Lovecraft Autobiography

8/3/2019 Lovecraft Autobiography

1/31

Autobiography: Some Notes

On A Nonentity

Howard Phillips Lovecraft Dated 23 November, 1933.

For me, the chief difculty inwriting an autobiography isnding anything of importanceto put in it. My existence hasbeen a quiet, uneventful, and

undistinguished one; and at bestmust sound woefully at andtame on paper.


2/31

I was born in Providence, R.I. -

where, but for two minorinterruptions, I have ever sincelived - on August 20, 1890; of old Rhode Island stock on my

mother's side, and of aDevonshire paternal linedomiciled in New York Statesince 1827.

The interests which have led meto fantastic ction were very

early in appearing, for as farback as I can clearly rememberI was charmed by strangestories and ideas, and by ancient


3/31

scenes and objects. Nothing has

ever seemed to fascinate me somuch as the thought of somecurious interruption in theprosaic laws of Nature, or some

monstrous intrusion on ourfamiliar world by unknownthings from the limitlessabysses outside.

When I was three or less Ilistened avidly to the usual

uvenile fairy lore, and Grimm'sTales were among the rstthings I ever read, at the age of four. When I was ve the


4/31

Arabian Nights claimed me, and

I spent hours in playing Arab -calling myself "AbdulAlhazred", which some kindlyelder had suggested to me as a

typical Saracen name. It wasmany years later, however, thatI thought of giving Abdul aneighth-century setting andattributing to him the dreadedand unmentionable"Necronomicon"!

But for me books and legendsheld no monopoly of fantasy. Inthe quiet hill streets of my


5/31

native town, where fanlighted

colonial doorways, small-panedwindows, and graceful Georgiansteeples still keep alive theglamour of the eighteenth

century, I felt a magic then andnow hard to explain. Sunsetsover the city's outspread roofs,as seen from vantage-points onthe great hill, affected me withespecial poignancy. Before Iknew it the eighteenth century

had captured me more utterlythan ever the hero of "BerkeleySquare" was captured; so that Iused to spend hours in the attic


6/31

poring over the style of Pope

and Dr. Johnson as a naturalmode of expression. Thisabsorption was doubly strongbecause of the ill-health which

rendered school attendance rareand irregular. One effect of itwas to make me feel subtly outof place in the modern period,and consequently to think of time as a mystical, portentousthing in which all sorts of

unexpected wonders might bediscovered.

Nature, too, keenly touched my


7/31

sense of the fantastic. My home

was not far from what was thenthe edge of the settled residencedistrict, so that I was just asused to the rolling elds, stone

walls, giant elms, squatfarmhouses, and deep woods of rural New England as to theancient urban scene. Thisbrooding, primitive landscapeseemed to me to hold some vastbut unknown signicance, and

certain dark wooded hollowsnear the Seekonk River took onan aura of strangeness notunmixed with vague horror.


8/31

They gured in my dreams -

especially those nightmarescontaining the black, wingedrubbery entities which I called"night-gaunts".

When I was six years old Iencountered the mythology of Greece and Rome throughvarious popular juvenile media,and was profoundly inuencedby it. I gave up being an Arab

and became a Roman,incidentally acquiring forancient Rome a queer feeling of familiarity and identication


9/31

only less powerful than my

corresponding feeling for theeighteenth century. In a way, thetwo feelings worked together;for when I sought out the

original classics from which thechildish tales were taken, Ifound them very largely in lateseventeenth and eighteenthcentury translations. Theimaginative stimulus wasimmense, and for a time I

actually thought I glimpsedfauns and dryads in certainvenerable groves. I used tobuild altars and offer sacrices


10/31

to Pan, Diana, Apollo, and

Minerva.

About this period the weirdillustrations of Gustave Dore -

met in editions of Dante,Milton, and the "AncientMariner" - affected mepowerfully. For the rst time Ibegan to attempt writing - theearliest piece I can recall beinga tale of a hideous cave

perpetrated at the age of sevenand entitled "The NobleEavesdropper". This does notsurvive, though I still possess


11/31

two hilariously infantile efforts

dating from the following year -"The Mysterious Ship" and"The Secret of the Grave",whose titles display sufciently

the direction of my tastes.

