A Dreamer & A Visionary; H.P. Lovecraft in His Time

The critical issue, of course, is what—if anything—Lovecraft himself knew of the nature and extent of his father’s illness. He was two years and eight months old when his father was committed, and seven years and eleven months old when his father died. If he was already reciting poetry at two and a half, he must at least have been aware that something peculiar had happened—why else would he and his mother have moved suddenly back from Auburndale to the maternal home in Providence?

It is obvious from Lovecraft’s remarks that he was intentionally kept in the dark about the specific nature of his father’s illness. One wonders, indeed, whether Susie herself knew all its particulars. Lovecraft’s first known statement on the matter occurs in a letter of 1915: ‘In 1893 my father was seized with a complete paralytic stroke, due to insomnia and an overstrained nervous system, which took him to the hospital for the remaining five years of his life. He was never afterward conscious.’¹⁵ It need hardly be said at this point that nearly every part of this utterance is false. When Lovecraft refers to a ‘complete paralytic stroke’, either he is remembering some deliberate falsehood he was told (i.e., that his father was paralysed), or he has misconstrued the medical term ‘General Paralysis’ or some account of it that he heard. The medical record does confirm that Winfield was overworked (‘Has been actively engaged in business for several years and for the last two years has worked very hard’), and no doubt Lovecraft was told this also; and the remark about Winfield not being conscious may have been the excuse he was given for not visiting his father in the hospital.

One matter of importance is whether Lovecraft ever saw his father in Butler Hospital. He never says explicitly that he did not, but his late statement that ‘I was never in a hospital till 1924’¹⁶ certainly suggests that he himself believed (or claimed to others) that he never did so. Recently there has been speculation that Lovecraft did indeed visit his father in the hospital; but there is absolutely no documentary evidence of this. I believe that this speculation is an inference from the fact that on two occasions—29 August 1893 and 29 May 1894—Winfield was taken out into the ‘yard’ and the ‘airing-court’; but there is no reason to believe that the three- or four-year-old Lovecraft, or his mother, or anyone at all, visited him at this or any other time.

Perhaps more important than all these matters is the image and tokens of his father which Lovecraft retained in maturity. Remarking that ‘In America, the Lovecraft line made some effort to keep from becoming nasally Yankeeised’, he continues: ‘my father was constantly warned not to fall into Americanisms of speech and provincial vulgarities of dress and mannerisms—so much so that he was generally regarded as an Englishman despite his birth in Rochester, N.Y. I can just recall his extremely precise and cultivated British voice.’¹⁷ We need look no further for the source of Lovecraft’s own Anglophilia—his pride in the British Empire, his use of British spelling variants, and his desire for close cultural and political ties between the United States and England. At about the age of six, ‘when my grandfather told me of the American Revolution, I shocked everyone by adopting a dissenting view … Grover Cleveland was grandpa’s ruler, but Her Majesty, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain & Ireland & Empress of India commanded my allegiance. “God Save the Queen!” was a stock phrase of mine.’¹⁸ It would be going too far to suggest that Lovecraft’s father actually induced his son to take the British side in the American revolution; but it is clear that the maternal side of his family, proud Yankees as they were, did not share that view. Winfield Townley Scott reports that a ‘friend of the family’ referred to Winfield as a ‘pompous Englishman’.¹⁹ This appears to be Ella Sweeney, a schoolteacher who knew the Lovecrafts from as early as their 1892 vacation in Dudley. Even individuals beyond Lovecraft’s immediate family appear to have found Winfield’s English bearing a little trying. It is poignant to hear Lovecraft tell of his one genuine memory of his father:

I can just remember my father—an immaculate figure in black coat & vest & grey striped trousers. I had a childish habit of slapping him on the knees & shouting ‘Papa, you look just like a young man!’ I don’t know where I picked that phrase up; but I was vain & self-conscious, & given to repeating things which I saw tickled my elders.²⁰

This litany of his father’s clothing—’his immaculate black morningcoat and vest, ascot tie, and striped grey trousers’—is found in an earlier letter, and Lovecraft adds touchingly: ‘I have myself worn some of his old ascots and wing collars, left all too immaculate by his early illness and death.’²¹