00:00:05:18 - 00:00:07:17 Andrew Welcome to Voluminous the Letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:00:09:09 - 00:00:14:05 Sean In addition to classic works of horror fiction, H.P. Lovecraft brought thousands of fascinating letters. 00:00:14:06 - 00:00:16:07 Andrew In each episode, we'll read and discuss one of them. I'm Andrew Leman. 00:00:18:00 - 00:00:22:02 Sean And I'm Sean Branney. And together we run the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. 00:00:22:10 - 00:00:28:20 Andrew For today's letter, I chose one written on February 3rd, 1924, to Edwin Baird. 00:00:29:05 - 00:00:31:03 Sean Whom. Well, let's hear it. 00:00:31:03 - 00:01:03:21 Andrew Okay. 598 Angel Street, Providence, Rhode Island. February 3rd, 1924. My dear Baird, I was delighted to receive your two communications and to hear that you liked Nemesis. This delight atones fairly well for the sensation of gastric depression caused by the implication that Arthur Jermyn is going to press as The white ape! I wish I could convert you to my point of view regarding the annoying literalness and placidity of that latter title. 00:01:04:07 - 00:01:24:17 Andrew But all I can do is say that it is the only title which I could never possibly have applied to that particular tale. But it is at war with the spirit and internal harmonies of the narrative and clashes. Fearsomely with the effect of the opening paragraph. One thing you may be sure that if I ever entitle to story The white ape. 00:01:25:02 - 00:01:27:03 Andrew There would be no ape in it. 00:01:27:21 - 00:02:00:01 Andrew There would be something at first taken for an ape which would not be an ape. But how can one ever get those subtleties across? At any rate? I know I am partly to blame for this since I voluntarily offered to shorten the original title to Arthur Jermyn. Now, however, after seeing just what a feeling of melancholy that an Lovecraftian caption has given me, I am returning to my original resolve that my titles must be considered as integral with the tales and the whole rejected unless the titles are also preserved. 00:02:00:15 - 00:02:21:17 Andrew The weakening in this case was my own, but it wasn't worthwhile! Thanks prodigiously for the proofreading offer of which I shall avail myself with the utmost avidity. Despite the laborious ness of the process, Ambrose Bierce hated proofreading and used to complain of the bother in letters to Samuel Loveman. He read proof for the new edition of his collected works. 00:02:22:09 - 00:02:47:07 Andrew Glad that Hypnos is coming. Are you giving me a vacation for March or are The Rats to gnaw their uncanny course through that issue? Yes, indeed. I have heard from Mr. Henneberger. Check? Bless me. No! such details are so vulgar. But I am told that the twin ventures Detective and Weird Tales have reduced the Hindenburg in capital from plus 11000 to -40000. 00:02:47:17 - 00:03:10:01 Andrew Hence presumed that I ought to be a very meek and inaudible minus if minus there be in a matter of esthetics. Henneberger seems determined to hang on to his venture till the last ditch and shows a rugged pluck. I can't but admire. He spoke of a coming reorganization to include work from the magician Houdini and the elaboration of gruesome crime material at the expense of fiction. 00:03:10:07 - 00:03:35:02 Andrew Reducing the latter to a novel and two or three short stories per issue. I can't say that this strikes me as following the Machen or Poe tradition in art, unless Marie Roget is a key note in Poe. But if it increases circulation and saves the magazine from annihilation, who shall quarrel to arbitrarily? At any rate, Henneberger has the right idea and savage on restraint and departure from the conventional point of view. 00:03:35:15 - 00:03:56:03 Andrew I'll bet he'd snap up that Eddie Yarn Beloved Dead, which is presenting such a doubtful case. But I should hardly say that H made me any proposition as he intimated to you he might. The only part of his letter that brought me in was a request for a novel of 25,000 words, or over which I shall be happy to send when I finish it. 00:03:56:10 - 00:04:22:00 Andrew I've got nothing of that length complete, but after trying serial stuff for Home Brew, I experimented a bit with the novel form and an idea partly shaped, which will probably suit Mr. Henneberger's requirements. It is a hideous thing whose provisional title subject to change is the House of the Worm. All this apart from my big novel idea as a thief, which will be exotic and highbrow and wholly unsuited to weird tales. 00:04:22:17 - 00:04:48:00 Andrew By the way, I felt complimented when Henneberger expressed his opinion that my rats is the best tale weird tales ever received. I wish he'd tell Sister Bob Davis. That Henneberger's curiosity about my age, habits and personality is quite interesting. A taste, I suppose, of what I should encounter if I were a celebrity. Have you read Dunsany's fame and the poet I vastly admired Dunsany. 00:04:48:00 - 00:05:22:10 Andrew I must write my autobiography someday. Every mediocre, uninteresting person of late seems absolutely determined to write his autobiography, especially if he has done nothing whatsoever to warrant it. I must be pompous and colorful and supply the elements of dramatic interest where life has failed to supply it. Alas, lifelong indolence and nearly lifelong ill health have made my annals as short and simple as those of the class who subsist on weird tales checks! Une vie cérébrale - nothing more if even that. 00:05:23:16 - 00:05:46:05 Andrew Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890 in a large Victorian house in Providence, set on a terrace amidst expansive shady grounds and close to the fields of what was then the edge of the settled district. His ancestry was that of unmixed English gentry. Quite directly on the paternal side, where his own grandfather had left Devonshire. 00:05:46:05 - 00:06:29:22 Andrew As a poor ish younger son and sought fortune in the state of New York and in a Yankee ified way maternally, his immigrant ancestor being the Reverend George Phillips, who came from Norfolk in 1630 with Mr. Winthrop's colony, buried his wife in Salem in the same year and finally settled in Watertown, rearing a numerous posterity and learning from Cotten Mather The knot and fulsome epitaph "Hic Jacet Georgius Phillippi, Vir Incomparabilis, nisi Samuelum genuisset" it is the cratering sorrow of my life that I am descended through another son, then the more than incomparable Samuel. At an early age, an age of very few months. 