00:00:06:01 - 00:00:09:05 Andrew Welcome to voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:00:09:05 - 00:00:14:16 Andrew In addition to classic works of gothic horror fiction. HPL wrote thousands of fascinating letters. 00:00:14:16 - 00:00:17:13 Sean In each episode. We'll read and discuss one of them. I'm Sean Branney. 00:00:17:13 - 00:00:22:24 Andrew And I'm Andrew Leman. Together, we run the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. 00:00:23:04 - 00:00:29:07 Sean For today's letter, I chose one written on the 8th of June 1932 to Robert E Howard. 00:00:29:22 - 00:00:33:24 Andrew Sean, should we warn people in advance that this letter might be upsetting? 00:00:35:03 - 00:00:36:15 Sean Well, I think you have. 00:00:37:07 - 00:00:42:04 Andrew This letter might certainly upset me. And and I think people should be forewarned. 00:00:42:05 - 00:00:56:22 Sean Yeah, it is certainly the most challenging one we've read so far in a bunch of different ways. So if if you're not up for discussing some or hearing and discussing some difficult issues, you might want to give this one a miss here. 00:00:56:22 - 00:01:01:08 Andrew Well, this this letter's a long one, so we're going to have to break it into two parts, don't you think? 00:01:01:13 - 00:01:08:01 Sean I think that's the way to go. There are both thematically and just purely in terms of length. Well, make this one into a two parter. 00:01:08:01 - 00:01:09:23 Andrew All right, let's let's hear it. 00:01:10:05 - 00:01:17:24 Sean Or buck up, sailor, by God, Hear it and deal with it. Oh, okay. So I'm trying to bring a little more Robert E Howard to the equation. 00:01:18:00 - 00:01:21:19 Andrew Oh, you know. Okay, well, enough's enough already. Let's just hear the letter. 00:01:21:19 - 00:01:53:08 Sean Okay. Hotel Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana. June eight, 1932. Dear R.E.H. Well, I'm writing you from a considerably lesser distance than I've ever written from before, and only wish I had the cash to complete the journey and see old Texas. Your letter of recent date was duly forwarded to me and I have read it with the keenest interest. Also the delightfully spirited poem which I am returning in case it is an original copy destined for your files or for submission elsewhere. 00:01:54:00 - 00:02:15:22 Sean I left home May 18 and stopped a week in New York with Long likewise seeing others of the local crowd. Then, on the night of the 25th, I hopped off on the trip proper. For the first time in my life, I traversed the entire length of the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, Staunton, Lexington, Roanoke, and was utterly knocked out by the beauty of the Blue Ridge landscape. 00:02:16:09 - 00:02:50:22 Sean Then came Knoxville, Tennessee, and a ride across to Chattanooga. Here once more, I was reduced to gasps of breathless admiration for the beauty of the Cumberland and of the River Bluff and Firemen's of Chattanooga in Lookout Mountain [LINE OF TEXT DROPPED] and reveled in the marvelous view of the outspread river town, countryside and hills, and also descended into the mountains, vast chain of caverns, including the great vaulted chamber discovered in 1930, where in a 145 foot waterfall roar ceaselessly amidst eternal night. 00:02:51:06 - 00:03:20:01 Sean Another object, a Chattanooga whose interest was more historic than natural, was the old Civil War locomotive general, preserved in fine shape in the old 1858 Union Station, which in one exciting day was captured from its civilian crew by the Federals and then chased and captured by the Confederates. The ride from Chattanooga to Memphis. My whole trip as my bus took me through a continuation of this mountainous wonderland along what is locally called the Grand Canyon of the Tennessee. 00:03:20:12 - 00:03:44:07 Sean At Memphis, I saw the lordly Mississippi for the first time and was duly impressed. Then down the river through the flat Yazoo, Delta, Cotton Country and finally up the bluffs of picturesque and historic Vicksburg. Between there and Natchez, I began to encounter signs of the really far south, gnarled live oaks with tangles of Spanish moss and similar forms of luxuriant vegetation. 