translated into other languages, but the examples illustrate the very general point: some translators and adapters attempt to capture the essence of the name, some deliberately sidestep or avoid the issue.

This idiosyncratic approach to handling Lovecraft’s material is understandable. In the context of the story, the name has no particular significance to anyone except Lovecraft himself, it doesn’t matter whether the cat even has a proper name, as far as its narrative purpose is concerned. Where translators and adaptors have kept the name or something close to it, the reason must be a very conservative approach to the material—a desire to be as true to Lovecraft’s original text as possible.

There are those for whom that represents a fundamental issue. For example, when compiling a collection of Lovecraft’s most Gothic tales, “The Rats in the Walls” was left out. The reasoning given was:

[…] some of his most famous Gothic stories, such as ‘Herbert West—Reanimator’ (1922) and ‘The Rats in the Walls’ (1924), are disfigured by casual racist remarks or allusions that make contemporary reprintings problematic.*

*It is broadly acknowledged, even by his fas, that Lovecraft espoused racist views in his writing; and there are references in this collection which readers are likely to find offensive. Their inclusion in this edition in no way implies endorsement by the editor or publisher.
Xavier Aldana Reyes, introduction to The Gothic Tales of H. P. Lovecraft (2018) xi

“Problematic” in this context has to be read as “potentially offensive to today’s audience”; it cannot mean “an actual difficulty in reprinting the story” because “The Rats in the Walls” is one of Lovecraft’s most-reprinted stories, and is now in the public domain and freely available to read on the internet (link). There has been considerable clamor on the internet lately about the censoring or sanitization of works by dead authors—Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and Agatha Christie have all come up—and each case is a little different. For example, Christie authorized some changes to her works while still alive—it being remembered that the original title of And Then There Were None (1939) was Ten Little Niggers, named after an 1869 minstrel song, and that the original title persisted until 1980 in some editions.

What these authors share with Lovecraft is literary longevity. They were all born in a world where racism, antisemitism, and sexism were much more prevalent, pervasive, open, and accepted; these views influenced their work. Unlike many of their contemporaries that work is still being published and read. Though they have all long since given up the ghost, their literary works are still in print, still marketable, and still in demand by new generations of readers. Editors of new editions who cover up or erase the racism and antisemitism of yesterday are not doing the historian’s duty to preserve and accurately represent the past…but neither are they historians: they’re businesspeople, trying to sell a product to the widest possible market, and to give that market what they think it wants.

As the Zest version of “The Rats in the Walls” shows, such efforts do not tend to amount to much in the long run. Well-meaning as folks like Reyes might be in their effort to protect the innocent eyes of contemporary readers from historical racism, failing to reprint Lovecraft’s most Gothic story in a collection of Gothic stories is simply an act of cowardice. If editors and publishers, scholars and critics, are to be good stewards of the past and honest with the reading public, then we have to deal with historical racism honestly and openly—and if the words and themes are offensive, to explain their original context, and why and how Lovecraft used them, and how his original audience would have read and understood them.

Reprinting Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls” is an educational opportunity to teach readers more about this story and Lovecraft. Removing the cat’s offensive name removes the opportunity to engage with that aspect of the text. At the same time, now that the story is in the public domain, anyone can play with the text freely. Scholars and fans will no doubt continue to strive for accuracy to Lovecraft’s original, but there is no reason why anyone appropriating the text of the story of its characters cannot make their own decisions about what is appropriate in this day and age—if anyone has a desire to write the further adventures of Black Tom.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard & Others (2019) and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos (2014).

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Myrta Alice Little

A new recruit likely to be of great prominence is Miss Myrta Alice Little (Colby A. B., Radcliffe A.M.) of Hampstead (Westville P. O.), N. H. Miss Little is, like our leader Mr. Moe, a high-school English teacher; and she is in addition a professional author of increasing success. She is pursuing a systematic course in short story construction, and will probably be numbered among the successful writers of the future.
H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes” (Nov 1920), in Collected Essays 1.265

Myrta Alice Little was 32 years old when she joined Lovecraft’s branch of the United Amateur Press Association in 1920, and began publishing in amateur journalism with a piece in The Tryout in Nov 1920, published by Charles “Tryout” Smith. Whether their association and correspondence began then or dates back earlier is difficult to say. Likewise, we have no idea when the correspondence ended, or even if it did end. The trace of their friendship is fairly thin—one letter from Lovecraft to Little survives, an envelope for a letter from Lovecraft to Little postmarked 1927 sold at auction, an entry for “Davies” (her married name) is included in a list of postcard recipients for Lovecraft’s 1934 southern vacation, and her address was still in Lovecraft’s 1937 address-book. In Lovecraft’s letters, references to Little are scarce, mostly focused on two trips that he took to visit her in New Hampshire in 1921, during a time when she was Historian of the U.A.P.A.