00:06:29:22 - 00:06:58:16 Andrew In fact, the future master of literature immigrated to the province of the Massachusetts Bay, taking his parents with him on account of a desire of his father's to transact business - commonplace thought - in the village of Boston. It was here that first contacts with literary people were established for as a provisional residence. The young philosopher chose that of a friend of his mother, whose name is not unknown to fame, but whose finances made cooperative living a very useful expedient at that period. 00:06:58:24 - 00:07:23:10 Andrew I refer to the late poetess Louise Imogen Guiney. Oliver Wendell Holmes came not infrequently to this ménage and on one occasion unremembered by the passenger, is said to have ridden the future weird tales disciple on his venerable knee. But such a career of promise was not for long. At the time, indeed, young Lovecraft showed signs of considerable literary progress. 00:07:23:19 - 00:07:46:12 Andrew Ever a nervous child, he began linguistic experiments at shortly after one knew his Anglo Roman alphabet at two and at two and a half was want to astonish the suburban throng for the Guiney castle was in Auburndale, 11 miles from Mr. Bulfinch's Orient Dome, where on the cosmos rotates with poetic recitations from the dizzy eminence of a tables top. 00:07:47:05 - 00:08:31:24 Andrew In 1893, however, his father's health passed into the decline from which it never emerged, so that Lovecraft and his mother returned to Providence to that maternal grand paternal roof at 454 Angel Street, under which he originally beheld the solar illumination. But what was tragedy for the older generation was nothing of the sort to the younger. The future dictator of literature was intensely attached to his grandfather, whose travels in Europe and taste for Italian art made him a varied and piquant canvasser and to the whole place with its trees and terraces, fountains and stables, walks and gardens and best of all, its proximity to the dreaming fields and mystic groves of antique New England, now solid 00:08:31:24 - 00:08:59:12 Andrew blocks of homes and department houses, which the young Sage's vibrant imagination, peopled with every conceivable sort of unreal presence. With the house, was a vast array of books. The fusion of two hereditary libraries. And to this the rising speed turned when at four the ars legendi became his. By a curious twist of taste only old fashioned things and fantastic things attracted the infant marvel. 00:08:59:13 - 00:09:21:24 Andrew Save for vivid details of fairy and dark whisperings of the netherworld. He would read nothing without the long "s" so that his taste became completely that of the 18th century, and his first writing or rather hand printing performed at the age of five. Script came at the age of seven, half this selfsame long as as its most salient characteristic. 00:09:22:15 - 00:09:50:20 Andrew The child was weak, nervous and inclined to keep his own company after he found his voluble conversation dislodged by those gentlemen of his grandfather's circle who formed the only persons he ever cared to talk to. Children he disliked on account of their freakish ness and their disinclination to cast their playing into coherent narrative and dramatic channels. Further, adding to his unpopularity was his utter aloofness of opinion and independence of utterance. 00:09:51:10 - 00:10:17:15 Andrew Born amongst Orthodox Christians, he was at first a pagan and later and still a scientific skeptic, born amongst patriotic Yankees and Sons of the Revolution in Cincinnati. he was a dyed in the wool Tory who cursed the 4th of July from the age of three and sang God Save the King when other folk sang America. The Queer Duck altogether and so frail that formal school was out of the question. 00:10:17:23 - 00:10:38:10 Andrew Snatches of school appear here and there, but only snatches. After all, a cultivated family is the best school, and I am singularly complacent about the training this young man did not get. He did stick out four years of high school, but at the cost of a breakdown which kept him from college and put him practically out of the world till three years ago. 00:10:39:00 - 00:10:56:16 Andrew In those middle years, the poor devil was such a nervous wreck that he hated to speak to any human being or even to see or be seen by one. And every trip down town was an ordeal. Not that he ever liked people as well as cats. It is among the feel of day that he has had his most valued friends. 00:10:56:23 - 00:11:22:13 Andrew I can assure you that personnage (a cat ?) is or was, alas, a glorious and purring reality. But this whole history is one of slow impoverishment and decay. Lovecraft was born to a household of four servants and three horses, and he has seen them all go. All of these and the old home as well for the death of his grandfather with a burden to state, forced a removal to a small flat three blocks east on the same street. 00:11:22:23 - 00:11:58:23 Andrew The flatware in this machine is now clicking, but which will probably go in turn during the coming spring, when finances will decree a final disintegration landing me in all probability in New York. Events Nothing ever happens. That is why perhaps my fancy goes off to explore strange and terrible worlds. My mother was stricken in 1919 and one and after another has subsequently reigned here around 1922, 1921, my health began of itself to effect that mending which legions of specialists had for the past 30 years, tried in vain to bring about. 00:11:59:07 - 00:12:23:19 Andrew And I have done more traveling since than I ever thought I could do in my lifetime. In 1920, I went for a visit to Boston and slept under another roof than my own for the first time in 19 years. The last time had been in 1901 when nervous nostalgia had forced a speedy return. My daily life is a sort of contemptuous lethargy, devoid alike of virtues or vices. 00:12:24:09 - 00:12:55:08 Andrew I am not of the world, but an amused and sometimes disgusted spectator to it. I detest the human race and its pretenses and spinelessness. To me, life is a fine art, and although I believe the universe is an automatic, meaningless chaos devoid of ultimate values or distinctions of right and wrong, I consider it most artistic to take into account the emotional heritage of our civilization and follow the patterns which produce the least pain to delicate sensibilities. 00:12:55:23 - 00:13:17:15 Andrew Thus, although holding the pompous and theocratic philosophy of the Puritans in the most abysmal contempt, I believe in an honor and fastidiousness of conduct which makes me act like a Puritan and earn the name of Puritan from all who are not of that dull breed of cattle themselves. I am myself - alone - as the bard makes crook back Richard say. 00:13:17:22 - 00:13:43:00 Andrew All schools of thought I hold in equal contempt. Ha Yes, that is my history. The history of intellectual and esthetic experience. It is damned odd that I a nearly six foot chalk white Nordic type. The type of the master, conqueror and man of action should be as much of a brooding analyst and dabbler in impressions as any oxide sawed off Mediterranean brunet. 