An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

In part, the tale is a satire on the stolid bourgeois unresponsiveness to the weird tale. Carter’s observation that “it is the province of the artist…to arouse strong emotion by action, ecstasy, and astonishment” signals HPL’s absorption of the literary theory of Arthur Machen (whom he was first reading at this time), specifically the treatise Hieroglyphics: A Note upon Ecstasy in Literature(1902). The tale might have been directly inspired by the opening of Machen’s episodic novel The Three Impostors(1895), in which two characters debate as to the proper function of literature, one of them (analogous to Manton) remarking that “one has no business to make use of the wonderful, the improbable, the odd coincidence in literature…that it was wrong to do so, because as a matter of fact the wonderful and the improbable don’t happen….” In HPL’s story, the satire becomes more pointed because the character of Manton is clearly based upon HPL’s friend Maurice W.Moe (Manton is “principal of the East High School,” just as Moe was an instructor at the West Division High School in Milwaukee). Carter points out that Manton actually “believ[ed] in the supernatural much more fully than I”—an allusion to Manton’s (and Moe’s) religious beliefs.

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The story also explores the sense of the lurking horror of New England history and topography. It is set in Arkham, but the actual inspiration for the setting—a “dilapidated seventeenth-century tomb” and, nearby, a “giant willow in the centre of the cemetery, whose trunk has nearly engulfed an ancient, illegible slab”—is the Charter Street Burying Ground in Salem, where just such a treeengulfed slab can be found. Later in the story HPL records various “old-wives’ superstitions,” some of which are taken from Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana(1702), of which he owned an ancestral copy.

Upton, Daniel.

The narrator of “The Thing on the Doorstep” and a close friend of Edward Derby. He shoots Derby to liberate him from the decaying corpse of Asenath Waite, into which Derby’s personality had been cast following his murder of Asenath.

Utpatel, Frank (1905–1980),

artist and late correspondent of HPL (1936–37). Utpatel, a Wisconsinite, was a friend of August Derleth, and in 1932 Derleth asked Utpatel to prepare some illustrations to HPL’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” even though that tale had not been accepted for publication. The whereabouts of these illustrations are unknown; but HPL, remembering them, urged William L.Crawford of the Visionary Press to commission Utpatel to make illustrations for the upcoming book publication of The Shadow over Innsmouth(1936). Utpatel prepared four illustrations, one of which appeared on the dust jacket. HPL professed to like them, even though the bearded Zadok Allen was portrayed as cleanshaven. In later years Utpatel became a distinguished fantasy illustrator, doing much work for Arkham House; he took many years to draw illustrations for HPL’s Collected Poems(Arkham House, 1963) but produced some of his best work there. He also drew the dust jacket for DBand for Frank Belknap Long’s Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside(Arkham House, 1975).

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V

Van Allister, Prof. Arthur.

In “Ashes,” a scientist who discovers a chemical compound that can reduce any substance to mere ashes. He later dies when thrown into a large vat of his own formula by his assistant, Malcolm Bruce. van der Heyl, Claes (d. 1591).

In “The Diary of Alonzo Typer,” a member of a strange Dutch family who lived in Holland in the later sixteenth century and kept a diary between 1560 and 1580 telling of his strange delvings into the supernatural. His descendant, Hendrik, came to New-Netherland (i.e., New York state) in 1638 in search of a nameless “Thing.” Dirck, now settled in Albany, N.Y., built a house near Attica around 1760. He married a woman from Salem, Mass., and was the father of Joris (b. 1773), “that frightful hybrid,” and of Trintje, who would later marry Adriaen Sleght.

Vanderhoof, Johannes.

In “Two Black Bottles,” the recently deceased pastor (“dominie”) and uncle of the narrator, Hoffman. Vanderhoof’s soul is entrapped in a little black bottle by his sexton, Abel Foster.

Van Itty, Mrs.

In “Sweet Ermengarde,” a wealthy society woman who adopts Ermengarde Stubbs and later discovers that she is her long-lost daughter.