Lovecraft Sketch: L W Currey Auction

If you have some "spare change" this one would be nice to add to your collection!


WALL PLAN OF GRANDPA THEOBALD'S STUDY -- MAY 2, 1924. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT (AMs). Single sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 Hotel stationery (The Providence Biltmore, Providence, R.I.) with GROUND PLAN OF GRANDPA THEOBALD'S STUDY REVISED TO MAY 2, 1924 on verso.

An Early Mention of Lovecraft (1924)

Here is a 1924 citation, in print, mention of HPL.
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Anthology of magazine verse, Volume 1923 By William Stanley Braithwaite, p. 264



Lovecraft Howard P Winifred Virginia Jackson A Different Poetess The United Amateur March

Lovecraft in Context: 1924

Lovecraft, who in his teen years was eager for new technology and scoured the newspapers and science journals, had by the mid-20's retreated into a type of antiquarian pose. The U.S. was bustling with youth, energy, and the jazz and radio age. Talkies were closing in on theaters, and even television was on the cusp. Lovecraft was about to head to New York and reach his early Weird Tales exposure to a whole new generation of fans.

When you get to the dollar equivalents, understand how much money was being thrown at Lovecraft by Henneberger - who was essentially strapped for cash - and ask ... how? Recall this tidbit, "...Frank Belknap Long believed that a $60 HPL used on a book buying spree store credit was from Henneberger..." that I posted some time back. According to 1924 dollars this was equivalent to $700 (2010)! Not bad!

Long speculated (in his biographical memoir), "I did not find out until later, - for some reason he had been reluctant to tell me - that he had a bookseller's credit slip for sixty dollars, given to him by J. C. Henneberger, the founder of Weird Tales, in lieu of cash payment just before Farnsworth Wright had assumed the editorship of the magazine and story sales on a cash basis had come to an abrupt halt. I have never had any doubt that someone had given Henneberger the credit slip and, being in Chicago, he could not have readily availed himself of a pleasure he had passed along to Howard, without giving much thought to the money he might have saved had he purchased the story for cash."

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1924 (from an ancestry.com article)by Juliana Smith 12 April 2010
(link attached to today's blog title)

In the U.S., Calvin Coolidge was serving as president after the death of President Warren G. Harding and was re-elected in November. Congress declared Native American Indians U.S. Citizens through the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act, although Native Americans were not allowed to vote in some states until 1948.

In these early days of radio, radio stations were popping up and broadcasting across the country. Calvin Coolidge became the first President to broadcast over the radio from the White House. Further, eighteen radio stations hooked up in September with General John J. Pershing and other military officials in a demonstration of how radio can be used in the event of an emergency to communicate important information across the country in the National Defense Test Day Broadcast.

In March, people in the U.S. were flocking to the theatres to see Douglas Fairbanks’ silent picture, The Thief of Bagdad. Popular songs included, California, Here I Come (Al Jolson), Rhapsody in Blue (George Gershwin and Paul Whiteman), and It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’ (Wendell Hall).

As for economics, $100 was the equivalent of $1,160.82 in today’s dollars. What could you get for your money? A quart of milk would cost you about $0.14, a loaf of bread or a pound of sugar ran around $0.09, eggs were $0.48 per dozen, coffee about $0.43 a pound, and if you wanted a nice sirloin, it would run about $0.40 per pound.

So, how much did those new-fangled radios cost? A few years earlier, in 1921, factory-made radios could cost more than $2,000 in today’s dollars, but in 1922 the National Bureau of Standards released a circular that sold for five cents and told how to build a crystal radio set and soon newspapers picked up on the story and the information spread quickly. The circular stated that the cost of materials needed was typically under $10.