00:13:43:09 - 00:14:01:04 Andrew My hair and eyes are dark, though I suppose there is something of the limerick Elder Britain in me. A times I have like to think that I am part Roman, as if some provincial governor or general had left his blood in the Blessed isle to be later mixed with that of the Saxon and the Norman, as they in their turn came. 00:14:01:18 - 00:14:26:19 Andrew And yet it is the Nordic I most admire. I am sure I would rather be a general than a poet, save preference, since I shall never be either. Futility and ineffectiveness are my keynote. I shall never amount to anything because I don't care enough about life in the world to try. Hayhoe. I am a skeptic and an analyst by nature and early settled into my present attitude of cynical materialism. 00:14:27:06 - 00:14:52:14 Andrew I was instructed in the legends of Santa Clause and the Bible at the age of about two, and gave to both a passive acceptance, not especially distinguished either for its critical keenness or its enthusiastic comprehension. Within the next few years, I added to my supernatural Lord the fairy tales of Grimm and the Arabian Nights. And by the time I was five, had small choice amongst those speculations so far as truth was concerned. 00:14:52:18 - 00:15:21:24 Andrew though for attractiveness, I favored the Arabian Nights. At one time, I formed a juvenile collection of Oriental pottery and objets d'art, announcing myself as a devout Mahoamétan and assuming the pseudonym of Abdul Alhzred, which you will recognize as the author of that mythical Necronomicon con, which I dragged into various of my tales. When I was six, my philosophical evolution received its most esthetically significant impulse the dawn of Greco-Roman thought. always avid for fairy lore 00:15:21:24 - 00:15:45:02 Andrew I had chanced on Hawthorne's Wonder book and Tanglewood Tales and was enraptured by the Hellenic myths, even in their routinized form. Then a tiny book in the private library of my elder aunt. The Story of the Odyssey in Harper's half Hour series caught my attention. F rom the opening chapter I was electrified. And by the time I reached the end, I was forevermore a Greco-Roman. 00:15:45:12 - 00:16:13:18 Andrew My Baghdad name and affiliations disappeared at once for the magic of silks and colors faded before that of fragrance, temple groves, faun peopled meadows in the twilight and the blue beckoning Mediterranean that billowed mysteriously out from Hellas into the reaches of haunting wonder, where dwelled autophagy and life's dragon eons, where Aeolus kept his winds and sersi her spine, and where in the three nation pastures roamed the oxen of radiant Helios. 00:16:14:09 - 00:16:42:05 Andrew As soon as possible, I procured an illustrated edition of Bull Fincher's Age of Fable, and gave all my time to the reading of the text in which the true spirit of Hellenism is delightfully preserved and to the contemplation of the pictures, splendid designs and half tones of the standard classical statues and paintings of classical subjects. Before long, I was fairly familiar with the principal creation myths and had become a constant visitor at the classical art museums of Providence and Boston. 00:16:42:18 - 00:17:06:20 Andrew I commenced a collection of small plaster casts of the Greek sculptural masterpieces. I learned the Greek alphabet and rudiments of the Latin tongue. I adopted the pseudonym of Lucius Valerius Messala, Roman, not Greek, since Rome had a charm all its own for me. My grandfather had traveled observing me through Italy and delighted me with long first hand accounts of its beauties and memorials of ancient grandeur. 00:17:07:11 - 00:17:33:24 Andrew This ecstatic trend had its result in a philosophical way and prompted my last flickering of religious belief. When about seven or eight I was a genuine pagan, so intoxicated with the beauty of Greece that I acquired a half sincere belief in the old gods, in nature spirits. I have, in literal truth, built altars to pan, Apollo, Diana and Athena and have watched for dryads and cedars in the woods and fields at dusk. 00:17:34:07 - 00:18:07:00 Andrew Once I firmly thought I beheld some of these sylvan creatures dancing under autumnal oaks. A kind of religious experience as true in its way as the subjective ecstasies of any Christian whose unimaginative emotionalism and my unemotional, imaginativeness are of equal value looseness from an intellectual point of view. If such a Christian tell me he has felt the reality of his Jesus or Yahweh, I can reply that I have seen the Hoofed Pan and the Sisters of the Hesperian Fire Fuser. 00:18:07:23 - 00:18:37:21 Andrew But in my ninth year, as I was reading the Grecian Myths in their standard poetical translations and thus acquiring unconsciously my taste for Queen and English, the real foundation of my skepticism were laid impaled by the crude but fascinating pictures of scientific instruments in the back of Webster's Unabridged. I began to take an interest in natural philosophy and chemistry and soon had a promising laboratory in my cellar and a new stock of simple scientific textbooks in my budding library. 00:18:38:07 - 00:19:03:06 Andrew The books will never leave me, but the laboratory after being transferred to this house, I am giving to my alma mater, Hope Street High School, as final domestic dispersal becomes imminent. Ere long, I was more of a scientific student than a pagan dreamer. In 1897, my leading literary work was a quote, poem unquote entitled The Poem of Ulysses or The New Odyssey. 00:19:03:15 - 00:19:28:06 Andrew In 1899, it was a compendious treatise on chemistry in several pencil scribbled volumes. But mythology was by no means neglected. In this period, I read much in Egyptian, Hindu and Teutonic mythology and tried experiments in pretending to believe each one to see which might contain the greatest amount of truth. I had it will be noted, immediately adopted the method and manner of science. 00:19:28:23 - 00:20:02:12 Andrew Naturally, having an open and unemotional mind, I was soon a complete skeptic and materialist. My scientific studies had enlarged to include geographical, biological and astronomical rudiments, and I had acquired a habit of relentless analysis in all matters. My pompous book called Poems The Menorah, written when I was 11, was dedicated, quote, to the gods, heroes and ideals of the ancients, end quote, and harped in disillusioned, world weary tones on the sorrow of the pagan robbed of his antique pantheon. 