00:03:44:23 - 00:04:14:03 Sean In general, I think the Natchez country has the finest subtropical scenery that I have ever beheld. It reminds one of the landscapes delineated in a ? of Chateaubriand, who indeed once visited in Natchez. The roads, owing to the soft and friable nature of the local yellow clay, are all deeply sunken below the level of the surrounding terrain and present a weirdly impressive appearance with their high vertical walls overrun by vines and the roots of ancient oaks and cypresses. 00:04:14:11 - 00:04:49:09 Sean These great trees arching overhead and draped with grotesque festoon of Spanish moss. Keep the scene shrouded in a perpetual green twilight. Natchez itself is a stately old town where the past still lives a quiet backwater with little physical change since the early 19th century. Few places can be more fascinating to the historically minded. The settlement was founded by the French under the Canadian born leader John the Baptist Le Moyne asserted Bienville, who two years later founded New Orleans in 1716 as the military and trading post of Fort Rosalie. 00:04:49:22 - 00:05:27:09 Sean Ruins of the Fort that is old earthworks still exist on the high bluff. In 1729, the Natchez Indians massacred all the garrison, but the post was re garrisoned and maintained in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris the whole region passed to Great Britain as part of the new province of West Florida, and Natchez became Fort Palmyra. In 1799, the Spaniards under Don Bernardo de Galvez, governor of Louisiana and son of the viceroy of Mexico, took advantage of the American Revolution to invade West Florida and seize Natchez, among other towns, holding them by force until 1798. 00:05:27:14 - 00:05:55:21 Sean Even though the Treaty of 1783 very clearly assigned the northern part of West Florida to the nascent U.S., many surviving houses of Spanish design attest the solid nature of the Spanish occupation. When the Americans finally got the territory and flocked in, organizing the state of Mississippi, the great days of Natchez began. It was a logical port for the abundant cotton of the newly developed delta country and the rising Mississippi traffic made it a predestined commercial focus. 00:05:56:08 - 00:06:20:18 Sean It became likewise a town center for the rich and cultivated Louisiana planters across the river. From about 1810 onwards. Natchez filled up with stately mansion houses of the pillared classic revival type, most of which remain to this day in every state of preservation, from perfect maintenance to utter ruin. The town proper lies atop the great bluff while on the narrow shore strip at the base of the 200 foot precipice. 00:06:21:04 - 00:06:48:13 Sean The wharves not quite deserted yet, since steamboats can still carry cotton more cheaply than railways can around the horse cluster, the ancient brick houses of what is called Natchez under the hill, once a roaring haunt of grocery boatmen, but now a squalid abode "bleep" Occasional mills and desolation. I spent two full days in Natchez, thoroughly absorbing its atmosphere and hating to leave it when the time came. 00:06:48:21 - 00:07:09:20 Sean Finally, however, I had to continue down the river. I suppose from various references of yours that you know Louisiana fairly well, hence will not waste space on needless descriptions. The first thing which struck me was that this state is flatter than the Mississippi Bluff country and that its soil is gray instead of yellow. I did not pause at Baton Rouge for this town. 00:07:09:21 - 00:07:34:23 Sean the Louisiana state capital has been disconcertingly modernized. South of there, the ground falls to river level and below, giving me my first glimpse of the vast levee system. At length, New Orleans was reached, and after settling down at a modern Hotel Erie, the Orleans at 728 Charles Street, where I got a room and bath for $7 per week, I proceeded to explore the town and its environs. 