The surviving letter, some ten handwritten pages and covering a fair bit of discussion of both their lives and literary interests, predates the first trip and shows an easy familiarity that suggests the correspondence had been ongoing for some time:

Dear Miſs Little:—

Pray accept my sympathy regarding the process of domestic upheaval, & the hope that your chain of symbolic icons may by this time boast complete colouration! That there exists in the task some redeeming spark of pleasure fo ryou, is indeed fortunate. I abhor all manual labour, & am unutterably bored by the necessity of taking care of my own quarters. Many a night have I slept in a dressing-gown on the top of my bed to avoid making it the next day—in fact, I believe I am the most basically & constitutually indolent person on this terraqueous globe.
H. P. Lovecraft to Myrta Alice Little, 17 May 1921, Miscellaneous Letters 145

Myrta Little had just recently moved back to New Hampshire from California, and was getting re-settled in the family home. This may have been what prompted her invitation for Lovecraft to visit, as the rail network in New England made such travel relatively easy. A good portion of the letter involves the date and time for the visit, e.g.:

I note your correction regarding your literary encampment, which I shall view with interest & pleasure if the Parcae permit my Arctic expedition next month. And regarding said expedition—surely Junius is better than Maius, & I am not sure but that Quintilis would be better still. Heat is my breath of life—I never really live till the mercury reaches 90°. As to duration; the fatigue I felt on the second day both times I stayed overnight in Boston, warns me that it were well not to extended my absences too abruptly. Wherefor I fancy I had better plan for the single night only, at the same time extending sincerest thanks for the ampler invitation.
H. P. Lovecraft to Myrta Alice Little, 17 May 1921, Miscellaneous Letters 145

It should be remembered at this time that Lovecraft had been largely Providence-bound (if not actually homebound) for about a decade. In 1904 the death of Lovecraft’s grandfather Whipple V. Phillips had seen the breakup of the family home and the decline of the family fortunes; Lovecraft and his mother moved into a smaller, rented place on the same street. Lovecraft attended public high school, but it was sporadic, and he did not graduate at the appointed time. Failing to matriculate to college, Lovecraft also failed to find a job or any other real occupation; this may or may not have been due in part to ill health or depression. He began to break out of his shell in 1914 when he joined amateur journalism; and it was those friends and contacts which brought him finally to meet fellow amateurs, both at his home in Providence and then traveling to Boston.

At the time Lovecraft wrote this letter, his mother was confined at Butler Hospital in Providence; she had just had an operation to remove her gallbladder the day before, and would die four days after the letter was handwritten on 21 May 1921. With his mother’s death, Lovecraft was less tied to Providence, and traveled further and more frequently. Lovecraft’s aunts assumed large control of the family finances and their nephew’s welfare during this period, perhaps being the “Parcae” mentioned above, if Lovecraft wasn’t just using Classical allusion for its own sake.

In any event: Susan Lovecraft died, and the next month Lovecraft made his first visit to the Littles from 8-9 June 1921. The trip was touched on in several letters, including this one:

As I continued to stagnate in dressing-gown & slippers—increasingly active with the pen, but inert physically–my aunts endeavoured to arouse me to some variation of the indoor monotony, & insisted that I respond to an invitation which I had received a month before, to visit an exceedingly learned & brilliant new United Member—Miss M. A . Little, A. B., A. M., a former college professor now starting as a professional author—in Hampstead, N. H., near Haverhill, Mass. This I finally did, as you already know from the postcard mailed at the latter place.

On Thursday came the Smith call. I had intended to stop there alone on my return trip, but Miss Little was so interested in the genial Grovelandite as revealed in his paper that she wished to go also. We found him in his little Tryout office behind the house, cordial & hospitable, & eagerly awaiting the visit which my card had heralded. […] He was sorry we could not stay longer, & made both Miss L. & me promise to visit him sometime when we could stay all day & eat a dinner of his cooking—he prides himself on his skill as an amateur chef. […] He gave me a vast pile of old Tryouts for recruiting work, & gave Miss Little as complete a file of back numbers as he could. She is going to bake him a loaf of gingerbread as a reward—he dilated at length upon the excellencies of one which good Mrs. K. Keyson Brown baked & sent him recently.
H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 12 Jun 1921, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner and Others 181-182