00:20:03:02 - 00:20:31:20 Andrew One of the stanzas from my ode to Selene or Diana runs as follows Take heed, Diana, of my humble plea. Convey me where my happiness shall last. Draw me against the tide of times. Rough sea and let my spirit rest amidst the past. Hitherto my philosophy had been distinctly juvenile and empirical. It was a revolt from obvious falsities and ugliness, but involved no particular cosmic or ethical theory. 00:20:32:05 - 00:21:10:01 Andrew In ethical questions, I had no analytical interest because I did not realize that they were questions. I accepted Victorianism with consciousness of many prevailing hypocrisies and aside from saboteurs, orient and supernatural matters without dispute. Never having heard of inquiries which reached, quote, beyond good and evil, end quote. Though at times interested in reforms, notably prohibition one I was inclined to be bored by ethical casual street since I believed conduct to be a matter of taste and breeding with a virtue, delicacy and truthfulness as symbols of gentility. Of my word and honor 00:21:10:01 - 00:21:32:14 Andrew I was inordinately proud and would permit no reflections to be cast upon them. I thought ethics to obvious and commonplace to be scientifically discussed and considered philosophy solely in its relation to truth and beauty. I was and still am, Pagan to the core regarding man's place in nature and the structure of the universe. I was as yet on awakened. 00:21:33:00 - 00:22:03:03 Andrew This awakening was to come in the winter of 1902-1903, when astronomy asserted its supremacy. Amongst my studies, the most poignant sensations of my existence are those of 1896, when I discovered the Hellenic world and of 1902, when I discovered the myriad suns and worlds of infinite space. Sometimes I think that latter event the greater for the grandeur of that growing conception of the universe, still excites a thrill hardly to be duplicated. 00:22:03:18 - 00:22:40:02 Andrew I made of astronomy my principal scientific study obtaining larger and larger telescopes, collecting astronomical books to the number of 61 and writing copiously on the subject in the form of special and monthly articles in the local daily press. As I mentioned in the preceding letter, my intention was to become a professor of astronomy. By my 13th birthday I was thoroughly impressed with man's impermanence and insignificance, and by my 17th, about which time I did some particularly detailed writing on the subject I had formed in all essential particulars my present pessimistic cosmic views. 00:22:40:18 - 00:23:11:19 Andrew The futility of all existence began to press and oppress me, and my references to human progress formerly hopeful began to decline in enthusiasm. Always partial to antiquity, I allowed myself to originate a sort of one man cult of retrospectives, aspiration, realistic analysis favored by history and by diffusive scientific leanings, which now embraced Darwin, Hickel, Huxley and various other pioneers was checked by my aversion for realistic literature. 00:23:12:05 - 00:23:35:22 Andrew In fiction, I was devoted to the fantasy of Poe and his conjectures in poetry and essays to the elegant formalism and conventionality of the 18th century. I was not at all wedded to the illusions I retained. My attitude has always been cosmic, and I looked on man as if from another planet. He was merely an interesting species presented for study and classification. 00:23:36:12 - 00:24:12:16 Andrew I have strong prejudices and partiality in many fields, but could not help seeing the race in its cosmic futility as well as in its terrestrial importance. By the time I was of age, I had scant faith in the world's betterment and felt a decreasing interest in its cherished pumps and prides. By the age of 25, I was well on the road to my present cynicism, a cynicism marked by contemptuous indifference toward mankind in the aggregate, but tempered with an ironic pity for his eternal tragedy of aspirations beyond the possibility of fulfillment. 00:24:12:18 - 00:24:40:05 Andrew As I now approach 34, I have no particular wishes save to perceive facts and to receive refined and agreeable esthetic impressions. My objectivity, always marked, is now paramount and unopposed, so that there is nothing I am not willing to believe. I no longer really desire anything but oblivion and am thus ready to discard any gilded illusion or accept any unpalatable fact with perfect equanimity. 00:24:40:15 - 00:25:05:08 Andrew I can at last concede willingly that the wishes, hopes and values of humanity are matters of total indifference to the bland, blind cosmic mechanism. Happiness I recognize as an ethereal phantom whose simulacrum comes fully to none, and even partly to but few, and whose position is the goal of all human striving is a grotesque mixture of farce and tragedy. 00:25:05:21 - 00:25:30:19 Andrew That is the essence of H.P. Lovecraft. A very queer old gentleman is old, dashing and arrogant moderns will agree. As to this reading lamp business My word, I am half inclined to believe you started something shortly after your former letter came. I mentioned your recommendations to a friend in New York, the Mrs. Sonia H. GREENE, whose horror at Martin's Beach you renamed the Invisible Monster. 00:25:30:23 - 00:26:09:01 Andrew After I had very carefully removed Mrs. Greene's original title, The Nameless Monster. And she, knowing of my indolent habit of never getting around to anything, took it upon herself to visit the office and carry a lot of my stuff, both manuscripts and discursive letters for the editor or editors to look over. She found the enterprise in the hands of a courteous, obliging and literary paleo path annoyed lady Miss Tucker, whose amiability extended to the length of inviting Mrs. GREENE to dinner to meet the actress Madame Petrova and some Russian princess whose name would be too much for this 1906 rebuilt Remington. 00:26:09:17 - 00:26:33:03 Andrew But to return to the main thread, this dictator s a virgin of the lamp was very favorably impressed. So much so this Mrs. GREENE writes that her reaction might almost be termed enthusiasm. And as a result, she told Mrs. GREENE that she intended to write me about some reviewing proposition, which I shall certainly welcome if it means a more than theoretical augmentation of my fiscal balance. 00:26:33:09 - 00:26:57:02 Andrew Thus, your kind suggestion may possibly result in my gathering a few berries in a new pasture, though advance optimism is never judicious. At all events. I thank you and thank you also for the reading Lamp Brackett enclosed in yours of the Tate. If I ever nail that 25 fish bevy of Biblio, it's only $25 worth. The 50 was the combined sum of three separate prizes. 