00:07:35:05 - 00:08:07:23 Sean As you know, the cream of everything centers in the Vieux Carré or original Creole town outside which the modern American town grew up. The Great Fire of 1788 destroyed nearly all of the old French houses, but the area was at once rebuilt very solidly and in a predominantly Hispanic style with the aid of government engineers. It is really this Spanish town of Arcadia Gallery, brick houses with inner courtyards or patios, which survives to this day almost unchanged materially as Vieux Carré or old French Quarter. 00:08:08:22 - 00:08:34:01 Sean But really, it is a perfectly preserved 18th or early 19th century city vying for architectural honors with Charleston and Quebec. In its day of course, it has been a slum and it is now slightly touched with the Greenwich Village Atmosphere, studios and antique shops. For this reason, it has not quite the utter charm of quaint Charleston and Quebec, which are still leading their simple old lives and unbroken organic continuity with the past. 00:08:34:05 - 00:09:00:09 Sean But for all that, it's a great old place. From having seen it, you can judge roughly what Charleston and Quebec look like. Imagine the old houses farther apart with extensive outdoor walled gardens at one side instead of central patios, and you have Charleston. Cut out both the balconies and the walled gardens. And you have Quebec. I'm certainly having the time of my life drinking in the archaic color and getting set on my feet by vitalizing tropic warmth. 00:09:00:18 - 00:09:23:20 Sean My hotel, as its address reveals, is outside the Vieux Carré. But I spend each day in that century backwater wandering through the narrow old streets with no modern impressions intruding upon me and doing my reading and writing on a bench. And the old "Place d'Armes Jackson Square", where the silver chimes of the old Spanish cathedral float on the air each quarter hour. 00:09:24:07 - 00:09:48:12 Sean I noticed, by the way, that New Orleans is markedly subtropical and its vegetation being well below the 30th parallel of latitude. The change from Natchez is very obvious for whereas that town has only a few tiny scrub meadows carefully nurtured in gardens, New Orleans teams with tall Washington palms and flourishing Brazilian date palms. I'm here for over a week and have seen the modern as well as the ancient city. 00:09:48:22 - 00:10:12:15 Sean I have also looked up such old plantation houses as are near or engulfed by the growing municipality. Of these country houses as you probably know, there are two general types the older Creole sort with steep slant roofs and dormers and the early 19th century American type. Massive in proportions and of pilloried classic revival architecture. Both of these types can also be found in and around Natchez. 00:10:13:02 - 00:10:39:21 Sean In the know region, I have seen such surviving places as Ormond Destrehan, Three Oaks, the Westfeldt hoe, and the decrepit and slum and compost, The Lord Sarpy House. From here I shall go to ancient Mobile, Alabama. And after that my plans will depend upon my finances. I have a very faint and diminishing rather than increasing hope of getting to Charleston, which is still my favorite among towns. 00:10:39:21 - 00:10:48:18 Sean In New York I shall probably stop a week with my friend Samuel Loveman, and if I have any cash left, I shall try and get up the Hudson to see Bernard Dwyer. 00:10:49:11 - 00:10:54:00 Andrew Okay, Sean, why on earth did you pick this letter? 00:10:54:09 - 00:11:21:16 Sean Well, I originally picked this letter because I thought, Oh, we haven't done a Robert E. Howard letter yet, and by God we should, because he's an important figure both in Lovecraft's life and an important figure in (pop culture) 20th century weird writing. Pop culture? Yeah, he's. He's an important guy. So, you know, I know his work, and but I never really read his letters and hadn't dived particularly deep into him biographically. 00:11:22:20 - 00:11:42:12 Sean So I thought, oh, well, I started reading his letters and yeah, they were. They're eye opening. Yeah. And so I was like, well, okay, there are several interesting things about this particular letter, including just how patently offensive it is. And frankly, it's much less offensive than than a number of the letters back and forth between Lovecraft and Howard. 