From Spring 1948 Arkham Sampler

A GROUP OF LETTERS
By H. P. LOVECRAFT The late H. P. Lovecraft was a letter-writer without peer in his time. His range of subjects was virtually unlimited, and he wrote with scholarly erudition but never with academic stodginess. He wrote far more letters than his combined total of all other writing, ranging all the way from his early astronomical articles for his Providence newspaper through his poems, essays, and stories. The letters presented herewith are selected at random to impart the flavor of H. P. Lovecraft’s letters, primarily, and afford readers a taste of what is to come in the Selected Letters. Readers will note especially the headings, the salutations, and the closings of certain of these letters. These are selected extracts and not complete letters.


To his Aunt, Lillian Clark
259 Parkside Avenue Brooklyn, New York September 29, 1924 (Finish’d Tuesday, Sept. 30)
My dear Daughter Lillian: — On Friday the 19th, at four-thirty p. m., I welcomed Samuelus (Loveman). He was feeling rather weak, however, so that he slept in the morris-chair most of the time, whilst I continued to work. After dinner he felt much better, and I accompanied him to his room in Columbia Heights, where I met the redoubtable Hart Crane, a little ruddier, a little puffier, and slightly more moustached than when I saw him in Cleveland two years ago. Crane, whatever his limitations, is a thorough aesthete; and I had some enjoyable conversation with him. His room is in excellent taste, with a few paintings by ‘William Sommer (that elderly eccentric whom I described when I visited Cleveland), a choice collection of modern books, and some splendid small objets d’art of which a carven Buddha and an exquisitely carved Chinese ivory box are the high spots. Loveman’s room is at the other end of the hall, with an outlook over the East River and a stupendous panorama of the Manhattan skyline. I nearly swooned with aesthetic exaltation when I beheld the panorama—the evening scene with innumerable lights in the skyscrapers, shimmering reflections and bobbing ship lights on the water, and at the extreme left and right, the flaming Statue of Liberty and the scintillant arc of the Brooklyn Bridge, respectively. But even this was not exactly the climax. That came when we went out on the flat roof (Crane and Loveman are on the fourth and top story) and saw the thing in all its unlimited and unglassed magnificence. It was something mightier than the dreams of old-world legend - a constellation of infernal majesty - a poem in Babylonian fire! No wonder Dunsany waxed rhapsodic about it when he saw it for the first time - it is beyond description by any but him! Added to the weird lights are the weird sounds of the port, where the trraffick {sic} of all the world cmes to a focus. Fog-horns, ships' bells, the creak of distant windlasses - visions of far shores of India, where bright-plumed birds are roused to song by the incense of strange garden-girt pagodas, and gaudy-robed camel-drivers barter before sandal-wood taverns with deep-voiced sailors having the sea's mystery in their eyes. Silks and spices, curiously-wrought ornaments of Bengal gold, and gods and elephants starngely carven in jade and carnelian. Ah, me! Would that I could express the magick of the scene! Crane is writing a long poem on Brooklyn Bridge in a modern medium, which may some time be printed in the Dial. ... I subscribe myself as ever Yr. most aff: mephew and pbt: Servt: H.P.L.

Some Lovecraft Letter Fragments

"Regarding the solemnly cited myth-cycle of Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Nug, Yeb, Shub-Niggurath, etc., etc.- let me confess that this is all a synthetic concotion of my own, like the populous and varied pantheon of Lord Dunsany's Pegana . The reason for its echoes in Dr. de Castro's work is that the latter gentleman is a revision-client of mine--into whose tales I have stuck these glancing references for sheer fun. If any other clients of mine get work placed in W.T., you will perhaps find a still-wider spread of the cult of Azathoth, Cthulhu, and the Great Old Ones! The Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred is likewise something which must yet be written in order to possess objective reality." - H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Robert E. Howard (August 14, 1930)


"Regarding the Necronomicon--I must confess that this monstrous & abhorred volume is merely a figment of my own imagination! Inventing horrible books is quite a pastime among devotees of the weird, &...many of the regular W.T. contributors have such things to their credit--or discredit. It rather amuses the different writers to use one another's synthetic demons & imaginary books in their stories--so that Clark Ashton Smith often speaks of my Necronomicon while I refer to his Book of Eibon . . & so on. This pooling of resources tends to build up quite a pseudo-convincing background of dark mythology, legendry, & bibliography--though of course none of us has the least wish actually to mislead readers." - H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Miss Margaret Sylvester (January 13, 1934)


"Abdul is a favourite dream-character of mine--indeed that is what I used to call myself when I was five years old and a transported devotee of Andrew Lang's version of the Arabian Nights. A few years ago I prepared a mock-erudite synopsis of Abdul's life, and of the posthumous vicissitudes and translations of his hideous and unmentionable work Al Azif ...--a synopsis which I shall follow in future references to the dark and accursed thing." - H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Robert E. Howard (August 14, 1930)

"The name 'Abdul Alhazred' is one which some adult (I can't recall who) devised for me when I was 5 years old & eager to be an Arab after reading the Arabian Nights. Years later I thought it would be fun to use it as the name of a forbidden-book author." - H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Harry O. Fischer (late February, 1937)


http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/necronomicon.html

The Tryout November 1919

TRYOUT, THE. November 1919 (volume 5, number 11). Edited by C. W. Smith. Haverhill, Mass.: C. W. Smith, November 1919 (volume 5, number 11). Small octavo, single issue, self wrappers, sewn. Includes "To Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Eighteenth Baron Dunsany" by H. P. Lovecraft and "To the Eighth of November" by Lovecraft writing as "Archibald Maynwaring." The first printings of both poems. Joshi I-B-iii-185. Faint vertical crease where once folding for mailing, a fine copy. (#108428) Price: $150.00

The Tryout December 1919

TRYOUT, THE. December 1919 (volume 5, number 12). Edited by C. W. Smith. Haverhill, Mass.: C. W. Smith, December 1919 (volume 5, number 12). Small octavo, single issue, printed wrappers, sewn. Includes "Bells" by H. P. Lovecraft writing as "Ward Phillips." The first publication of this poem. Also prints the text of a letter received from Lord Dunsany dated 1 December 1919 in response to Lovecraft's verse tribute to Dunsany published in the November 1919 issue of THE TRYOUT. Joshi I-B-iii-15. A fine copy. (#108446) Price: $150.00