Providence trip: Day three
I spent most of my last full day in Providence at the special collections at the John Hay Library at Brown University:
I continued to look through the Lovecraft papers and followed up on some threads in my research, including the Derleth/Greene conflict, George Wetzel's other work, and the correspondence between Farnsworth Wright and HPL. Wright (also called "Plato" to his friends and acquaintances) was the publisher of Weird Tales. Looking at the letterhead he used, I found out that his offices were located blocks away from where I now live in Chicago.I also had the opportunity to speak with the librarian in charge of the HPL collection about the history of the papers and whether there were plans to digitize the resources.
After I finished my work, I bid Brown farewell and went to downtown Providence to kill the rest of the day. I found two decent bookstores and managed to pick up some cheap books (including $2.00 paperback on Marvel Comics' bankruptcy) and some older books (including a 1960 textbook on the ALGOL programming language). I returned to the shopping center where I spent my first evening, ordered some mall Chinese food and read my new books until Will Farrell's "Semi-Pro" started. It was a nice evening and allowed my feet to relax a bit.
After the film, I returned to the bed and breakfast and finally read some proper Lovecraft. I first read "The Shunned House" given that I walked past the location on my way home on Benefit Street. I followed that up with "The Curse of Yig", since I'd seen a collectible book with that tale in one of the bookstores. After I finished my reading, I went to bed.
This will be the last of my entries from Providence. I'm passing on a "day four" entry because I doubt that any of you would like to read about my flight home to Chicago.