00:11:42:13 - 00:11:44:05 Sean Yeah. So although this is. 00:11:44:05 - 00:11:47:22 Andrew The first letter we've read on this podcast that uses that word. 00:11:48:06 - 00:11:48:16 Sean Sure. 00:11:48:16 - 00:11:50:02 Andrew Well, and we should probably. 00:11:50:02 - 00:11:53:20 Sean Get used to it. Well, shows up again and again and again and again. 00:11:53:20 - 00:12:00:21 Andrew I think we need to have a policy about that word, because I don't know that we I don't know if you're Are you willing to bleep the word? 00:12:00:21 - 00:12:04:09 Sean I may have had no intention of bleeping the word, but I. 00:12:04:09 - 00:12:18:16 Andrew Think we should. I think there has to be a very good reason to keep uttering a horrifically offensive racial slur and simply because he used it. I don't think that is itself a sufficiently good reason. 00:12:18:17 - 00:12:52:20 Sean Hmm. Well, I don't know. You know, here we are, a couple pasty old white guys sitting here trying to grapple with these terms of racism. I don't know. My my inclination might be different than yours because my inclination is, wow, this is what these guys said. If we as people in, well, 100 years plus after the fact, are trying to grapple with the legacy of these guys and their vitriolic racism, I don't want to sugarcoat it or make it seem any better than it was. 00:12:52:20 - 00:13:05:22 Sean And so perhaps by calling it out in its ugliness is a better way to confront it and force us as a modern audience to grapple with how these guys really thought and express themselves. 00:13:05:22 - 00:13:28:09 Andrew Well, I agree with that completely, but I think we can grapple and confront and call it out without actually continuing to perpetuate that particular word. Everybody knows what the word is and the bleep stands in for the word. So we can continue to discuss it and call it out and not sugarcoat it. But that doesn't mean we have to keep saying it over and over again. 00:13:28:14 - 00:13:49:03 Andrew I don't see any good purpose that served by us saying it. I think it might be slightly different in the case of a work of art. We have we have recorded the audio books of Lovecraft, and we have used that word and not bleeped it because that was a work of art that was intended for publication. This is a private letter that was never intended for publication. 00:13:49:09 - 00:14:10:06 Andrew We can read the letter in its entirety. I mean, we've you don't need to commit a murder to talk about murder. You don't need to utter a racial slur to talk about a racial slur. I don't you know, I don't think our ability to confront and do all the things you said is in any way hampered by not actually saying the word over and over. 00:14:10:07 - 00:14:27:09 Sean Well, that becomes interesting as we as we confront it. Do you plan to say the word bleep instead of the word itself? I mean, we are bleeping it out for our audiences. Are you going to say N-word or something to not have to utter that word? 00:14:27:10 - 00:14:29:14 Andrew I don't personally plan to ever utter the word. 00:14:30:01 - 00:14:50:03 Sean Okay. Well, I'm certainly not not going to make you. It is a it's a it is just one of the problems in dealing with these guys. And it is it is frustrating because, you know, I think both you and I are want to be respectful to our audiences and respectful to people of all races, creeds, colors, etc.. 00:14:50:24 - 00:15:06:03 Andrew And I think, you know, you and I are a couple of pasty old white guys. And it's it's different for us to say that word because it doesn't hit us. You know, we might feel very differently if we were not sitting on the top of the privilege. 