Ernest Edkins, Lovecraft's Friend

There is a long article on Amateur Journalism anecdotes by Paul J. Campbell at (click here).

There was a long and interesting correspondence with Howard Lovecraft, brilliant amateur and writer of weird tales; there were literary contributions to Hyman Bradofsky's peerless amateur magazine, the “Californian”; there was a visit to George Macauley in Grand Rapids, Mich., and with Helm Spink and his father in Washington, Ind., and an all night session with Graeme Davis and a luncheon with Ernest Edkins at the Electric Club in Chicago. There was a wildcat oil trip to East Texas with Herbert P. McGinnis of West Virginia (another of my recruits), on which Sam Schilling and his charming wife were visited in Kansas City, and in 1935 Paul Cook, who shared with me the distinction of being called “a literary blacksmith,” came out to East St. Louis and helped me publish the Canteen News for a year.

There is precious little else I've found on Mr. Edkins. {CP}

Cats of Ulthar in the Aonian

Cute black cats!

This rarity found on ebay. The seller states:

THE CATS OF ULTHAR by Howard Phillips Lovecraft in the Winter 1943 issue of THE AONIAN.The issue is part of a volume, nicely bound in black cloth, containing all 13 issues of this handsome amateur journal. The original wrappers are bound in, too.Published by Tim Thrift and Ernest A. Edkins (friend and correspondent of Lovecraft). Besides CATS, "The Aonian" also reprinted Lovecraft's essay on amateur journalism's history, "Looking Backward", in two parts. Among the other contents are articles by and about W. Paul Cook (of The Recluse Press), Robert H. Barlow, Rheinhart Kleiner, Samuel Loveman, Arthur H. Goodenough, Edwin B. Hill, etc.

More on Ernest A. Edkins in the next blog entry.