Houdini and Lovecraft According to George Kirk

Mara Kirk Hart has recently released her father's letters relevant to his observations of Lovecraft and the Kalem Club. (1)

Here are the only brief extracts of his comments on Lovecraft and Houdini.

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[1924 August 19, i.e. the day before HPL's birthday] "Tuesday. HL is Howard Lovecraft. He writes: stories, etc., and rewrites: Houdini's stories, poems for one Hoag, something or other for David B. Bush, etc. " (2)

[1926 October 18] "HPL wrote lately. Is doing work for Houdini." (3)

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These are very brief extracts, but clearly show that almost from the moment Kirk met HPL, he was conscious of HPL's association with the very famous Houdini, and that it was no secret to anyone within the Kalem that HPL was in loose association with Houdini for a number of years.


(1) Lovecraft's New York Circle,: The Kalem Club, 1924-1927; ed. Mara Kirk Hart and S. T. Joshi, Hippocampus Press, NY, 2006.
(2) p. 24. These are: Harry Houdini, the (then) elder Jonathan E. Hoag {1831-1927}, and Bush, a pop psychologist that HPL ghosted for. Kirk wrote these letters to his (then) fiancee Lucille Dvorak.
(3) p. 104. This refers to The Cancer of Superstition that HPL and CM Eddy, Jr. were writing. It would cease upon Houdini's death on October 31, 1926.