Happy Valentine's Day (1924)

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On March 3, 1924, Lovecraft married Sonia Haft Greene. I have no clue if he gave her a pre-wedding Valentine's Day card. Probably not, so here's a belated one for her from you and me. :)
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Causerie (1936) and L'Alouette

Causerie [unnumbered] (February 1936)
Edited by E.A. Edkins
14 pages
Contents:
* H.P. Lovecraft's poem "Continuity"
* short review of Lovecraft's The Cats of Ulthar, pulished by R.H. Barlow's Dragon Fly Press (compares HPL to Oscar Wilde)
* 3-page review of Frank Belknap Long's The Goblin Tower, also published by Dragon Fly Press (some of the text for this publication was hand-set by Lovecraft)
* short article on Hyman Bradofsky
* additional reviews and articles
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L'Alouette: A Magazine of Verse #1.1 (January 1924)
Edited by Edith Miniter, Howard P. Lovecraft, W. Paul Cook, et al.
40 pages
Contents:
* 2-page review of Clark Ashton Smith's Ebony and Crystal written by H.P. Lovecraft
* full-page ad for The Crafton Service Bureau (Lovecraft & Morton)
* 2-page poem by Samuel Loveman
* poem by Arthur Henry Goodenough
* poems by Nelson Glazier Morton, Jennie E.T. Dowe, Michael White, Ada Borden Stevens, Bertha Grant-Avery, Mary Morton Zeigler, Edna Hyne, Edith Miniter
* additional reviews, articles and ads

Two C. M. Eddy Letters Uncovered

This is a bit belated, but dates from the week of 25 September, 2008. :)

-Chrispy

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Hotel Owyyhee
Boise, Idaho
November 7, 1924
To C. M. Eddy, Jr.

Read your story, "Weapons of Stone," and liked it very much. I had written a pre-hist love story. I'll show it to you when I get back.

My story, The Charlatan Supreme, is my next "work of art." It's a beaut and true!

How is your song work getting along, and what can I do for you?

On train and it's a' rocking.

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The Fort Steuben
Steubenville, Ohio
November 18, 1924
To Eddy

I wrote you I had received the revised copy of my story re the Witch Doctor.

By the way, I have a full Keith tour, starting Jan. 5 in Newark, then two weeks at the New York Hippodrome, and if you wish I'll stick in some of your music. All you have to do is say so and 'tis done. Naturally, you must not let people know that I am doing this to boost the music; if they think so, out it will be thrown. I suppose you get the idea.

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I had an opportunity to go to Lexington for a conference Thursday (25 Sept 2008), and made my first trip to their Half-Price book store. A nice store. However, on the way back, about 10:30 PM my wife turned to me, and said, "Did they put the discs in the cd and dvd?" Not a good time to notice, but no they hadn't. Friday when I called, they were so nice, so I asked them to just shuttle the discs to my Louisville store.

Flash forward to Saturday, when I'm in a tiny little place in Southern Indiana at a pumpkin festival (maybe a new pumpkin horror story will come of it). I get intermittent cell service, but I look at my phone and there's a message that the discs are in the store. A one day trip from Lexington for USPS is phenomenal.

We go over to the store (which at this point, is about 50 miles from Huber's, so I could have almost driven back to Lexington to start with!) Anyway, I'm there, and we start perusing the store. My wife grabbed a new romance she's had in mind, along with a few other things, and I spied a ppbk copy of Houdini The Untold Story (circa. 1969) by Milbourne Christopher. It was marked $1, and I had a 15% off coupon, so for 85 cents I thought it would add it to my small Houdini collection. Once home, I flopped in a chair and wondered if Christopher mentioned Lovecraft. Nope. Oh well. Then I flipped to the appendices, and nearly fainted. TWO Houdini letters to C M Eddy Jr were included.

Lovecraft writes quite a bit about Eddy coming to NY to see Houdini who then had some clandestine midnight meeting between Eddy, HPL< and Houdini, but Lovecraft stops short of telling WHY! We know why, for the most part, now. Houdini needed help.

Lovecraft had written a story for Houdini, at the request of J C Henneberger in late 1923 to go in Weird Tales. Houdini was extremely generous to his friends, and once he knew you, he would do anything he could for you – and as wealthy as he was, he usually did plenty. These two letters flesh out the details of how much he liked and wanted to help Eddy. Mrs. Eddy said in a memoir that Howard introduced Cliff to Houdini, and she said that Eddy worked for Houdini for quite a while. We now know that Eddy was a spy. He infiltrated spiritualist séances and made field reports (other people were hired by Houdini for the same work).

Lovecraft, one day, late Summer 1923, walked across town and met Eddy after some correspondence. His 'noblesse oblige' kicked in immediately. Though Lovecraft was in near-poverty, what he saw at the Eddy household made his realize how bad it was for them. (He mentions giving them some furniture, and some hint of a 'note', i.e. Loan?).

