An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

“Jeremy Bishop” was used for the poem “Medusa: A Portrait” ( Tryout,December 1921). “Alexander Ferguson Blair” was used for “North and South Britons” ( Tryout,May 1919), a poem urging unity between England and Scotland, hence the Scottish-sounding pseudonym. “El Imparcial” (“the impartial one”) was used for the essays “What Is Amateur Journalism?” ( Lake Breeze,March 1915), “Consolidation’s Autopsy” ( Lake Breeze,April 1915), “New Department Proposed: Instruction for the Recruit” ( Lake Breeze,June 1915), “Little Journeys to the Homes of Prominent Amateurs” ( United Amateur,October 1915 and July 1917), “Among the New-Comers” ( United Amateur,May 1916), and “Winifred Virginia Jordan: Associate Editor” ( Silver Clarion,April 1919), all on amateur subjects. Of the two “Little Journeys” articles, the first is a biography of Andrew Francis Lockhart (who had previously written a “Little Journeys” biography of HPL) and the second is a biography of Eleanor J.Barnhart.

“John J.Jones” was used for the self-parodic poem “The Dead Bookworm” ( United Amateur, September 1919).

“Humphry Littlewit” was used for the story “A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson” ( United Amateur,November 1917), the poem-cycle “Perverted Poesie or Modern Metre” ( O-Wash-Ta-Nong, December 1937; including the poems “The Introduction,” “Unda; or, The Bride of the Sea,” “The Peace Advocate,” and “A Summer Sunset and Evening”), and possibly for the unlocated newspaper publication of the satiric poem “Waste Paper” (the manuscript has the Littlewit pseudonym affixed to it). The name is suggestive of eighteenth-century satire (cf. the line in “He”: “look, ye puling lackwit!”).

“Archibald Maynwaring” was used for the poems “The Pensive Swain” ( Tryout,October 1919), “To the Eighth of November” ( Tryout,November 1919), and “Wisdom” ( Silver Clarion,November 1919). The name is probably derived from Arthur Mainwaring, one of the translators of Sir Samuel Garth’s edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses(1717), which HPL read as a boy (see SL1.7).

“Michael Ormonde O’Reilly” was used for the juvenile poem “To Pan” ( Tryout,April 1919; as “Pan”). “Henry [or H.] Paget-Lowe” was used for the poems “January” ( Silver Clarion,January 1920), “On Religion” ( Tryout,August 1920), “On a Grecian Colonnade in a Park” ( Tryout,September 1920), and “October” ( Tryout,October 1920), and the collaborative story “Poetry and the Gods” ( United Amateur,September 1920), with Anna Helen Crofts.

“Ward Phillips” was used for the essay “Ward Phillips Replies” ( Conservative,July 1918; containing the poem “Grace”), the poems “Astrophobos” ( United Amateur,January 1918), “The Eidolon” ( Tryout,October 1918), “Ambition” ( United Co-operative,December 1918), “In Memoriam: J.E.T.D.” ( Tryout,March 1919), “The City” ( Vagrant,October 1919), “Bells” ( Tryout,December 1919), “The House” ( Philosopher,December 1920), “Sir Thomas

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Tryout” ( Tryout,December 1921), and “To Mr. Hoag, on His Ninetieth Birthday” ( Tryout,February 1921), and a letter to the Bureau of Critics published in the National Amateur(January 1919) as by “Ned Softly and Ward Phillips.” The name seems used chiefly for HPL’s weird poetry. Phillips is also a character in “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” (1932–33).

“Richard Raleigh” was used for the poem “To a Youth” ( Tryout,February 1921). In a ms. of the poem (JHL), HPL notes: “How is this for an Elizabethan pseudonym?” HPL refers to the celebrated Elizabethan courtier Sir Walter Ralegh (1554?–1618), formerly spelled “Raleigh.”

“Ames Dorrance Rowley” was used for the poems “Laeta; a Lament” ( Tryout,February 1918), “The Volunteer” ( Tryout,April 1918), “To Maj.-Gen. Omar Bundy, U.S.A.” ( Tryout,January 1919), and “To the Old Pagan Religion” ( Tryout,April 1919; as “The Last Pagan Speaks”). The name is a parody of the amateur poet James Laurence Crowley. Only one of the poems (“Laeta; a Lament”) is itself satirical, and does not appear to be a parody of any poem by Crowley.