00:26:57:09 - 00:27:25:03 Andrew I shall begin my pickings, if so permitted, with the complete works as far as published of Arthur Machen. slave as I am to his demonic spell. I don't own a ballet line he ever wrote for the Knopf. Reprints are all affairs of two recent dates to coincide with my bygone days of financial solvency. Certe, nullas bananas hodie abemus Every your most obedient servant HPL. 00:27:25:15 - 00:27:29:10 Sean Well Andrew. What attracted you to this letter to Mr. Baird? 00:27:29:11 - 00:27:51:15 Andrew This is the only letter to Edwin Baird that appears in the Selected Letters collection published by Arkham House. And Baird was the original editor of Weird Tales magazine. He is the guy who got Lovecraft into the weird Tales fold and changed both Lovecraft's life and the fortunes of that magazine forever. 00:27:51:21 - 00:27:53:02 Sean So of course they fired him. 00:27:53:06 - 00:27:59:19 Andrew So of course they fired him and replaced him with Farnsworth Wright Who Lovecraft did not particularly get along with. 00:27:59:21 - 00:28:03:05 Sean And they offered the job to Lovecraft before offering the job to Farnsworth Wright? 00:28:03:05 - 00:28:24:18 Andrew Right.But Lovecraft couldn't be bothered to take a job that would require him to move to Chicago. So, yeah, he turned down that job and it went to Farnsworth Wright. Who had been Baird's assistant. But Baird was the original editor of Weird Tales, and he also was the editor of the Other Hand of Berger magazine Detective Tales. And Baird really liked Lovecraft's stories. 00:28:25:03 - 00:28:47:13 Andrew And really he accepted every single story that Lovecraft submitted to Weird Tales while he was in charge and really sort of even though Lovecraft was a hard author to work with Lovecraft when he first submitted letter manuscripts to Weird Tales, he sent five and he sent them with a cover letter that basically dared Edwin Baird to accept them. 00:28:47:13 - 00:29:04:17 Andrew It was like, You won't like any of these and your readers are idiots and they won't understand them. And I have no realistic hope that you're ever going to accept them. But here the only condition is if you print them. You cannot edit them in any way. That was the cover letter that Lovecraft sent to Baird and Baird, amazingly. 00:29:04:17 - 00:29:10:07 Andrew And it worked. It worked or something. Baird either overlooked it or actually liked it because. 00:29:10:10 - 00:29:14:22 Sean He should have kept using that cover letter around his career. He probably would have done a lot better. 00:29:14:23 - 00:29:15:19 Andrew Maybe it was. 00:29:16:00 - 00:29:19:19 Sean These editors wanted a writer who's willing to boss them around a little bit. So what. 00:29:19:20 - 00:29:30:24 Andrew Lovecraft was, was a difficult person to work with for a magazine editor. But the only thing Baird wrote and said, I'll accept them, but you have to retype them and double spaced them. Lovecraft sent. 00:29:30:24 - 00:29:31:16 Andrew His manuscripts. 00:29:31:17 - 00:29:35:11 Andrew Single spaced specifically so that it would be hard to edit the letters. 00:29:35:15 - 00:29:40:04 Sean Well, he also was trying to save on paper. Well, yeah, you know, half as much paper when you when you're single. 00:29:40:05 - 00:29:47:16 Andrew But Baird said I will accept them if you resend them double spaced. And Lovecraft eventually knuckled under and double spaced them all and resent them all. 00:29:47:16 - 00:30:12:20 Sean But you don't see it so peaceful and collaborative relationship so it was interesting. I saw that there was one Lovecraft story that he had sent to Baird, which was rejected, which was once Baird got sacked from Weird Tales, was sent over to editor Detective Tales. Yeah. Lovecraft's not going to let that stop him and set a copy of The Shunned House, which is just as a detective story goes, it's not very top ten. 00:30:12:21 - 00:30:13:20 Sean Great. The wrong. 00:30:13:20 - 00:30:15:23 Andrew Magazine. Thank you for playing, but. 00:30:15:23 - 00:30:19:06 Sean No, Send it down the hall to Farnsworth Wright. 00:30:19:07 - 00:30:38:10 Andrew It is. There are other letters to Baird that survived, but they're published in Weird Tales magazine. Hmm. Much, apparently, to Lovecraft's chagrin. Like he never thought that that cover letter was going to get published in the magazine. But it was , and it was like he was ragging on the magazine. He was ragging on the other writers for the magazine. 00:30:38:13 - 00:30:44:17 Andrew And it was quite embarrassing for Lovecraft to have those letters published in Weird Tales. So Baird got his revenge in a way. 00:30:44:17 - 00:30:52:03 Sean I imagine that tickled Lovecraft would think that his personal correspondence is being read aloud by you and me. Sorry, shared with the audience all over. So. Ah. 00:30:52:11 - 00:31:01:24 Andrew Sorry, Howard. So yeah, this it is very fun to hear how Lovecraft deals with, you know, possibly his greatest professional champion, Edwin Baird, the editor of Weird Tales. 00:31:02:02 - 00:31:13:08 Sean And it starts with his outrage about the about the change of the title of Arthur Jermyn. It is which Arthur Jermyn. Hey, it's it's not a good title to start with. Yeah, I get where Howard's coming from. 00:31:13:08 - 00:31:17:05 Andrew But it is funny though. That's the one title I would never have used. 00:31:17:07 - 00:31:19:21 Sean Is the one you put on it. That's delightful. 00:31:19:21 - 00:31:23:18 Andrew And if I ever had a story titled The White Ape, there wouldn't be any apes in it. 00:31:24:09 - 00:31:52:10 Sean Yeah, that's right. Something that struck me too, is as he was going through here, was when he was talking about the CMT story, the People of Dead, where Lovecraft's involvement in the Eddie's stories, its thunder disputation, you know, the the Eddie Estate claims it's all Eddie and no Lovecraft at all. And generally speaking, I think most Lovecraft scholars attribute Lovecraft as having been involved in and love dead and and a couple of others. 00:31:52:10 - 00:32:03:23 Sean But boy, there is no chance of ownership here, You know, not that I had a hand in that I helped Eddie and that I proof read for him or anything. It's like, yeah, I loved yeah, that's Eddie's thing. Yeah. 00:32:03:23 - 00:32:24:00 Andrew Weird Tales had been around for a few months before Lovecraft got involved, and a lot of his friends said, Oh, there's this new magazine, Weird Tales, You should send your stuff. And once Lovecraft did, he then encouraged all of his friends to because he got a very warm reception from Baird. So, you know, all of Lovecraft's friends were all, oh, let's all send stuff to weird tales. 00:32:24:00 - 00:32:42:16 Andrew And so Lovecraft definitely drafted all of his pals, including Eddie and Clark Ashton Smith and all those guys. Baird You know, he came to like Baird a lot for Yeah, while it lasted. Baird, too, did eventually get fired because weird tales lost tens of thousands of dollars in its first year and a half. Yeah. While Baird was editor. 