00:15:06:03 - 00:15:27:24 Sean Of, Sure. You know, we're beneficiaries of white. White privilege. Absolutely. Yeah, I honestly, I, I don't. We're wading into the thickets here because I don't know what the best way is to handle it. I guess my inclination is to warn, forewarn audiences as we have and and take it for what it is and go, It's unpleasant. Deal with it. 00:15:27:24 - 00:15:42:20 Sean But I readily admit that's only one way of trying to to deal with it. And do we do we move a step closer towards ownership? Ownership? Well, yeah, we. 00:15:42:20 - 00:15:44:08 Andrew Want to own that word. No, no. 00:15:44:08 - 00:15:53:18 Sean No, no, no, no. That's not the word I'm trying to own. It's the issue. The issue of these guys who we are shining a spotlight on. 00:15:55:19 - 00:16:33:19 Sean I, i, I don't. I don't want in any way to let them. It's a big issue for audiences about Lovecraft being a racist and other people of his time. And so here we are trying to grapple with two dudes who are in the thick of that. So I don't want I just don't want to feel like I'm in any way sidestepping the problem that these guys presented to me, using their language and letting people hear their language, just hear how fucking offensive it is, is perhaps a better way to honestly shine a light on these guys in their opinions. 00:16:33:19 - 00:16:44:03 Sean But, you know, on the flip side, I don't want to be hurtful. I don't want to exacerbate a bad situation. I. Yeah, it's a it's a real it's a it's a it's a it's a thorny, thorny issue. 00:16:44:03 - 00:16:56:02 Andrew So let's talk about this is letters full of other issues and interesting things as well. So, yeah, let's we don't need to spend hours talking about this, but but let's talk about the well, let's talk about Robert Howard. 00:16:56:02 - 00:16:59:18 Sean Yeah. So Robert E Howard Two-Gun Bob 00:16:59:18 - 00:17:02:22 Andrew Two-Gun Bob. Yeah. 00:17:02:22 - 00:17:24:00 Sean Robert E. Howard Correspondent Lovecraft's born in 1906, lived until 1936, which, you know, I do much math to realize he's a he's a young guy when he dies. Yeah he's born in Texas, became caught up in physical culture. He was as a they like to call it back then. He was a bodybuilder and a boxer, but also at a pretty young age decided he wanted to be a writer. 00:17:24:01 - 00:17:25:10 Sean Yeah, he the. 00:17:25:10 - 00:17:49:09 Andrew Town that he lived in, a lot of most of his youth, Cross Plains was apparently an oil boom town, right. Which our dear friend Troy Nies who writes the music, lived in an oil boom town. And he told us any number of horror stories about how much crime and violence and unpleasantness comes with an oil boom. And apparently Robert E. Howard felt much the same way. 00:17:49:09 - 00:17:53:17 Andrew He absolutely hated Cross Plains and its oil boom culture. 00:17:53:17 - 00:18:23:07 Sean Yeah, I think it's something that's hard to appreciate unless you've lived through it because you just sort of think, Oh, oil boom and everybody's making money and but boy, all the baggage that comes with it, it's it's and I think, you know, one of the interesting things for these boom towns like like Killdeer out North Dakota where Troy lived or Cross Plains is these are tiny communities that are horribly unprepared in terms of infrastructure for this influx of people, an influx of money, and they just grow too big, too fast and spiral wildly. 00:18:23:08 - 00:18:33:22 Andrew It's very much like being invaded by a horde of barbarians. I'm absolutely certain that it, you know, had such a huge impact on Robert Howard's view of the world and history and stuff. Sure. 00:18:33:22 - 00:18:37:00 Sean Big, big, burly roughneck oil man. 00:18:37:00 - 00:18:40:22 Andrew You felt him was surrounded by barbarians. And it comes out in all of his fiction. 00:18:40:23 - 00:19:01:04 Sean Sure. Howard's father was Doctor Isaac Mordecai Howard. He was a traveling country doctor in his early years before they settled in Cross Plains, they moved almost every single year. So it was a very itinerant life. And in Texas there, and he started writing. He wrote his first story when he was nine years old. So that seed was there. 00:19:01:04 - 00:19:23:21 Sean And, you know, he and Lovecraft, as different as they are in terms of personality, animal and and life story, there are some interesting overlaps because, you know, like Clark Ashton Smith, you know, he's not an educated man. None of these guys have have been to college. And yet, you know, what a mastery of language and the guy, you know, love him or hate him, he can really write. 