At the age of about eight Iacquired a strong interest in thesciences, which undoubtedlyarose from the mysterious-looking pictures of

"Philosophical and ScienticInstruments" in the back of Webster's UnabridgedDictionary. Chemistry came


12/31

rst, and I soon had a very

attractive little laboratory in thebasement of my home. Nextcame geography - with a weirdfascination centreing in the

antarctic continent and otherpathless realms of remotewonder. Finally astronomydawned on me -and the lure of other worlds and inconceivablecosmic gulfs eclipsed all otherinterests for a long period after

my twelfth birthday. I publisheda small hectographed papercalled The Rhode Island

Journal of Astronomy and at last


13/31

- when sixteen - broke into

actual newspaper print withastronomical matter,contributing monthly articles oncurrent phenomena to a local

daily, and ooding the weeklyrural press with more expansivemiscellany.

It was while in high-school -which I was able to attend withsome regularity- that I rst

produced weird stories of anydegree of coherence andseriousness. They were largelytrash, and I destroyed the bulk


14/31

of them when eighteen; but one

or two probably came up to theaverage pulp level. Of them all Ihave kept only "The Beast inthe Cave" (1905) and "The

Alchemist" (1908). At this stagemost of my incessant,voluminous reading wasscientic and classical, weirdmaterial taking a relativelyminor place. Science hadremoved my belief in the

supernatural, and truth for themoment captivated me morethan dreams. I am still amechanistic materialist in


15/31

philosophy. As for reading - I

mixed science, history, generalliterature, weird literature, andutter juvenile rubbish with themost complete

unconventionality.

Parallel with all these readingand writing interests I had avery enjoyable childhood; theearly years well enlivened withtoys and with outdoor

diversions, and the stretch aftermy tenth birthday dominated bya persistent though perforceshort distanced cycling which


16/31

made me familiar with all the

picturesque and fancy-excitingphases of the New Englandvillage and rural landscape. Norwas I by any means a hermit -

more than one band of localboyhood having me on its rolls.

My health prevented collegeattendance; but informal studiesat home, and the inuence of anotably scholarly physician-

uncle, helped to banish some of the worst effects of the lack. Inthe years which should havebeen collegiate I veered from


17/31

science to literature,

specialising in the products of that eighteenth century of whichI felt myself so oddly a part.Weird writing was then in

abeyance, although I readeverything spectral that I couldnd - including the frequentbizarre items in such cheapmagazines as The All-Story andThe Black Cat . My ownproducts were largely verse and

essays - uniformly worthlessand now relegated to eternalconcealment.


18/31

In 1914 I discovered and joined

the United Amateur PressAssociation, one of severalnation-wide correspondenceorganisations of literary novices

who publish papers of their ownand form, collectively, aminiature world of helpfulmutual criticism andencouragement. The benetreceived from this afliationcan scarcely be over-estimated,

for contact with the variousmembers and critics helped meinnitely in toning down theworst archaisms and


19/31

ponderosities in my style. This

world of "amateur journalism"is now best represented by theNational Amateur PressAssocation, a society which I

can strongly andconscientiously recommend toany beginner in authorship. Itwas in the ranks of organisedamateurdom that I was rstadvised to resume weirdwritings - a step which I took in

July, 1917, with the productionof "The Tomb" and"Dagon" (both since publishedin Weird Tales ) in quick


20/31

succession. Also through

amateurdom were establishedthe contacts leading to the rstprofessional publication of myction - in 1922, when Home

Brew printed a ghastly seriesentitled "Herbert West -Reanimator". The same circle,moreover, led to myacquaintance with Clark AshtonSmith, Frank Belknap Long, Jr.,Winifred B. Talman, and others

since celebrated in the eld of unusual stories.