However, these letters shed little real light on Lovecraft’s friendship with Little, or even descriptions of Little herself. Whether this represents a reticence on Lovecraft’s part or an unhappy gap in the correspondence isn’t clear. We know there must have been more letters back and forth, because Lovecraft visited them again a little over a month later:

On the following Friday I received still another invitation, as Galba already knows. This time Hampstead and Haverhill again, by request of the super-hospitable Littles, who so delightfully approximate the state of England’s rural gentry. It was for a longer time than the other visit, but I compromised on two nights, and arranged to use the final evening on my homeward trip to discharge the debt of courtesy by calling at the Hamlet Castle. Leaving Providence Thursday morning at 11:00, I arrived in Haverhill at 2:15, and was met with a horseless carriage containing Miss Little, her mother, and a bearded and pleasant uncle whom I had not seen previously but whom I liked at once. In describing these rural magnates I am happily able to discard that tone of sarcasm with which I describe certain more urban amateurs; for verily, they are of the wholesome Saxon gentry that needs no apology or allowances. In a word, they are all right; of one’s own sort, as it were.
H. P. Lovecraft to the Gallomo, 31 Aug 1921, Miscellaneous Letters 113

This was the same trip in which Lovecraft helped entertain his hosts by dressing in drag:

After dinner the family again demanded that Grandpa amuse them with some of his theatrical impersonations—and believe us, you’d never know the old man in some of the things they made him put on! In my acting days I went in for the heavy villainous stuff; but the Hampsteaders seem partial to the Julian Eltinge stuff, and could not be satisfied till they had Grandpa laced into a hoop-skirt outfit with bonnet and parasol to match! Though it was hard to think of dialogue for such a makeup, they seemed satisfied with my improvisations; and compensated by prolonged applause for the injury inflicted upon my patriarchal dignity.
H. P. Lovecraft to the Gallomo, 31 Aug 1921, Miscellaneous Letters 115

There was not the last that Lovecraft and Little would see of each other, although references in Lovecraft’s surviving letters are few. It is not unusual for Lovecraft to fail to disclose much about his friends in other letters; after 1921 Myrta Little’s active involvement in amateurdom appears to have faded, perhaps because she wished to focus on professional writing, perhaps because she wished to focus on…someone else. Dave Goudsward, who has written about Little in The Fossil #383 and in his book Lovecraft in the Merrimack Valley covers both trips in detail suggests that Myrta Little’s invitation and cordiality to Lovecraft was more than just friendly; that she was in fact romantically interested in him. They were after all nearly the same age (Lovecraft was two years younger), and Lovecraft appears to have supported her literary interests.

Whether the romance actually existed, and if it did how one-sided it was on Little’s part, is open for speculation. What is known is that three days after their final meeting in 1923, Myrta Alice Little married Arthur Davies, a Methodist minister. Lovecraft does not mention the marriage in his letters, and references to Myrta Davies largely cease, although the inclusion of a “Davies” in his postcard list shows their correspondence may have continued, if sporadically.

What was Myrta Alice Little to Lovecraft, and what was he to her? Were they simply friends and fellow amateurs whose interests blossomed for a season, before their lives drew them back apart again? Were there deeper feelings for a time? We can only guess. Certainly, Little was one of many women in amateur journalism that Lovecraft corresponded with, and his letter does not appear any more intimate, at this point, than any other to, say, Elizabeth Toldridge or Winifred Virginia Jackson—but then, neither are the letters to Lovecraft’s future wife, the amateur Sonia H. Greene, particularly intimate either. It may be he simply refused to commit such sentiments to paper; or perhaps simply that the relationship had not progressed to that point.

Perhaps they were nothing more than friends, as it might appear on the surface they were.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard & Others (2019) and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos (2014).

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Tag: H. P. Lovecraft

Her Letters to Lovecraft: Alice M. Hamlet

The Rhinebeck Gazette • 28 June 1945

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Eola Willis

“The Peace Advocate” (1917) by Elizabeth Berkeley

Deeper Cut: Jean Ray and Weird Tales

“Nude with a Dagger” (WT Nov 1934)

“The Graveyard Duchess” (WT Dec 1934)

“The Aztec Ring” (WT Apr 1935)

“The Mystery of the Last Guest” (WT Oct 1935)

Dime Magazine and Terror Tales

Recommended Further Reading (in English)

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Florence Riley Radcliffe

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Bertha Rausch

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Jennie K. Plaisier

“The Rats in the Walls” (1956) by H. P. Lovecraft

Her Letters To Lovecraft: Myrta Alice Little