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

She suffered periods of mental and physical exhaustion. She wept frequently under emotional strains. In common lingo, she was a woman who had gone to pieces. When interviewed, she stressed her economic worries, and she spoke … of all she had done for ‘a poet of the highest order’; that is, of course, her son. The psychiatrist’s record takes note of an Oedipus complex, a ‘psycho-sexual contact’ with the son, but observes that the effects of such a complex are usually more important on the son than on the mother, and does not pursue the point.²

The most seemingly spectacular item is the curious mention of a ‘psycho-sexual contact’; but it is surely inconceivable that any actual abuse could have occurred between two individuals who so obviously shared the rigid Victorian sexual mores of the time. There seems every reason to regard Susie’s collapse as primarily brought on by financial worries: there was, let us recall, only $7500 for the two of them from Whipple’s estate, and in addition there was a tiny sum in mortgage payments (usually $37.08 twice a year, in February and August) from a quarry in Providence, the Providence Crushed Stone and Sand Co., managed by a tenant, Mariano de Magistris.

It was perhaps inevitable that Susie’s absence from 598 produced at least the possibility of a certain liberation on Lovecraft’s part, if only in terms of his physical activities. By now a giant in the world of amateur journalism, he was increasingly in demand at various local and national amateur conventions. It was some time before Lovecraft actually ventured forth; but, when he did so, it betokened the definitive end of his period of ‘eccentric reclusiveness’. Kleiner visited him in Providence in 1918. In October 1919 (as I shall relate later) he accompanied several amateurs to Boston to hear his new literary idol, Lord Dunsany. On the evening of 21 June 1920, Edward F. Daas came to Providence for a two-day visit. That summer and fall Lovecraft himself made three separate trips to Boston for amateur gatherings.

The first meeting took place at 20 Webster Street in the suburb of Allston. This house—occupied jointly by Winifred Jackson, Laurie A. Sawyer, and Edith Miniter—was at the time a central meetingplace for the Hub Club. Lovecraft arrived on Monday 4 July, in the company of Rheinhart Kleiner, who had come to Providence the day before. On this occasion Lovecraft spent the night under a roof other than his own for the first time since 1901. His sleeping-place was the home of Alice Hamlet at 109 Greenbriar Street in Dorchester. But, lest we look askance at Lovecraft’s spending the night alone in a young lady’s home, let us be reassured: a convention report in the Epgephi for September 1920 discreetly informs us that ‘he said he’d just got to have a “quiet room to himself”’ and that he and Hamlet were properly chaperoned by Michael Oscar White and a Mrs Thompson.³ The Dorchester party returned to 20 Webster Street the next day to resume festivities, and Lovecraft caught a train home in the early evening.

Miniter (1869–1934) was perhaps the most noted literary figure at this gathering. In 1916 she had published a realistic novel, Our Natupski Neighbors, to good reviews, and her short stories had been widely published in professional magazines. But, in spite of her professional success, she was devoted to the amateur cause. Her loyalty, however, extended to the NAPA and not the UAPA. Among her amateur journals was at least one issue of The Muffin Man (April 1921), which contained her exquisite parody of Lovecraft, ‘Falco Ossifracus: By Mr. Goodguile.’ It is, perhaps, the first such work of its kind.

Miniter invited Lovecraft to attend the Hub Club picnic on 7 August. This gathering consisted largely of old-time amateurs who had been active well before the turn of the century. At one point, as the group was wandering through the Middlesex Fells Reservation, Miniter fashioned a chaplet of bays for Lovecraft and insisted that he wear them at a banquet that evening in honour of his triple laureateship.

Lovecraft’s third Boston trip began on 5 September. He arrived at noon at 20 Webster Street and unexpectedly encountered James F. Morton: ‘Never have I met so thoroughly erudite a conversationalist before, and I was quite surprised by the geniality and friendliness which overlay his unusual attainments. I could but regret the limited opportunities which I have of meeting him, for Morton is one who commands my most unreserved liking.’⁴ Clearly, the rancour surrounding Isaacson’s In a Minor Key had died away. Lovecraft would later have plenty of opportunities to meet Morton during his two-year stay in New York. In the afternoon Lovecraft delivered his lecture, ‘Amateur Journalism: Its Possible Needs and Betterment’.