00:19:23:24 - 00:19:34:21 Andrew And he was determined to be a professional writer. He really I mean, he tailored his output to the markets that would buy his stories. And sure, if a character wasn't working, he dumped him and moved on to something else. 00:19:34:22 - 00:19:52:15 Sean Right. And his writing was, you know, Lovecraft, a lot of times disparaged his commercial writing. And Robert Howard is in the thick of that and learns that boxing stories are selling. And so he writes boxing story after boxing story after boxing story for these cheap you know, pulp magazines who are doing, you know, tough guy and action fights. 00:19:52:17 - 00:19:53:22 Sean There were only dudes. 00:19:53:22 - 00:20:13:19 Andrew There were all sorts of pulps. Many of them short lived that specialized in specific kinds of stories. You know, those Westerns and airplane stories and cops and robbers and and even Farnsworth Wright story started Oriental stories and fight stories. And so there were there was a there was a pulp for every niche. And Howard exploited. 00:20:13:19 - 00:20:29:08 Sean Them. And he also was very successful in in serializing characters, creating memorable characters and bringing them back. So he is, of course, in to modern audiences most famous for creating CONAN the Barbarian, but also Kull and Solomon Kane. 00:20:29:08 - 00:20:31:11 Andrew Bran Mak Morn King of the Picts. 00:20:31:11 - 00:20:43:14 Sean Red Sonja Yeah, you know these great characters, which of course, you know now they're now they're all ready for Marvel or Universe. I don't know which universe they fall into, but some somebody gets a cinematic universe out of them. 00:20:43:24 - 00:20:46:12 Andrew I think the movie guys are still trying to crack that. 00:20:46:12 - 00:21:09:12 Sean Robert Howard I think they are. Well, yeah, yeah. So Robert Howard met Lovecraft via Weird tales. He had read Lovecraft story "The rats in the walls" and he was very interested in at the very end of the story when Delaporte starts, you know, losing his mind and rambling off and you know what what appears to be Gaelic or something like that. 00:21:09:13 - 00:21:41:19 Sean And Robert Howard wanted to understand that specifically, and that was sort of the gateway for him wanting to contact Lovecraft and beginning what amounted to a very big guy has communicated quite a lot. So they began their set of letters back and forth and there are certain topics that really flourish between these two guys and that the tone, as we found, reading letters to a lot of different people, the tone in the Robert Howard's letters is really quite different than it was guys with Morton or Derlerth. 00:21:41:19 - 00:21:58:19 Andrew I was really struck. I mean, Robert Howard is younger than Frank Belknap Long but Lovecraft does not address him like a child. He he he treats him with tremendous respect and and, you know, addresses him like a peer. He does not lecture Robert Howard the way he does Frank Belknap Long. 00:21:58:19 - 00:22:29:16 Sean There are many topics that Howard brings up that Lovecraft is all over. And, you know, tell me more about this. And I think he's fascinated in a way by the lure of the West. And Howard, you know, paints this world of of Texas. And it's an unfamiliar world to Lovecraft. And so whether it's, you know, sandstorms or the, you know, the weather or Pretty Boy Floyd, Pretty Boy Floyd, all these, you know, interesting things that are happening way out west to Lovecraft, it's it's a view into a world that's very foreign to Lovecraft. 00:22:29:16 - 00:22:50:01 Sean And I think he's really interested in extract and learning all he can from from Robert Howard and Howard is a very garrulous eager to talk about what is quite a few stories to tell and I think enjoys being able to hold the attention of this, you know established New England writer. 00:22:50:14 - 00:22:51:21 Andrew Who he likes, whose stuff he. 00:22:51:21 - 00:22:53:12 Sean Likes. Yeah. Mutual admiration. Yeah. 00:22:53:12 - 00:23:09:22 Andrew I'm definitely Robert Howard, you know, got on board with Cthulhu mythos and contributed a couple of very important pieces. He's the one who brought us the unaussprechlichen kulten and Von Juntz. His first mythos story was The Black Stone, which is a good story. 