Lovecraft immediately rewrote some of Eddy's stories to make them publishable. Eddy, in turn, made reference to Lovecraft to Edwin Baird, a friend and then editor of Weird Tales. (I think many people conspired to let Baird and Henneberger know of Lovecraft). In short order, Houdini (who was then backing Weird Tales, in part), and Henneberger asked Lovecraft to churn out a Houdini yarn. (Lovecraft lost the manuscript, and he and bride Sonia has to retype it from scratch).

Houdini asked Lovecraft to meet him, and it's pretty sketchy what transpired at those first meetings. I think I can guess, based on circumstantial evidence.

Houdini was on a very public and very nasty crusade to expose spiritualists as both frauds and criminals (money laundering, bilking, and such). I'd speculate that Houdini, who was getting rebuked for a weak presentation in his recent book, saw a kindred soul in HPL and may have asked him to help. I'd also speculate that Lovecraft had no interest in "work" of any kind so foisted off Eddy as being more appropriate for it.

What did Houdini see in Lovecraft? They both adored Poe (Houdini bought Poe relics). HPL was a materialist atheist, and loathed spiritualism on any hint of supernaturalism. He was a terrific writer, had become a seasoned pro at ghost writing and revisionism. It was a perfect match. Houdini declared he'd find Lovecraft a great job, and lo and behold, Henneberger pops up to New York and offers HPL the pick of a magazine. (Frank Long thought it was Weird Tales, others though it was a humor magazine, or ghost story magazine). He rejected all of it (no doubt to Sonia's dismay).

What did Lovecraft see in Houdini? He saw that Houdini had a great and clever mind, but HPL was not keen on show business, hard work, or being used by anyone. It looks like the compromise was Eddy. They went on to write a few things for Houdini, and were in the midst of writing a huge expose – The Cancer of Superstition – when Houdini was killed.

Their last meeting was in Providence in 1926, and de Camp declared in his book that Houdini wanted Lovecraft on stage with him in Detroit (where Houdini was to be attacked). Lovecraft, his aunt, Mr. & Mrs. Eddy all laughed at Bess' parrot, but declined the offer.

OK, kind of long winded, but it was fun to find these neat antiquarian letters showing how interested Houdini was in horror stories.

Lovecraft "Blueprint"

PROVIDENCE BILTMORE HOTEL, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND. Circa AUGUST 27, 1930.
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WALL PLAN OF GRANDPA THEOBALD'S STUDY -- MAY 2, 1924. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT (AMs). Single sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 Hotel stationery (The Providence Biltmore, Providence, R.I.) with GROUND PLAN OF GRANDPA THEOBALD'S STUDY REVISED TO MAY 2, 1924 on verso. Two annotated handwritten plans of Lovecraft's study in Sonia's Brooklyn apartment, one drawn on each side of the sheet. Light edge wear, old mailing folds. Provenance: Barlow / Derleth Papers. (#114686) Price: $2,000.00

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.

Werewolf in The Shunned House

In Shunned House (circa 1924), one passage stands out on werewolves.

“I wondered how many of those who had known the legends realized that additional link with the terrible which my wider reading had given me; that ominous item in the annals of morbid horror which tells of the creature Jacques Roulet, of Caude [1], who in 1598 was condemned to death as a daemoniac {sic}, but afterward saved from the stake {burning} by the Paris parliament and shut in a madhouse. He had been found covered in with blood and shreds of flesh in a wood, shortly after the killing and rending of a boy by a pair of wolves. One wolf was seen to lope away unhurt.”

It is strange that Lovecraft had no issue that an apparent werewolf was the ancestor of a vampire. However, he was no doubt going for legends and atmosphere, and not a technical genealogy of monsters.

21 November 1924 postcard to Paul J Campbell

This actually is an important note. Sonia had a sudden gastric distress that sent her to the hospital at almost the same moment that she and HPL were breaking up. Lovecraft knew that they would immediately part company and move out of their apartment. I hope to write a nice essay on these several days in HPL's life, soon.

