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

The controversy comes to an end in the October 1914 issue. An entire section of ‘The Log-Book’ bears the heading ‘Fred Jackson, Pro and Con’; inevitably, the ‘Jackson Boosters’ outnumber the ‘Jackson Knockers’. The most interesting item is a poem headed ‘The Critics’ Farewell’ and bearing both Lovecraft’s and Russell’s names. They did not actually collaborate on the poem; rather, Lovecraft wrote the first part (headed ‘The End of the Jackson War’) and Russell wrote the second (headed ‘Our Apology to E. M. W.’). Lovecraft’s, naturally, is in heroic couplets, and Russell’s is in very racy short and irregular anapaests. Lovecraft notes that this truce was made at the insistence of an editor at the Argosy, who ‘intimated that the poet’s war must soon end, since correspondents were complaining of the prominence of our verses in their beloved magazine’.³⁶

It is worth reflecting on what the whole Argosy/All-Story battle over Fred Jackson meant to Lovecraft. In a sense we owe thanks to Mr Jackson for making the rest of Lovecraft’s career possible, for there is no telling how long he would have continued to vegetate in the increasingly hothouse atmosphere of 598 Angell Street. Lovecraft had no job, was only toying with chemistry and astronomy, was living with a mother who was steadily losing her mental stability, was writing random undistinguished bits of verse about his native region, and was devouring the Munsey magazines but had no thought of contributing any fiction to them or to any other market. But Jackson’s work so irritated him that he emerged from his hermitry at least to the extent of bombarding letters to the magazines in question. While it was John Russell who initiated the habit of writing in verse, Lovecraft found it in a golden opportunity to adapt his beloved Augustan satire against a very modern target.

The principal immediate benefit of the Argosy experience was, of course, his discovery of—or, rather, by—the world of amateur journalism. Edward F. Daas, then Official Editor of the United Amateur Press Association, noticed the poetic battle between Lovecraft and Russell and invited both to join the organization. Both did so, Lovecraft officially enrolling on 6 April 1914. In a few years he would be transformed both as a writer and as a human being.

CHAPTER SIX

A Renewed Will to Live (1914–17)

The world of amateur journalism which Lovecraft entered in April 1914 with wide-eyed curiosity was a peculiar if rather fascinating institution. The papers produced by the members exhibited the widest possible range in content, format, style, and quality; in general they were quite inferior to the ‘little magazines’ of their day but considerably superior (both in typography and in actual literary content) to the science fiction and fantasy ‘fanzines’ of a later period, although few were so focused on a single topic as the fanzines were. Amateur journalism as a formal institution began around 1866, with a short-lived society being formed by the publisher Charles Scribner and others around 1869. This society collapsed in 1874, but in 1876 the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) definitively took form; it continues to exist today. In 1895 the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA) was formed by William H. Greenfield (at that time only fourteen years old) and others who (as Lovecraft believed) wished for an organization more devoted to serious intellectual endeavour; it was this branch that Lovecraft joined. There still exists an alumni association of amateur journalists, The Fossils, who continue to issue a paper, The Fossil, on an irregular basis.

It is a sad fact that no one aside from Lovecraft himself has ever emerged from amateurdom to general literary recognition. This is not to say that others do not deserve to do so: the poetry of Samuel Loveman and Rheinhart Kleiner, the fiction of Edith Miniter (much of it professionally published), and the critical work of Ernest A. Edkins, James F. Morton, and Edward H. Cole need fear no comparison with their analogues in the standard literature of the day. It is, unfortunately, unlikely that much of this work will ever be revived or even taken note of except in connection with Lovecraft himself.