00:23:09:22 - 00:23:29:10 Sean Yeah, it is. It is actually one of the for a non Lovecraft mythos story. It it really is is pretty terrific. So just one last important biographical note to finish up for we get into the guts of this letter is we were saying that, you know, Robert E. Howard was only 30 years old when he died and he committed suicide. 00:23:30:05 - 00:23:43:19 Sean His mother had been sick on a protracted basis and she slipped into a coma. And once the doctors said basically announce that they didn't anticipate she was going to recover, he walked outside and shot himself. 00:23:44:01 - 00:23:55:16 Andrew And it would seem that he had been intending to do that. He the nature of his suicide note in the arrangements that he made do strongly imply that that was not a conversion moment. 00:23:55:16 - 00:24:16:22 Sean Decision he had prepared for it. Yeah. So yeah, which is interesting because he was trying to get his professional career going and it was really taking off. He sold 17 CONAN stories between 1933 and 36. Yeah, Somewhere I had read a breakdown of his annual income from writing, and you'd see this nice progression of growth. 00:24:16:22 - 00:24:17:09 Andrew And that was. 00:24:17:13 - 00:24:18:15 Sean Wow, that's going and that's. 00:24:18:15 - 00:24:19:13 Andrew In the Depression. I mean. 00:24:19:15 - 00:24:22:02 Sean In the Depression and living out in rural Texas. Yeah. 00:24:22:02 - 00:24:35:24 Andrew So he was, you know, had he not done that, he might well have gone on to much greater success. And it's you know, it's sad to think how much more great fiction we would have gotten out of Robert E. Howard if he had not shot himself. 00:24:36:05 - 00:24:44:17 Sean It's it's very true. Unfortunately, though, we might have gotten more letters like, Yes, some of the the difficult content that passes. 00:24:44:18 - 00:24:49:24 Andrew You know, what we're reading is the letter that Lovecraft wrote to Howard. But the letter that Howard wrote to Lovecraft. 00:24:49:24 - 00:24:53:10 Sean Is, yeah, it's it's far, far more offensive than Lovecraft's letter. 00:24:53:19 - 00:25:03:14 Andrew It's funny to think of in parts of this letter, Lovecraft seems to be like a moderating influence on saying, you know, calm down, dude, it's not so bad as you're saying. 00:25:03:14 - 00:25:35:15 Sean Yeah, I had not anticipated running into you know, there are other correspondents, Lovecraft had who chided Lovecraft for his racism and pulled Lovecraft back. And here we see Lovecraft as the. Yeah, slightly moderating influence, trying to pull Howard back from from his some of his opinions. So the letter starts nicely enough as a travelog Lovecraft going on this big trip to go from Providence down to New Orleans and then planning to he's hoping to have enough money left to hit Charleston on the way back. 00:25:35:15 - 00:25:57:06 Sean And it really is quite a sojourn to when you if you sort of lay out where he's going. He's he's traveling, you know, quite long distances all by bus. All by bus and all by himself. Yeah. And that's us. Yeah. It's a special kind of guy who can do that. And it's interesting that it seems that New Orleans is the place where he draws the line because he's. 00:25:57:06 - 00:26:26:04 Sean He's about now 700 miles from where Robert Howard lives and has an interest in wanting to go out and see his world but doesn't want to. Yeah, you know, not quite ready to cross the masses on the far western bank of the Mississippi and go on out into the wilds of Texas. But it's a it's a big trip and I had to think it must have been for Lovecraft who, you know, so thrifty and not financially well-off that this is, you know, a month or two at least of traveling and staying in hotels and eating in restaurants. 00:26:26:04 - 00:26:45:08 Sean And while he we've learned that he can live swiftly, it's still a big, big excursion. Lovecraft was fond of caves. He he talks about that and a few things that he visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. And the cave he's talking about here with 145 foot waterfalls, a place called Ruby Falls. And it turns out I don't know much about Chattanooga. 