The seller states:

Autograph postcard signed from Howard Phillips Lovecraft to Paul J. CampbellPostmarked Philadelphia, PA, November 11, 1924Pictured on the front of card: Wister House, Germantown, Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaLovecraft writes to old-time amateur journalist and friend Campbell while he's visiting Philadelphia. It reads in part:"Meant to write sooner, but have been in a turmoil of business and worry. Wife ill -- in hospital from Oct 21 to 31 --and now on a farm near Somerville, N. J. recuperating. . . I decided . . . to give the old Quaker burg the thorough exploration I've long wanted to give it. . . ."It ends with an allusion to the financial troubles he and his wife were having that would cause them to give up their niceapartment: "P.S. Will probably have to break up 259 Parkside and board soon. Alas!"Signed "HPL"A nice chatty note to a long-time friend who published work by Lovecraft in his amateur journal, "The Liberal."

Letter of Lovecraft to Eddy (21 July 1924)

Image now unavailable

Lovecraft, H[oward] P[hillips]. AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED (ALS).

8 pages, dated 21 July 1924, to "Dear C M E Jr." [Clifford M. Eddy, Jr.], signed "yr faithful grandfather HPL." Written on four sheets of 6 x 9 1/2-inch paper with Hotel Pantlind letterhead, from 259 Parkside Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. Approximately 1300 words.

A nice gossipy letter about the world of the pulps: who's in, who's out, which magazine is going under, which one is starting up, which writers have which stories in limbo at which magazines. "Henneberger is now the nominal editor of Weird Tales; but he owes the printer $43,000, & the latter may take over the magazine & publish it himself in Indianapolis." Expresses frustration about getting any kind of weird material into All-Story, referring to its editor as "É Sister Bob Davis, that delicate soul for whose fastidious readers our rough frightful tales seem to be altogether too horrid & shocking & unpleasant." Yet Davis' superior, Matthew White was even more dead set against it. Indeed, there were very few markets for the kind of material that HPL and his gang wrote. Unpublished. Letter has faint mailing creases, but is in fine condition. (#109138) Price: $2,000.00

The Tryout March 1924

TRYOUT, THE. March 1924 (volume 9, number 3). Edited by C. W. Smith. Plaistow, N. H.: C. W. Smith, March 1924 (volume 9, number 3). Small octavo, single issue, self wrappers, sewn. Includes a one-page anonymous article, "An Amateur Nuptial," which gives an account of wedding of H. P. Lovecraft and Sonia H. Greene. Editor C. W. Smith also comments on Lovecraft activities in his column "Around the Circle." No contributions by Lovecraft to this issue. Pulp paper wrappers lightly chipped at edges, a very good copy. (#108454) Price: $75.00

The Tryout April 1924

TRYOUT, THE. April 1924 (volume 9, number 4). Edited by C. W. Smith. Plaistow, N. H.: C. W. Smith, April 1924 (volume 9, number 4). Small octavo, single issue, self wrappers, sewn. H. P. Lovecraft is briefly mentioned in "A Bit of Comment," an article by James F. Morton, Jr. Pulp paper wrappers partially separated along spine fold, a very good copy. (#108455) Price: $25.00

Houdini 1924: Background

From late 1923 to Houdini's death in 1926, Lovecraft and Houdini's world intersected from time to time.

To learn more about Houdini - to make that world of 80 or more years ago more vivid, we'll locate Houdini ephemera of the period and post it here.

This letter of 15 February 1924 seems, on the surface, to not assist us in discovering whether or not Houdini was recruiting Lovecraft as an ally in fighting spiritualists, but one never knows where clues will lead !!

Offered on Ebay at the beginning of January 2007, the sales blurb states:

A vintage letter dated feb 15th 1924 sent from Harry Houdini to a guy in the UK called Alfred Rastrick of Baildon West Yorkshire, which is a bleak place on this planet.... anyway the gentleman seems to have had some contact with Harry Houdini as he has had this letter from Harry Houdini himself and it has been typed on Houdini letter headed note paper as well as been signed by Houdini himself. The content of the letter is interesting as it mentions that a mr Hardeen is now retired and yet a manager of a laboratory! also it states that Houdini is glad that Mr Rastrick is in the pink! delightful banter of the period totally original and just from a house clearance in West Yorkshire .