An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

The popularity of the tale can be seen both in its wide reprinting in anthologies (most notably in Herbert A.Wise and Phyllis Fraser’s Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural[Random House/Modern Library, 1944]) and in a film adaptation of 1970.

See Donald R.Burleson, “Humour Beneath Horror: Some Sources for ‘The Dunwich Horror’ and ‘The Whisperer in Darkness,’” LSNo. 2 (Spring 1980): 5–15; Robert M.Price, “The Pine Barrens Horror,” CryptNo. 7 (Lammas 1982): 27–30; Donald R.Burleson, “The Mythic Hero Archetype in ‘The Dunwich Horror,’” LSNo. 4 (Spring 1981): 3–9; Will Murray, “The Dunwich Chimera and Others,” LSNo. 8 (Spring 1984): 10–24; Peter H.Cannon, “Call Me Wizard Whateley: Echoes of Moby Dickin ‘The Dunwich Horror,’” CryptNo. 49 (Lammas 1987): 21–23; Donald R.Burleson, “Lovecraft and the World as Cryptogram,” LSNo. 16 (Spring 1988): 14–18; Robert M.Price, “Not in the Spaces We Know but Between Them: ‘The Dunwich Horror’ as an Allegory of Reading,” CryptNo. 83 (Eastertide 1993): 22–24; Donald R.Burleson, “A Note on Metaphor vs. Metonymy in ‘The Dunwich Horror,’” LS No. 38 (Spring 1998): 16–17.

Dwight, Frederick N.

In “In the Walls of Eryx,” an employee of the Venus Crystal Company whose decaying corpse the narrator, Kenton J.Stanfield, finds in the invisible maze in which he himself becomes entrapped. Dwight, Walter C.

In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,a professional painter in Providence who restores the painting of Joseph Curwen found by Charles Dexter Ward in the house on Olney Court.

Dwyer, Bernard Austin (1897–1943).

Correspondent of HPL, residing in West Shokan and Kingston, N.Y.Dwyer reached HPL through WTin early 1927 and continued to correspond with him to the end of HPL’s life. He published one poem in WT(“Ol’ Black Sarah,” October 1928), but otherwise wrote little; he also devoted himself to pictorial art. HPL visited him in Kingston in May 1929 in the course of examining the colonial antiquities in nearby Hurley and New Paltz; again for a few days in June 1930, at which time Dwyer evidently made several substantial suggestions for the revision of HPL’s work in progress, “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Dwyer was one of the leading protagonists (“Knockout Bernie, the Wild Wolf of West Shokan”) of the spoof, “The Battle That Ended the Century” (1934). After HPL’s death, Dwyer excerpted a letter to him from HPL, written probably in the fall of 1933, and sent it to WT,where it was published as “The Wicked Clergyman” (later “The Evil Clergyman”).

< previous page page_81 next page > < previous page page_82 next page >

Page 82

Dyer, William.

In At the Mountains of Madness,the professor of geology at Miskatonic University who leads the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition of 1930–31 and who narrates the novel. Dyer also leads the subexpedition in search of Lake’s party, only to find it wiped out. With the graduate student Danforth, he explores and reports at length on the ancient city and civilization of the Old Ones. Dyer’s last name only is supplied in At the Mountains of Madness;his first name is given in “The Shadow out of Time,” in which is accompanies Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee on his expedition to Australia.

< previous page page_82 next page > < previous page page_83 next page >

Page 83

E

“East and West Harvard Conservatism.”

Essay (1,110 words); probably written in the summer of 1922. First published in Mind Power Plus (date unknown; probably 1922).

The article is on David Van Bush’s New England lecture campaign and the success of his popular psychology in staid Massachusetts. Probably commissioned by Bush, the article appeared in his magazine, Mind Power Plus,which HPL mentions as “newly-founded” in June 1922 (see SL1.186). No copies of the magazine have been located; only a tearsheet of the article from the magazine (where it occupies pp. 55–56) is extant at JHL.

“East India Brick Row, The.”

Poem (48 lines in quatrains); written early to mid-December 1929. First published in the Providence Journal(January 8, 1930).