About 1919 the discovery of


21/31

Lord Dunsany - from whom I

got the idea of the articialpantheon and myth-backgroundrepresented by "Cthulhu", "Yog-Sothoth", "Yuggoth", etc. - gave

a vast impetus to my weirdwriting; and I turned outmaterial in greater volume thanever before or since. At thattime I had no thought or hope of professional publication; but thefounding of Weird Tales in 1923

opened up an outlet of considerable steadiness. Mystories of the 1920 period reecta good deal of my two chief


22/31

models, Poe and Dunsany, and

are in general too stronglyinclined to extravagance andovercolouring to be of muchserious literary value.

Meanwhile my health had beenradically improving since 1920,so that a rather static existencebegan to be diversied withmodest travels giving my strongantiquarian interests a freer

play. My chief delight outsideliterature became the past-reviving quest for ancientarchitectural and landscape


23/31

effects in the old colonial towns

and byways of America'slongest-settled regions, andgradually I have managed tocover a considerable territory

from glamorous Quebec on thenorth to tropical Key West onthe south and colourful Natchezand New Orleans on the west.Among my favourite towns,aside from Providence, areQuebec; Portsmouth, New

Hampshire; Salem andMarblehead in Massachusetts;Newport in my own state;Philadelphia; Annapolis;


24/31

Richmond with its wealth of

Poe memories; eighteenth-century Charleston; sixteenthcentury St. Augustine; anddrowsy Natchez on its dizzy

bluff and with its gorgeous sub-tropical hinterland. The"Arkham" and "Kingsport"guring in some of my tales aremore or less adapted versions of Salem and Marblehead. Mynative New England and its old,

lingering lore have sunk deepinto my imagination, and appearfrequently in what I write. Idwell at present in a house 130


25/31

years old on the crest of

Providence's ancient hill, with ahaunting vista of venerableroofs and boughs from thewindow above my desk.

It is now clear to me that anyactual literary merit I have isconned to tales of dream-life,strange shadow, and cosmic"outsideness". notwithstandinga keen interest in many other

departments of life and aprofessional practice of generalprose and verse revision. Whythis is so, I have not the least


26/31

idea. I have no illusions

concerning the precarious statusof my tales, and do not expectto become a serious competitorof my favourite weird authors -

Poe, Arthur Machen, Dunsany,Algernon Blackwood, Walter dela Mare, and Montague RhodesJames. The only thing I can sayin favour of my work is itssincerity. I refuse to follow themechanical conventions of

popular ction or to ll my taleswith stock characters andsituations, but insist onreproducing real moods and


27/31

impressions in the best way I

can command. The result maybe poor, but I had rather keepaiming at serious literaryexpression than accept the

articial standards of cheapromance.

I have tried to improve andsubtilise my tales with thepassing of years, but have notmade the progress I wish. Some

of my efforts have been cited inthe O'Brien and O. Henryannuals, and a few have enjoyedreprinting in anthologies; but all


28/31

proposals for a published

collection have come tonothing. It is possible that oneor two short tales may be issuedas separate brochures before

long. I never write when Icannot be spontaneous -expressing a mood alreadyexisting and demandingcrystallisation. Some of mytales involve actual dreams Ihave experienced. My speed

and manner of writing varywidely in different cases, but Ialways work best at night. Of my products, my favourites are


29/31

"The Colour out of Space" and

"The Music of Erich Zann", inthe order named. I doubt if Icould ever succeed well in theordinary kind of science ction.

I believe that weird writingoffers a serious eld notunworthy of the best literaryartists; though it is at most avery limited one, reecting onlya small section of man's

innitely composite moods.Spectral ction should berealistic and atmospheric -conning its departure from


30/31

Nature to the one supernatural

channel chosen, andremembering that scene, andphenomena are more importantin conveying what is to be

conveyed than are charactersand plot. The "punch" of a trulyweird tale is simply someviolation or transcending of xed cosmic law - animaginative escape from pallingreality - hence phenomena

rather than persons are thelogical "heroes". Horrors, Ibelieve, should be original - theuse of common myths and


31/31

legends being a weakening

inuence. Current magazinection, with its incurableleanings toward conventionalsentimental perspectives, brisk,

cheerful style, and articial"action" plots, does not rankhigh. The greatest weird taleever written is probablyAlgernon Blackwood's "TheWillows".

Lovecraft Autobiography

Documents

Transcript of Lovecraft Autobiography