George Wetzel to Derleth on HPL

Wetzel, George T. TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS). 1 page on letter-size paper with a Baltimore address, signed "George T. Wetzel," undated (circa 1955?) to "Dear Mr. Derleth" [August Derleth]. Introduces himself as a Lovecraft collector. Notes a recent visit to the Amateur Journalism Library at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute where he identified a pseudonymous poem by Lovecraft "which I think conatins [sic] some very striking imagery and which you have not previously published." He notes, "The first and third portions of the opus I omitted [from an enclosed copy evidently] because it is very mediocre, the middle section only containing anything worth while." The letter, with all its minor illiteracies (and major enthusiasm), illustrates the unpolished and largely underground nature of HPL scholarship (as well as fantasy & science fiction scholarship in general) up until the late 1950s and early 1960s when such studies began to acquire some measure of academic respectability. Faint fold creases and minor rumpling, near fine overall. (#116744)