00:32:42:16 - 00:32:44:03 Sean Not working as a business enterprise. 00:32:44:03 - 00:32:54:08 Andrew Yeah. So Hannah Burger canned him and brought in his his assistant to take over as the editor. And Farnsworth Wright. You know, he was not as friendly to Lovecraft, but the magazine did improve. 00:32:54:10 - 00:32:59:22 Sean Sure. And went on to, you know, publish a number of really influential writers, got published in Wheir tales. 00:32:59:22 - 00:33:19:01 Andrew So that was he's talking about how the letter they got from Henneberger and how Henneberger says Rats in the Walls: Best story Weird Tales Ever received. I wish he'd tell Sister Bob Davis that. And Bob Davis was the editor of Argosy, All Story Weekly, who had previously rejected rats in the walls. And I just I don't know whether he really said Sister Bob. 00:33:19:01 - 00:33:20:00 Sean But it's a funny way to. 00:33:20:00 - 00:33:26:07 Andrew Refer to Bob as Sister Bob Davis. I thought, I wonder if it was actually he wrote Mr. Bob Davis and it's a transcription error. 00:33:26:10 - 00:33:27:06 Sean That would certainly. 00:33:27:14 - 00:33:34:02 Andrew I mean, it's possible, but it also is entirely possible. He called his sister Bob Davis. I hope that's the case because I think it's a fun way to. 00:33:34:11 - 00:33:44:13 Sean Say only it's because he wore a nuns hat and so, well, in that paragraph we've got to talk about the house. Oh, you know, this unwritten Lovecraft novel. 00:33:44:13 - 00:33:47:01 Andrew This great lost story. 00:33:47:01 - 00:33:48:14 Sean Howard, you tease. Yeah. 00:33:48:14 - 00:33:50:02 Andrew What would it have been about, I wonder? 00:33:50:03 - 00:34:09:21 Sean Yeah, Something how all we get is as of often it's exotic and highbrow. Yeah. Boy, that's Howard all over it. So, yeah, it is interesting to think that he had a concept for and this is a guy who's never written a novel and really never does write a novel, You know, the Mountains of Madness and Dream Quest or novella. 00:34:09:24 - 00:34:10:13 Sean Yeah, like. 00:34:10:15 - 00:34:12:05 Andrew Show at a Time gets up there, but. 00:34:12:05 - 00:34:15:12 Sean You know, but they're not, you know, novels, I think, at least in a modern sense. 00:34:15:14 - 00:34:20:15 Andrew Even the longest piece of fiction published in any of these magazines, they called them novels, but they weren't really novels. 00:34:20:15 - 00:34:32:04 Sean Sure. But I don't know that he's necessarily looking to publish it in a magazine. I mean, I think, yeah, if you've got an idea for a novel, you're probably imagining it as a standalone book. Yeah, maybe so. Yeah. But alas, we get nothing. 00:34:32:07 - 00:34:34:15 Andrew Well, maybe that'll be a future episode of Dark Adventure. 00:34:34:15 - 00:34:38:24 Sean The House of the World. The House of Actually, Maybe it will. 00:34:38:24 - 00:34:41:22 Andrew So then he goes into. It's interesting. 00:34:41:22 - 00:34:42:20 Andrew How he says, you know, Oh. 00:34:42:20 - 00:35:03:00 Andrew This. I wonder what it would be like if I were a celebrity Little dreaming that, of course, one day he's going to be one or, you know, he'll never live to enjoy or regret it. But he does, of course, become a celebrity. And so he decides to send Baird, who you know, he's never met, but who he has a record of sending inappropriate letters to. 00:35:03:05 - 00:35:21:18 Andrew He writes this lengthy autobiography of himself, which is full of interesting facts that answer some questions we've had as we've read previous letters. I mean, he describes how he grew up in a house with four servants. And there you go. That solves that mystery of a previous letter we were reading. He talks about further. He's talking about himself as a. 00:35:21:18 - 00:35:23:22 Andrew Child and says adding to his unpopularity. 00:35:23:22 - 00:35:25:13 Andrew Was his utter aloofness of Opinion and independence of utterance. So even from, you know, his earliest days, he didn't care what anybody thought of him. 00:35:33:12 - 00:35:35:01 Sean Right. And that was his. 00:35:35:02 - 00:35:58:06 Andrew And that is one of the major to be able to not care what people think is, you know, a lot of people wish they could care less about what other people think. I myself often wish I could just care less about what other people think. It would be so free to not care what other people think at the same time, Of course, you know, that's one of the hallmarks of a psychopath, is caring what anybody thinks. 00:35:58:13 - 00:36:02:05 Andrew So it's like it's one of those qualities that is enviable. 00:36:02:05 - 00:36:04:01 Andrew And also sad. 00:36:04:06 - 00:36:25:02 Sean Yeah, And I'm not sure I buy it entirely either. Oh, sure. Because, you know, he's he's crushed when the manuscript is rejected. Yeah, he he takes things personally all the time. So I think I think he likes to paint a portrait of this Lovecraft persona who is, is in different to that. But I think there are man, there are a lot of chinks in that armor. 00:36:25:03 - 00:36:52:06 Sean Yeah. So what I thought was interesting about the the biography is he's recycling an existing biography. He didn't write this book for him at all. He just grabbed it, just grabbed it. And it was originally written as a confession of Unfaithful that he wrote in 1921. It was published in 1922, you know, as this. And it is you know, it's a it's a pretty good autobiography. 00:36:52:09 - 00:37:19:20 Sean But yeah, it does seem kind of oddly unsolicited and unnecessary to Baird and the fact that it was a preexisting I don't know. It seemed it seemed odd to take a preexisting essay. Yeah. Autobiographical essay and squeeze it into this letter to your your publisher without mentioning, you know. Yeah. Oh, here's a few notes I wrote about myself a couple years ago, and that would have seemed more apt. 00:37:19:20 - 00:37:20:05 Sean It is. 00:37:20:20 - 00:37:43:21 Andrew He also prefaces the delivery of this lengthy autobiography by, you know, it seems everyone these days wants to write their autobiography, especially if they're mediocre and have done nothing whatsoever. And it really reminded me of like current reality television and, you know, you know, all this famous just for being famous. And and, you know, he's describing a phenomenon in pop culture that certainly has endured. 