00:26:45:08 - 00:26:55:05 Sean I never really spent time in Tennessee, but there are 7000 caves within 60 miles of downtown Chattanooga. (It's it's how many?) There are 7000. 00:26:55:05 - 00:26:56:09 Andrew 7000. 00:26:56:09 - 00:27:01:09 Sean Caves. Yeah. So clearly, whatever's going on geologically there, it's much cave. Yeah. 00:27:01:09 - 00:27:02:19 Andrew That's not geology, Sean. 00:27:02:22 - 00:27:04:00 Sean That's Migo. 00:27:04:21 - 00:27:10:22 Andrew I don't know where I saw it. It was within the last week, though. The two map side by side of a map of known caves. 00:27:11:01 - 00:27:12:11 Sean And a map of vanished people. 00:27:12:12 - 00:27:17:04 Andrew Yeah. Yeah. And there is a startling concordance between those two maps. 00:27:17:04 - 00:27:38:13 Sean Mystery solved in in my own personal travels, New Orleans is just one of my favorite cities in the United States. It's a really it's a really neat and really different place. And it's the kind of place that you can so see Lovecraft digging because there's so much history there. And for a guy who gets off on. 00:27:38:13 - 00:27:39:24 Andrew Architecture and warmth. 00:27:39:24 - 00:28:12:19 Sean And warmth. So I was kind of delighted to hear, you know, he's staying he's staying about six blocks from the French Quarter there. And he's, you know, wandering around it all day, all the time. And the race racism certainly comes up in this letter, but it crossed my mind in reading it. One of the things that doesn't he doesn't really seem to object to, apart from one fleeting reference when he's up in Natchez, which is he doesn't seem to complain about black people in the South, you know, and I think that gets to it. 00:28:12:21 - 00:28:44:24 Sean It seemed to me that it gets to a point about him and his opinions of foreigners, which is what he really doesn't want them in Providence. He doesn't want them in Rhode Island. He doesn't want them wrecking his New England. But when they're off in Florida or Georgia or South Carolina and some of these other places that he very much seems to enjoy visiting, he doesn't seem to pay any mind to, you know, visiting a place where, you know, he himself might fall into the privileged minority. 00:28:45:06 - 00:28:53:03 Sean Yeah, I just I just thought it was interesting that that there was and maybe there were just invisible to him and he wasn't worth commenting too, to Howard, but. 00:28:53:07 - 00:29:17:10 Andrew Well, I, I don't know. But I think that Lovecraft and Howard both have a sense of people belong in certain places, and as long as they stay where they belong, they're fine. And it's it's when they it's when they go someplace where they're not supposed to be, that's where they get very agitated. So, you know, it could be that Lovecraft considered that African-Americans belong in the South. 00:29:17:10 - 00:29:25:09 Andrew And so that's fine. And it's when they start traveling other places that he gets upset, maybe that has something to do with it. 00:29:25:11 - 00:29:45:12 Sean All right. Before we dive into the even even more upsetting parts of this letter, perhaps this would be a good passing point. Good, Good. All right. Well, our thanks today. Go out to the lovely folks at Hippocampus Press, particularly for their publication, A Means to Freedom, the letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E Howard. 00:29:45:18 - 00:29:52:08 Andrew It was edited by ST Joshi, David Schultz and Rusty Burk. You can find out more about it at HippocampusPress.com. 00:29:52:11 - 00:29:55:02 Sean I am your obedient servant, Sean Branney. 00:29:55:07 - 00:29:58:11 Andrew And I am cordially and respectfully yours. Andrew Leman. 00:29:58:14 - 00:30:02:00 Sean You've been listening to Voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:30:02:00 - 00:30:09:16 Andrew If you have enjoyed today's show, please do take a moment to post a kind review or a reading of some kind. 00:30:09:21 - 00:30:13:19 Sean Or if you still have any friends left, please tell them about Voluminous brought. 00:30:13:19 - 00:30:46:08 Andrew Brought to you by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Come check out all we have to offer at HPLHS.org.