Notes on Sonia Greene Letters to Loveman

Here are excerpts of comments about a cache of letters. {and some Chrispy comments too}

(Lovecraft, Howard Phillips) Davis, Sonia Haft Greene Lovecraft. ARCHIVE OF LETTERS, mostly to Sam Loveman. Includes 12 AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED, 7 TYPED LETTERS SIGNED, 1 TYPED NOTE SIGNED. Written between 1947 and 1968. Addressed "Dear Sam," signed "Sonia." // About 45 pages in all. Also 1 AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED to Alyce Loveman. // ... Samuel Loveman, another writer (and a Jew), came to New York from Cleveland in 1924, the same year Lovecraft moved there to marry Sonia, and he became part of the inner circle of Lovecraft's writer-friends. (He also became a good friend of Hart Crane.) // Loveman opened a rare book store, The Bodley, that became a fixture of New York book life. // The friendship that Sam and Sonia had with HPL (along with their shared ethnic background and interest in books) drew them together after his death in 1937 -- but these letters suggest it was Sonia who pursued the friendship. // She frequently urges him in these letters to write, to come visit, to eat better, to get out and meet some women, to stop being morbid, to take better care of himself, etc. // Most letters are bunched in the period from 1947-1951; a three-year gap follows; then a twelve-year gap, at which point Sonia's handwriting is that of an older woman (she was 83 in 1966). // Aside from her affectionate mother-hen nagging of Sam, the letters mention Lovecraft frequently as well as other writers, including Adolph de Castro Danziger (who also lived in L.A.) and who made a strong impression on her.
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{De Castro, despite Lovecraft's derogatory comments was deeply respected and influential in the Jewish community. Letters in Chrispy's possession show many positive comments by luminaries.}
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Selected highlights: 26 October 1947: Urges Sam to come visit L.A., but not to fly -- too dangerous. Relates correspondence with August Derleth (publisher of Arkham House) about her writing a memoir of HPL, using his letters to her; Derleth says he owns the copyright to the letters and won't let her use them in print unless she shows them to her first -- at which point (she points out) he could copy them and use them for his own purposes without any compensation or credit to her. Another publisher wanted her to pay for the book and market it by herself.
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See elswhere on the blog about notes and letters on this extreme controversy between Sonia and Derleth - CP
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18 June 1949: Says her "expose of Howard's anti-Semitism was very mild in comparison to its real force," and, had she known the full extent of it earlier, "I would probably not have permitted myself to fall in love with H. P. I accepted his person because it could not be separated from his personality & intellectuality." Says that Adolph de Castro Danziger "was probably one of the very few Jews whom H. P. admired." // {The auctioneers' notes continue}>>(That's news to anyone reading HPL's letters that mention de Castro, who came to him in the late 1920s with ideas for collaborations ... Sonia ... here relates that "Dr. Danziger" showed him HPL's letters to him, and that the "were the shortest I ever saw.")
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21 August 1951: "I have lost all I ever owned. I am still alive and now have nothing more to worry about. My income is just barely enough to keep soul and body together, but this doesn't bother me much."
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29 August 1951: "I have about seven books that H. P. inscribed to me .... I've had many requests from some of HP's readers and admirers offering me picayune sums of money .... A day will come when these books with his inscriptions will be worth a great deal of money."
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19 July 1968: warns him about Randal Kirsch, a Lovecraft collector who was allegedly unscrupulous in his dealings with her (as he was with others, it seems: see http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/757/757.F2d.124.84-1027.html for details on a court case involving Kirsch and Brown University). {See elesewhere on the blog} An unusual and sometimes poignant collection of letters. Sonia remains cheerful and loyal throughout, despite Loveman's apparent lapses as a correspondent.
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Even with Derleth, whose hardball business tactics may have dissuaded her from writing a memoir of HPL, she is gracious; when he visits her in a nursing home (after taking his kids to Disneyland), she remarks on how well-behaved his children were and what a good parent he must be.
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Both Sonia and Sam eventually burned most of their letters from Lovecraft because of his anti-Semitic sentiments (which no doubt took on a more sinister meaning to them after the Holocaust). Detailed calendar of letters available upon request.