Money Lovecraft Would Wished to have Used !

If you know much about the elder Lovecraft, he day dreamed that he could walk through King George III's era as a wealthy gentleman of the Crown - Hail Britania! As such, he would have used this curency from 1744. The image is from the incomparable Virgil Finlay.

The story of how HPL got from modernist hel-bent on a career in astronomy to Grandpa Theobaldus writing werid tales is one of twists, turns, and drama. He may not have been "his own weirdest creation", but history and fate sure sent him into some odd directions.

Smith to Finlay on Lovecraft

1.
Smith, Clark Ashton. TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS), ribbon copy with a few corrections and emendations in the author's hand, one and a half pages, dated 15 May 1937, to Virgil Finlay ("Dear Virgil Finlay"), signed "Clark Ashton Smith," on two sheets of plain letter-size paper. Thanks Finlay for writing to him, adding that he had been thinking of writing him, especially after Lovecraft, in his very last letter to him, shortly before his death in March of that year, urged him to do so. Thanks him for the compliments on his stories and reciprocates with a paragraph of generous praise for Finlay's illustrations. "Your work, it seems to me, can take its place with that of the best modern illustrators, such as Sime, Rackham, Harry Clarke, Alastair, etc." Explains that he has written little recently because of the death of his mother and illness of his father. Laments that "Lovecraft's death leaves an abysmal void for the survivors," then complains that "more appreciation and a proper financial recompense" might have kept him alive. "It is damnable to reflect that America has either killed her finest artists or driven them into exile. Poe certainly died from hardship rather than drink; and Bierce and Hearn were impelled to flee the country." Closes with some discussion of his experiments in sculpture using local (fairly soft) materials. Published in KLARKASH-TON AND MONSTRO LIGRIV (1974). Old mailing folds, fine on paper that is browning just a little. (#103865)

2.
Smith, Clark Ashton. TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS), three pages, ribbon copy with a few corrections in the author's hand, dated 27 September 1937, to Virgil Finlay ("Dear Virgil"), signed "With cordial best wishes, Klarkash-Ton," on three sheets of plain letter-size paper. Apologizes for his delay in writing, saying he'd been working from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM during July and August, which left little time for letter-writing. Discusses some recent work of his submitted to or accepted by WEIRD TALES and his hopes that Finlay will be assigned to illustrate it. In connection with the rejection of one of his tales there, he writes, "I doubt if any of my work will ever have a wide public appeal, since the ideation and esthetics of my tales and poems are too remote from the psychology of the average reader. It is reassuring, however, that my work should appeal so strongly to a few." Responds to comments by Finlay about the challenges of illustrating weird fiction, as well as different techniques for writing it. Contrasts Lovecraft's habit of minutely building realistic settings for his fantastic tales versus his own tendency to "weave the entire web on the loom of fantasy…. No doubt my own preference is motivated by a certain amount of distaste for the local and the modern, and a sort of nostalgia for impossible and unattainable dreamlands." Says a bit about his environment in Auburn. Applauds Finlay's admiration of the Pre-Raphaelites and recommends that he look at the work of Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon. "I believe the modern prejudice against literary ideas in art springs from the fact that many modern artists are incapable of ideas of any kind." In offering encouragement to Finlay, he writes about his main competitor, Margaret Brundage, who painted many covers for WEIRD TALES and specialized in beautiful seminude women menaced by various monsters. "Brundage is a curio, and I can't help wondering how or whence she derives her weird ideas of anatomy." Sympathizes with Finlay's statement of alienation from the spirit of the times, which he characterizes as materialistic. "Some day there will be a return toward mysticism, a recovery of spiritual values. The question is, will it come before - or after - Armageddon?" Fine content. Old mailing folds, fine. (#103867)

1937: Virgil Finlay, Lovecraft & Barlow

Science-Fantasy Correspondent #1.3 (March-April 1937)
Edited by Corwin F. Stickney
44 pages
Contents:
* H.P. Lovecraft, "In A Sequestered Churchyard Where Once Poe Walked" (verse)
* R.H. Barlow, "St. John's Churchyard" (verse)
* cover art by Virgil Finlay
* fiction by Robert A. Madle and Philip Sutter
* articles by Oliver E. Saari, Jack E. Fry, and John C. Sidenius
* full-page ad for Weird Tales
* ads for The Phantagraph, and others

