An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

In 1933 HPL stated in reference to the tale: “In intimating an alien race I had in mind the survival of some clan of pre-Aryan sorcerers who preserved primitive rites like those of the witch-cult—I had just been reading Miss Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe” ( SL4.297). This controversial work of anthropology by Margaret A.Murray, published in 1921, made the claim (regarded by modern scholars as highly unlikely) that the witch-cult in both Europe and America had its origin in a preAryan race that was driven underground but continued to lurk in the hidden corners of the earth. HPL had just read a similar fictional exposition of the idea in Arthur Machen’s stories of the “Little People” and was accordingly much taken with this conception; he would allude to it in many subsequent references to the Salem witches in his tales, and as late as 1930 he was presenting the theory seriously (see SL3.182–83). The epigraph, from Lactantius, appears to derive from HPL’s ancestral copy of Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana

See Donovan K.Loucks, “Antique Dreams: Marblehead and Lovecraft’s Kingsport.” LSNo. 42 (Summer 2001): 48–55.

Finlay, Virgil [Warden] (1914–1971),

American artist; perhaps the most accomplished artist to appear in the pulp magazines. Finlay came in touch with HPL in September 1936 and corresponded with HPL until the latter’s death. Finlay actually offered to illustrate HPL’s tales for a potential book of his work, even though HPL had no prospects for any such book publication at the time. HPL was prodigiously impressed with Finlay’s art, and in late November 1936 he wrote a sonnet (“To Mr. Finlay, upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch’s Tale, ‘The Faceless God’”; Phantagraph,May 1937), based upon Finlay’s illustration of Robert Bloch’s “The Faceless God” ( WT,May 1936). Finlay himself illustrated HPL’s “The Haunter of the Dark” ( WT, December 1936) and “The Thing on the Doorstep” ( WT,January 1937). Prior to HPL’s death Finlay executed his celebrated portrait of HPL as an eighteenth-century gentleman, although there is no evidence that HPL ever saw it; it was scheduled to appear in Willis Conover’s Science-Fantasy Correspondent,but it appeared in April 1937 as the cover of that magazine’s successor, Amateur Correspondent . Finlay went on to prepare dust-jacket illustrations for HPL’s Oand Marginalia. HPL’s letters to him were excerpted in “Letters to Virgil Finlay” ( Fantasy Collector’s Annual,1974). See Virgil Finlay, Virgil Finlay(Donald M.Grant, 1971), with lengthy contributions by Sam Moskowitz and Gerry de la Ree; Gerry de la Ree, Virgil Finlay Remembered(Gerry de la Ree, 1981). “For What Does the United Stand?”

Essay (535 words); probably written in the spring of 1920. First published in the United Amateur (May 1920); rpt. MW

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Page 94

Brief article on the importance of the UAPA in fostering education and the literary development of amateur writers.

Foster, Abel.

In “Two Black Bottles,” the sexton of a church in Daalbergen, N.J., who studies the occult books amassed by the church’s first pastor, Guilliam Slott. It is Foster who imprisons the soul of the current pastor, Vanderhoof, in a bottle. As in the case of Vanderhoof, his own soul is trapped in a similar bottle that, when broken, causes Foster to crumble to dust.

Foxfield.

Fictitious town in Massachusetts invented by HPL, although never cited in any story. A “Plan of Foxfield—for possible fictional use” in HPL’s handwriting survives in AHT; it indicates that Foxfield is east of Aylesbury and Dunwich and northwest of Arkham.

See Will Murray, “Where Was Foxfield?” LSNo. 33 (Fall 1995): 18–23 (the back cover prints a reconstruction of HPL’s map).

“From Beyond.”

Short story (3,030 words); written on November 16, 1920. First published in the Fantasy Fan(June 1934); rpt WT(February 1938); first collected in BWS;corrected text in D