00:37:43:21 - 00:38:21:02 Sean Oh, thrived, I think is the thing you're looking for. So something else that really struck me in this is the soon to be Mrs. Lovecraft. Oh, yeah, yeah. In this letter because we were in the middle and then towards the end. So he's, he's writing this on February 3rd of 1924. And in the middle of it, he, he tells Mr. Baird the flatware in this machine is now clicking, but which will probably go in turn during the coming spring when finances will decree a final disintegration, landing me in all probability in New York. 00:38:21:06 - 00:38:47:12 Sean Hmm. Four weeks from when he wrote this, he will be married to Sonia and living in New York. Mm hmm. You know, the invisible of her. And that relationship is. Yeah, it's again, it's sort of. It's Howard. The. The dissimilar sort of, you know, not, I don't know, it just kind of sweeping her under the rug and then. 00:38:47:12 - 00:38:53:18 Andrew And then or does it, or does it speak to the idea that he only got married so he'd have a place to live? 00:38:53:19 - 00:38:59:22 Sean Yeah, kind of. You know. And yet then could he have just stayed with his aunts, which is what he was doing and what he. 00:39:00:12 - 00:39:03:01 Andrew Went back to? Well, no, that's not what a gentleman does. 00:39:03:01 - 00:39:20:02 Sean I don't know. Yeah, I don't. I don't know either. But it's my, my, my weird radar went off. They're going, What is with you, Howard? Because then he actually starts talking about Sonia very near the end of the letter in the reading lamp section. Uh huh. And but. 00:39:20:02 - 00:39:20:09 Andrew Doesn't. 00:39:20:24 - 00:39:31:23 Sean It, does you mention like, yeah, we're romantically involved. He brings up Mrs. Sonia H Green, which we've noted in other letters. He's it was calling her s h right. But here it's Mrs. Green. 00:39:32:04 - 00:39:33:18 Andrew Well she was Mrs. Green. Right. 00:39:33:18 - 00:39:39:22 Sean But he doesn't always refer to her that way, like in the Christmas letters than anything. She is called her s h and. 00:39:39:23 - 00:39:42:12 Andrew Well yeah but well yeah, yeah. 00:39:42:12 - 00:39:55:06 Sean I don't know. Again it just struck me when he, you know, brings her out this way and talking about her, you know, as if she is little more than a. 00:39:55:06 - 00:40:02:05 Andrew Well, I think he's doing that because Baird knows her under that name. I mean, she had submitted stuff to weird Tales before, so. 00:40:02:20 - 00:40:03:06 Sean Maybe he's. 00:40:03:06 - 00:40:06:21 Andrew Doing it that way because he knows that's how Baird will know who he's talking about. 00:40:06:21 - 00:40:13:00 Sean Right. And really, the original title, The Nameless Monster, I mean, why not call it the White Ape? Exactly. 00:40:13:04 - 00:40:33:06 Andrew Yeah, he does bring it back around to the title Complaining at the end, which is a good, good set up there. I did one thing I really liked about reading this autobiography was, you know, he identifying those two key moments in his youth that really changed his outlook on the world, the one where he discovered Greco-Roman mythology when he was, you know, six. 00:40:33:07 - 00:40:46:12 Andrew Right. And the one where he discovered astronomy when he was 12. Right. And how those two things just utterly shaped his worldview and his imagination and everything that would occupy him for the rest of his life. 00:40:46:14 - 00:40:48:18 Sean If he had tacked on meeting lord Dunsany. 00:40:49:00 - 00:40:50:07 Andrew That would have been the trifecta. 00:40:50:07 - 00:41:01:02 Sean The third chapter. But but yeah, those two qualities are things you see throughout. You know, the love of the ancient. Yeah. And the love of of the science, particularly with regard to the, the vastness. 00:41:01:05 - 00:41:11:05 Andrew And to be able to pin down the exact moments when it happened. You know, that's something that I don't know if a lot of people could say this is the moment in my life when my life was decided. 00:41:11:05 - 00:41:36:03 Sean We've talked about it in other places, you know, where he or other letters where he really esteems the learning and the acquisition of knowledge as one of the things which to him is most personally satisfying. And I saw this looping back around to that point that, you know, as I approach 24, I have no particular wishes save to perceive facts and receive refined, agreeable, esthetic impressions. 00:41:36:03 - 00:41:52:08 Sean Yeah. And yet this is a guy who's getting married next month, you know nothing about his social ambitions or, you know, a family or anything. It's like the thing I want is to acquire information. It's Lovecraft him viewing himself as a library. Well, he. 00:41:53:22 - 00:42:15:07 Andrew Also describes himself somewhere in this letter as I look upon humanity, as if from another planet, you know, I am not even part of the human race. Yeah, I am an alien creature from another world. And I think of humans as interesting specimens, and their travails are entertaining or pathetic, but they're nothing to do with me. I watch them from interplanetary distances. 00:42:15:19 - 00:42:34:14 Andrew It's weird. Going back to the mythology thing, though. He he talks about how, you know, once he was introduced to Greek mythology through this book belonging to his aunt, he then went and got Bulfinch, Age of Fable, which is of course a classic. Right. And he says, how old all of the the true spirit of Hellenism is too lightly preserved. 00:42:35:02 - 00:42:47:08 Andrew And it's like Thomas Bulfinch was an American who totally whitewashed Greek mythology in order to make it as popular and easy to read for children as possible. 00:42:47:08 - 00:42:48:02 Sean Take Out the naughty bits. 00:42:48:02 - 00:42:56:05 Andrew Yeah. So for you to say that Bulfinch Age of fable preserves Greek, anything is right is ridiculous, Right. 00:42:56:05 - 00:43:11:12 Sean Well, he's he's big on ridiculous proclamations. Yeah. You know, he makes a lot of unfounded or assertions which just don't hold up to scrutiny very well you know but he believes them and so he he dives in with a full throated. 00:43:11:12 - 00:43:16:12 Andrew His idea of the world is so utterly divorced. From what The world is. Oh, yeah, because. 00:43:16:13 - 00:43:43:11 Sean It's his he, you know, it's like he I think it's one of his great shortcomings is for a guy who spouses, you know, cosmism and make the the lens as broad as possible. And as unhuman as possible, and take in, you know, the vastness of everything. He still sees everything through a very HPL centric little, very small, narrow New England lens that's always there. 00:43:43:11 - 00:44:05:11 Sean He as much as he aspires to, to open that lens, to take in so much more. You know, he's always viewing it through this kind of peephole of his own personal experience. And, you know, sometimes that's charming. Sometimes it's it's vexing. It's you know, it's the sort of dichotomy that makes him interesting. 00:44:06:09 - 00:44:13:08 Andrew It's interesting to to know, you know, if things had gone differently, he he his goal was to become a professor of astronomy. 