30 November 1936

As previously mentioned, Lovecraft wrote a long letter to Mr. Barlow on this date. He was still electrified over seeing Roosevelt. "John L. Lewis might not make a bad candidate in 1940..." he thought. He'd just read "It Can't Happen Here": Sinclair Lewis's 1936 novel about a Fascist takeover of the US. "vivid & interesting ... political caricature ... extreme developments perhaps beyond anything ... in Nazi Germany..." and waxed about Virgil Finlay "...quite a guy If there was ever any real chance for an illustrated book of mine I'd let him do the designs...". He;d heard from REH's father. He was trying to tarck down lost sheets from his misbegotten "Shunned House." He discussed his two fave subjects - cats and astronomy.

In the greater world, here's an issue of Life Magazine he might have glanced over at the newsstand.


BUENOS AIRES ARGENTINE (PAGE 50-57)
STUDEBAKER CAR AD (PAGE 1) ONLY $665 ~
BRAIN OPERATION (PAGES 2-3)
PICTURE LIFE OF STALIN (PAGES 24-25)
REMBRANDT PAINTINGS (PAGES 29-32)
MAPPING THE YUKON (PAGES 33-35)
PAINTINGS OF ADOLPH HITLER (PAGES 42-44)
WEST POINT (PAGES 45-49)

Nice, Representative Weird Tales of the "Gang"

1939 Weird Tales
Description: Elephant attack cover by Virgil Finlay. CA Smith, Wandrei, Quinn, Kuttner, etc.

George Pal, Virgil Finlay, H P Lovecraft

_____
Martian Heat Ray fires in War Of The Worlds (George Pal, 1953)

From Famous Fantastic Mysteries October 1941 interior Virgil Finlay Illustration

_____

Soo, did Geoge Pal read weird pulp stories?
And was Lovecraft - or Finlay - influenced by War of the Worlds?

_____

Lovecraft: It had flashed there a second, and a clammy and hateful current of vapour had brushed past him - and then poor Nahum had been taken by something of that colour. He had said so at the last - said it was like the globule and the plants. After that had come the runaway in the yard and the splash in the well-and now that well was belching forth to the night a pale insidious beam of the same demoniac tint. ... the light from the well grew stronger and the hitched horses pawed and whinnied in increasing frenzy. It was truly an awful moment; with terror in that ancient and accursed house itself, four monstrous sets of fragments-two from the house and two from the well-in the woodshed behind, and that shaft of unknown and unholy iridescence from the slimy depths in front. ... Then a cloud of darker depth passed over the moon ... All the while the shaft of phosphorescence from the well was getting brighter and brighter, bringing to the minds of the huddled men, a sense of doom ... At this point, as the column of unknown colour flared suddenly stronger and began to weave itself into fantastic suggestions of shape which each spectator described differently ...
_____
Wells: Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at discreet distances.
Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air.
This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.
Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.
Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.
Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run.

Robert Weinberg's Art: III

A Famous Fantastic Mysteries reprint that Virgil Finlay did of the Colour Out of Space.

Rare glimpse inside Weird Tales

1 Old Pulp, no front cover , Volume 31 No. 4 , April 1938
The seller states only:
The Devil Deals by Carl Jacobs
To Clark Aston Smith by H P Lovecraft

***

However, here is the full contents & cover from another source is also posted above.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Virgil Finlay

*
The Devil Deals
Carl Jacobi

*
To Clark Ashton Smith
H P Lovecraft

*
The Garden of Adompha
Clark Ashton Smith

*
The Temple Dancer
Seabury Quinn

*
The Singer in the Mist
Robert E Howard

*
The Eyes of the Mummy
Robert Bloch

*
Forest of Evil
John Reynolds

*
Cordelia's Song
Vincent Starrett

*
Dreadful Sleep
Jack Williamson

*
The House of Ectasy
Ralph Milnay Farley

*
Abandoned Bog
Joseph C Kempe

*
Death is a Temporary Indisposition
Max Brod

*
Feathertop
Nathanial Hawthorne

1937 Lovecraft Item of Poems

Rare Lovecraft Item Surfaces.

