On 9 March 1924, Lovecraft wrote to Aunt Lillian breaking the news of his marriage. In that letter he asks for a tin box with his unpublished mauscripts; his magazines including the Weird Tales and Home Brews; his dressing gown; his old Webster's; postal scales; a tin box of Gillette blades, a special cabinet; a blue jumbo drinking cup; and finally some calendars.
Always intensely interested in HPL's surroundings, I wondered about those calendars.
One was "a daily Dickens", another was "colonial doorways", and the last "Paul Revere's Ride". Clearly two of the claendars were of antiquarian subject. Dickens is a bit of a surprise, since one sees virtually no Dickensian influence in HPL's letters, poems, or stories.
Always intensely interested in HPL's surroundings, I wondered about those calendars.
One was "a daily Dickens", another was "colonial doorways", and the last "Paul Revere's Ride". Clearly two of the claendars were of antiquarian subject. Dickens is a bit of a surprise, since one sees virtually no Dickensian influence in HPL's letters, poems, or stories.
While the 1924 Dickens' calendar (2) is not yet found in my research, we have a close match with the 1922 example from ebay. And the colonial doorway (3) calendar will probably never be matched, but here is an image from a 1920's postal card of an RPPC Colonial Doorway in Thomaston, Maine.
1. Letters from New York, ed. Joshi, p. 43
2. The image of the calendar lacks clarity, but it shows January 1 and the center quote is from Sketches by Boz.
3. Notice the classic "Cross" and "Bible" of the doorway. Even as a child, Chrispy found the Cross and Bible doors at his grandma's farmhouse. The Cross is formed by the top four panels, and the Bible (or book) is formed by the lower two panels.
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