00:44:13:08 - 00:44:39:14 Sean Yeah. Yeah. Had had he finished normal traditional schooling and gone on to college, you know, his. Yeah. Would have been able to hold down a job. Would. Yeah. You know what, what might that have held for him and would he have been happy doing that too. Because He does have a and speaks often of a creative spark. You know, he, he, he loves science but he also is one of these guys who I think, you know writing in some form or another some sort of Yeah. 00:44:39:14 - 00:44:44:16 Sean Of creative process is very fundamental to who he is. 00:44:44:16 - 00:44:45:16 Andrew So he had. 00:44:45:16 - 00:45:05:15 Andrew Such passion though you it's fun to think what it would have been like if Lovecraft had been your astronomy teacher. You know, he probably I mean, he clearly loved astronomy and the and not just the science of it, but the the imaginative romance of astronomy. You know, I wonder what it would have been like to take his astronomy class. 00:45:05:15 - 00:45:08:20 Andrew Of course, would have given you all the mythology of all those stars as well. 00:45:08:20 - 00:45:09:12 Sean That's true as. 00:45:09:12 - 00:45:11:03 Andrew Their ascension and declination. 00:45:11:03 - 00:45:27:15 Sean And, you know, most great scientists are great scientists because of their creativity, because they you know, they understand the rules of science and yet have an imagination to to imagine the elements of their field they don't yet know. That's how you. 00:45:27:15 - 00:45:45:20 Andrew Get those breakthrough discoveries like relativity and stuff, is the ability to imagine things that are not yet evident, right? Yeah. When he's talking about Sonia and he's talking about this reading lamp, the reading lamp was it was a it was a magazine, but it was also apparently a literary agency. And I was trying to find more information about it. 00:45:45:22 - 00:45:56:01 Andrew So Joshi says that apparently there is no surviving copy of this magazine in any library in the world. Wow. ST has looked. And they're not out there. Oh. 00:45:56:21 - 00:46:01:11 Sean That's remarkable. When there's more copies of the Necronomicon out there than there are the reading lamp. 00:46:01:11 - 00:46:07:17 Andrew But he also uses in this in this section, he drops this weird Paleo path. Annoying? 00:46:07:19 - 00:46:08:18 Sean Yes, he does. 00:46:08:18 - 00:46:32:19 Andrew Which is an awesome word that apparently he invented and no one has used since because that word paleo path annoyed is not in any dictionary. And if you look for it on the internet, nothing. This word does not exist on the internet. So this is the one and only use of the word paleo path annoyed in all the history of English literature which I love. 00:46:33:03 - 00:46:42:00 Sean And he gets bonus points for after Paleo was annoying doers. Later he uses Eclipse, right? Which is this not one delightful project. 00:46:42:09 - 00:46:43:10 Andrew At least that's a real word. 00:46:43:10 - 00:46:47:20 Sean Yes, that's. But yeah, Paleo path. An old lady except Miss Tucker. 00:46:47:20 - 00:46:51:19 Andrew So he also as a typography nerd, I have to talk about the long essay for a second. 00:46:51:19 - 00:46:52:20 Sean Oh, sure, sure. 00:46:52:23 - 00:47:21:14 Andrew Because he mentions his when he was a boy, he would only read things with the long s and the long s for people who don't know is a very archaic and obsolete letter that used to be used in certain situations In English, it looks like an a lowercase f without the crossbar, and it was often used. There were a lot of specific rules when you would deploy a long s, it was usually if you had a double s in the middle of a word, it was used for the first of those two S's. 00:47:21:21 - 00:47:55:24 Andrew It was also used at the beginnings of words. You would almost never use a long s at the end of a word. And it's just a holdover from ancient Roman times when there wasn't quite as much distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters. And it survives today through there's a German character called an asset, which is sort of a German double s, and it's that character is made out of a long s, followed by a half of a regular s Anyway, long s There are funny little typographical doodad that has been out of favor since around 1800. 00:47:56:04 - 00:47:58:06 Sean And very few people incorporate that in their handwriting. 00:47:58:06 - 00:48:03:17 Andrew Yes, very few. Very few. Anyway, I have to have to give a nod to the long S. I'm a type nerd. 00:48:03:24 - 00:48:05:01 Sean Yes. Yes, you are. 00:48:06:10 - 00:48:15:10 Andrew And yet his. His sign off. Certe, nullas bananas hodie habemus, which is Latin for Yes. We have no bananas today. 00:48:16:20 - 00:48:40:08 Sean Yeah. And it's, you know, the reminder that, that the the sort of intellect and sometimes snob, sometimes, you know, the many qualities the guy who who chucks out paleo path annoyed is still a guy who's got the sense of humor. Me Yes, we have no bananas today in Latin yes is sign off and you know, which. 00:48:40:11 - 00:48:44:19 Andrew Apparently was one of his favorite songs, which is mind blowing because it's a terrible song. 00:48:45:24 - 00:48:48:00 Sean There's no kind of very goofy song. 00:48:48:00 - 00:48:52:11 Andrew And apparently it tickled Lovecraft so much that he translated it, you know. 00:48:53:07 - 00:49:12:09 Sean And used it as to sign off his letter. So, yeah, that there is a, you know, a sense humor and a humanity that sometimes shines brighter than other times. And and that to me actually was one of my favorite little tidbits of that letter was the very, very end. And I'm like, Oh, Howard, All right, total. All right. 00:49:12:10 - 00:49:18:15 Sean We're going to keep you around. Yeah. So. All right. All right. Well, we should probably wrap this one up. 00:49:18:15 - 00:49:22:07 Andrew Yes. Our thanks today to Arkham House for publishing. 00:49:22:07 - 00:49:23:09 Andrew This one letter to Baird in selected letters Volume one. 00:49:26:04 - 00:49:31:12 Sean You can get your own copy of Selected letters from the lovely folks at ArkhamHouse.com 00:49:31:12 - 00:49:33:15 Andrew I'm your obedient servant, Andrew Leman. 00:49:33:15 - 00:49:36:12 Sean And I am cordially and respectfully yours. Sean Branney. 00:49:36:13 - 00:49:39:04 Andrew You've been listening to Voluminous the letters Of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:49:40:08 - 00:49:46:05 Sean If you've enjoyed the show, we hope you'll take a moment to post a review. Tell your friends, Spread the word about voluminous. 00:49:46:05 - 00:49:47:13 Andrew Brought to you by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Come check out all we have to offer at HPLHS.org