Providence trip: Day two
Today was quite a busy day as I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with fellow travelers at the bed and breakfast. After the morning meal, I set out on foot to Swan Point Cemetery to locate and visit Lovecraft's grave. The cemetery is a remarkable place in its own right and I spent a good amount of time wandering about examining the various tombstones and mausoleums located there. After my feet began to ache, I focused on finding HPL's grave. I located it and snapped the obligatory photo:
It's fascinating to me how humble the Phillips family plot was and how it was neatly tucked away among the many generations that lived and died in Providence. To be perfectly frank, this is the most time that I have spent in a graveyard and it prompted many thoughts that I had previously not considered. If I find the time, I will perhaps write about them at a later date.
After visiting Swan Point, I zigzagged toward the John Hay Library at Brown University. Along the way, I stopped at a local American fusion cuisine place and enjoyed a good mushroom soup, mushroom pizza, and a chocolate-banana cake. The food was very good, and I made some progress on the Robert E. Howard biography I've been reading.
After lunch, I continued my walk and arrived at the library a little after 2pm. After meeting with the library staff, filling out the requisite paperwork, and going over the proper procedures for handling the documents, I began sifting through the Lovecraft documents in the reading room. I read up on Robert H. Barlow and gained a better understanding of the dynamic between him and people like August Derleth. I was also sidetracked by correspondences between Derleth and Winfield T. Scott and Sonia Greene (Lovecraft's former wife).
In these documents, I found the some concrete claims that Derleth made concerning the HPL works. Briefly, Derleth believed that the will of Annie Gamwell granted him and Donald Wandrei the full rights to the HPL works and disclaimed any knowledge of Gamwell's surviving relatives (letter to W.T. Scott 12/16/1943). In a prior note to Scott, Derleth made the same claim, but asked that Scott keep this information confidential (12/10/1943).
In the correspondences with Sonia Greene in 1947, Derleth told Lovecraft's former wife - who some contend was the proper inheritor of HPL's estate due to an incomplete divorce - that she could not publish her book about HPL without Arkham House's permission to include any quotes from the letters Lovecraft wrote to Greene during their association (letter to Greene, 9/18/1947).
I also followed up on the correspondence surrounding the publication of the J. Warren Thomas thesis and Derleth's response to the work. Derleth thought that the thesis was biased against Lovecraft, while Thomas acknowledged the bias, but claimed that it was necessary to counterbalance the excessive positive bias evident in the reminiscences and biographies published by members of the Lovecraft circle (letter to W.T. Scott, 5/2/1950).
All of these examples provide useful fodder for my project and it will be interesting to integrate all of these findings with my existing work. What is particularly interesting is that the dominant claimant to the Lovecraft works is Robert Harrall, but none of the correspondences surrounding the estate topic pay any heed to Ethel Morrish, through whom Harrall established his position as the estate administrator in the 1970's. I have some correspondences from Arkham House around that time, where the attorney managing the estate dismissed Harrall's claims. When I get home, it will be interesting to review that note in light of the new date information I have about the current estate.
I could probably go on about this topic, but I do need to rest up for another trip to the library tomorrow to wrap up my work.
