5 posts from March 2008

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.

Post a comment Tags: providence, lovecraft

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:


H.P. Lovecraft's Grave
H.P. Lovecraft's Grave
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.

Post a comment Tags: providence, lovecraft

Providence trip: Day one

Earlier this year, I decided that as a reward for finishing the winter quarter of school, I'd reward myself with a Spring Break trip to Providence, Rhode Island in order to continue work on my Lovecraft copyright project. Unfortunately, not all information is available online, so an actual physical trip to the city became necessary if I were to move my work forward. I have two main goals: discover the claims advanced by the H.P. Lovecraft estate on any of Lovecraft's written works (the actual Estate has repeatedly declined to answer my queries for this information), and to learn more about the events after Lovecraft's death - in particular, the activities of Robert H. Barlow and Albert Baker immediately following the writer's death.


So, earlier this winter, I booked a stay in the city from yesterday until Thursday. I am staying at the Cady House Bed & Breakfast situated in Lovecraft's old stomping grounds. I spent some time yesterday exploring the city, including wandering through Brown University and downtown Providence. I didn't take any pictures, but I'll be doing that later today.

In my wandering, I encountered the Providence City Hall much sooner than I anticipated, so I went ahead and visited the probate archives and began searching for the documents I needed. I'd never done this kind of research before, but the probate clerks and city archivists were extremely helpful and assisted me in locating the documents I needed. I went ahead and took some snapshots from the probate dockets that indexed the associated records:

The image above is the index to the public documents associated with the Lovecraft estate. The first lines deal with the immediate activities following Lovecraft's death in 1937, including a $2000 appraisal of the writer's estate. The documents I was particularly interested were those filed in 1974 when Robert C. Harrall was appointed the administrator of the estate. I obtained copies of the indexed documents (for the princely sum of $3) and I now have the documentation describing the succession of the estate, including an inventory of the estate appraised in 1974 for $1000:

Any and all writings of the late Howard P. Lovecraft which are not copyrighted or are not part of the public domain and all letters, photographs, and books whether published or unpublished and other previously unpublished material. All writings which though copyrighted may not have been copyrighted by individuals, companies, corporations or associations who possessed the right or authority to copyright said materials.


I plan on publishing electronic copies of these documents when I return to Chicago, but this one paragraph constitutes what I've needed for the past year or so. It raises some interesting questions, which I plan to address in an update to my work linked above.

My plan for today is to visit the John Hay Library at Brown University and to examine and retrieve copies of the correspondence between Robert H. Barlow and others, in addition to "Instructions in case of decease", the oft-mentioned document where Lovecraft appointed Barlow his literary executor. In addition to my trip to the Library, I also plan to do a bit more walking and to take some photographs of Providence. It's a rather beautiful city and I've been enjoying all of the architecture. If I have time for the walk later today, I may visit Swan Point Cemetery to take some snapshots of the Lovecraft family plots.

Stay tuned...

Post a comment Tags: providence, lovecraft

Building the über-radio

After I discovered last week that my old Sangean world-band radio receiver still worked, I began hatching a plan to hook it up to my computer so that I could listen to broadcasts from all around the world from the convenience of my desktop. I already have a RadioShark, but that gets spotty reception only on the standard AM and FM bands. Using the Sangean, I can listen into much more than commercial radio.


Similar to to the Sangean, my Uniden Bearcat scanner has been sitting unused along with the Tapco mixer I received for Christmas a few years ago. Rather than let the equipment continue to collect dust, I cleared off a bookshelf and put all the pieces together as shown below:


Not pictured is my Sennheiser e815s microphone hooked into channel two, and the iMic that takes the output from the mixer and converts it into the output of a USB sound card. I can listen to the the device using Audio Hijack Pro. Between the Bearcat scanner and the world-band radio, I figure that I can keep up with local and global events fairly well.

Update: Here's a small recording of some scanner activity to give you an idea what comes across the airwaves. It's not that exciting, but it's fairly interesting to listen to:


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Oh Hai! I can has screensaver?

I have an embarrassing confession to make: I really enjoy Lolcats. I can't get enough of the broken English juxtaposed with adorable animal pictures. I enjoy them so much that I spent about an hour creating a Lolcat screensaver using Quartz Composer.



If you'd like a copy of this, it can be downloaded from Audacious Software. (Requires MacOS X 10.5 "Leopard".)

 Feel free to mock me in the comments below.

Post a comment Tags: randomsilliness
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