Lovecraft, H[oward] P[hillips]. HPL. [Belleville, N. J.: Corwin F. Stickney, 1937.] Small octavo, 12 unnumbered leaves, printed on rectos only, printed paper wrappers (in imitation of leatherette), stapled. First edition. Limited to 25 copies. Published by Corwin F. Stickney (Belleville, N.J.) in 1937, although no printing information appears anywhere in the book. Twenty-five copies were printed and given free to whoever paid a year's subscription of 25¢ to Stickney's AMATEUR CORRESPONDENT. The book was announced in the Lovecraft Memorial issue of AMATEUR CORRESPONDENT (May / June 1937) on page [29]: "These poems -- all favorites of Lovecraft -- have been combined to form a tribute to this man's poetic genius, which, while not so generally appreciated as his ability for writing prose, was nevertheless greater than that of most living fantasy writers. The size of this volume is four by six inches, and it is printed on an excellent grade of book paper with an attractive leatherette cover. The frontispiece carries Virgil Finlay's portrait of HPL used on this month's cover of the CORRESPONDENT. Every admirer of Lovecraft will undoubtedly want a copy of this petite volume. Obviously, however, it cannot be placed on sale; and it would be much beyond our means to send a copy free of charge to everyone who would write in for one. We therefore believe the only logical method of distribution is to give a free copy with every subscription to the CORRESPONDENT, at the regular rate of twenty-five cents for a year. We reason that practically every one who would be interested in such a booklet reads the CORRESPONDENT and would be willing to obtain a copy in this manner. Inasmuch as a very limited number of copies of the first edition of this volume are being printed, we urge you to reply with your subscription by return mail, mentioning this advertisement to insure your receipt of a copy." Pavlat and Evans, Fanzine Index (1965), p. 53. Joshi I-A-12. A fine copy. Accompanied by the mailing envelope. (#110364) Price: $5,500.00

Arkham Collector #9

Arkham House THE ARKHAM COLLECTOR Number Nine Spring 1971 Limited Edition (Approx. 2500 copies)
The Arkham Collector was a small periodical published by Arkham House starting in 1967. Each issue contained announcements of upcoming books, news clips, essays, poems, story segments, and much more. As such, they offer a fascinating historical insight to Arkham House and their work. Of note, is H.P. Lovecraft always plays a central role (as with the publisher). Some of the more interesting essays on Lovecraft, first appeared in the Collector. It was treated as advertising, and as such, issues were often thrown away, so even with a circulation of around 2500, copies are hard to come by. Remainder issues of The Collector were bound and sold in book form, again decreasing the number of individual issues.
This is issue number nine of The Arkham Collector, published in the Spring of 1971 at 50 cents a copy. 44 pages. Contents Include:
Two New Spring Books
Eight Tales by Walter de la Mare
Songs and Sonnets Atlantean by Donald Sidney Fryer
To Great Cthulhu by Richard L. Tierney
Passing of a Dreamer by Gary Myers (Short story)
May-Eve by Steve Eng
The Aphids by William D. Barney
The Waiting Room by Robert Aickman (Short story)
Ghost Stories, Fairy Tales, and Riddles by Joyce Odam
Dream for a Windy Night by Caryl Porter (Short story)
When The Moon Is Pale by Wade Wellman
The Relic by Roger Johnson
After You, Montagu by Howard Wandrei (Short story)
In Pressure-Pounded Chasms by Brian Lumley
Necrology: Virgil Finlay
Bibliographical Notes
Panels for a Nativity by James Wade
Atlantic City: 5:30P.M. by W.P. Ganley
The publications measures 5.25" x 7.75". Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin. Nice condition, no tears, just yellowing due to age and a wee bit of shelf wear. Two pages have some lite pencil underlining. According to Leon Nielsen in his invaluable reference book Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide the value of this Collector is listed at $30.00.

Lovecraft's Legacy: 1972

Ec'h-Pi-El Speaks, Gerry de la Ree, 1972 #477

Gerry de la Ree was a Virgil Finlay friend and fan. He was a 1976 World Fantasy nominee.