00:00:05:23 - 00:00:09:13 Andrew Welcome to Voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:00:09:14 - 00:00:14:16 Andrew In addition to classic works of gothic horror fiction, HPL wrote thousands of fascinating letters. 00:00:14:16 - 00:00:18:15 Andrew In each episode, we'll read and discuss one of them. I'm Andrew Leman. 00:00:18:15 - 00:00:22:11 Sean And I'm Sean Branney. Together, we run the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. 00:00:22:17 - 00:00:31:05 Andrew For today's letter, we're tackling the second part of the Christmas 1925 letter written to Lovecraft's aunt, Lillian Clark. 00:00:31:11 - 00:00:39:16 Sean Well, for those who might have missed part one, we give them the Previously on Burn the Christmas Letter to Lillian Clark. 00:00:40:20 - 00:00:57:03 Andrew Yes. Lovecraft. It was just before Christmas of 1925. Lovecraft was writing a very lengthy letter to his Aunt Lillian, in which she discussed the verses that he wrote his marriage to Sonia, his thoughts about finding work and whether or not when exactly he would move back to Providence. 00:00:57:03 - 00:01:01:15 Sean Archeology, architecture. It's wonderful. You should go back and play. 00:01:01:17 - 00:01:06:23 Andrew Yeah. You just listen to the previous episode because it's a it's a rich letter full of stuff. 00:01:07:05 - 00:01:13:15 Sean But he keeps going. He actually he wrote part of the first part of the letter on one day, and then he was expecting a visitor. 00:01:13:17 - 00:01:22:02 Andrew So he he himself suspended this letter and said, Oh, I'll finish tomorrow. And so now we're going to go back to the point where he picks up with his own letter. 00:01:22:09 - 00:01:28:04 Sean All right. So let's hear what Howard has to say in part two of his letter to Aunt Lillian. 00:01:30:21 - 00:02:11:13 Andrew Early Wednesday morning, December 23, 1925. Well, Orton has been and gone. And as I predicted beforehand, he's a great chap! He came ahead of time before I had finished dusting; but fortunately I had covered the principal pieces, so hiding the rag, I at once answered the door. No more likable, breezy and magnetic person ever existed than he. In person of smallish size, dark, slender, handsome and dashing, he is clean shaven of face and jauntily fastidious of dress - light gray suit of faultless cut, tasteful light shirt, wing collar with dark bow tie, light overcoat and light filled hat with variegated though quiet band. 00:02:12:03 - 00:02:45:17 Andrew He confesses to 30 years, but does not look more than 22 or 23. His voice is mellow and pleasant, though just now a trifle husky with the bronchial trouble which has affected him ever since his advent to New York and his manner of delivery sprightly and masculine. The careless heartiness of well-bred young man of the world. When I noticed his occasional adjectival use of damn, I feared for a moment that he would turn out to be profane; but soon discovered that this word is absolutely his only form of swearing and that he is wholly free from any trace of vulgarity. 00:02:46:04 - 00:03:07:14 Andrew His general bearing is hyper alert and easy, involving facile gestures and graceful lounging postures. He smoked cigarets with an air, but owns that. He really prefers a pipe. A thorough Yankee to the bone. He hails from central Vermont, adores his native state, and means to return there in a year and detests New York as heartily, as I do. 00:03:07:15 - 00:03:29:19 Andrew His ancestry is uniformly aristocratic. Old New England on his father's side and on his mother's side. New England. Knickerbocker Dutch and French. Huguenot. His uncle, with whom he is now staying in Yonkers, is a professor of some note. Orton was educated in Vermont, where he was born in Athol, Mass. Where his immediate family now live - and at several different colleges. 00:03:30:01 - 00:03:52:10 Andrew The latter diversity being due to a wandering instinct which is very strong within him. Harvard is his principal university, but I was delighted to learn that he has spent a year at Brown (1920- 21) so that he knows Providence quite well. When in Providence he tried Mc Neil's stunt of slum-dwelling to save cash for incidentals and bookbuying and had a room in South Main Street! 00:03:52:23 - 00:04:23:01 Andrew Orton's wandering began very early and has taken him all over the United States, Mexico, Europe and North Africa. It has been intermittent rather than continuous and has punctuated his college years quite pleasantly. Part of it was war service in France, which he truly enjoyed as an exciting adventure despite the attendant squalor. His business is advertising, but he hates and despises it and plans to leave it as soon as he can raise the capital to return to his native state and carry out the pet project of his life - 00:04:23:06 - 00:04:49:10 Andrew The founding of a Vermont magazine of large size and high literary merit, which may have a nationwide as well as local appeal. He hopes to do this in a year and has bought a home in the rural interior of the state where he will try to assemble around him a congenial coterie of Vermont born literary men. One of his pet schemes is to induce W. Paul Cook - his best friend, despite the almost ludicrous external differences between them - to come and live with him. 00:04:49:16 - 00:05:13:17 Andrew Also acting as managing editor of his new magazine. But for the present, he is enjoying what is almost a sinecure job in the advertising department of H.L. Mencken's American Mercury - He knows Mencken personally. Soliciting advertising from book publishers Who would give it whether or not he solicited it. He wants to move to Brooklyn. And when he returns from his holiday trip to Athol, he starts tomorrow noon. 00:05:13:20 - 00:05:37:23 Andrew I shall help him find room in Columbia Heights. Despite his affable sociability, I don't think he'll become a nuisance for persons as well born and well-bred as he never carry familiarity and gregarious, earnest to excess. He is the real goods regular people like Belknap. Of Athol He talked much. Cook he regards as one of the finest and most extraordinary characters he ever met. 00:05:38:01 - 00:05:58:22 Andrew A man of high intellect and keen taste. Despite the rustic city which poverty for two or three generations behind him is imparted to his speech, dress and manners. I know, of course, that Cook came of excellent stock, a direct descendant of the Rt Honourable Benning Wentworth, Esquire, His Majesty's Governor of the province of New Hampshire in the good old days. 00:05:59:16 - 00:06:27:01 Andrew Orton also spoke of C Warner Munn - youthful weird author whom Cook has encouraged, and who made such a spectacular entrance into weird tales with his very first fictional attempt. This young athlete, aged 23, is very well connected. Being a cousin of the owner of the Scientific American, but is not extensively cultivated or well-read himself. His erudition seems confined wholly to weird matters, and he shows no disposition to broaden in literary taste. 00:06:27:15 - 00:06:50:24 Andrew As coincidence would have it, a letter from Cook arrived whilst Orton was here. I'll answer and enclose it here with and the latter was amused by the reference to him as quote, intensely modern, end quote. In actual fact, he is independent and eclectic, having no use for the extreme moderns and seeming modern to Cook only because the good old Vagrant is getting a bit antiquarian and fossilized 00:06:51:02 - 00:07:13:11 Andrew Like Grandpa Theobald. It took only a few moments conversation to show me that Orton is profoundly well informed and gifted with acute intelligence and taste. Despite our spectacular opposite ness of manner and experience. We have that common ground which belongs to those of the same Yankee heritage and of the same essential point of view and opinions on the human scene. 00:07:14:00 - 00:07:38:07 Andrew He is in the most delightful sense, congenial and even stimulating. I can't conceive of anyone being bored in the company of one so buoyant, expansive, and urbanely affable. I know that the gang will take to him instantly when he attends the meeting tonight. He hopes to pass through Providence at some time within a year. And when he does, I shall certainly have him call on you and AEPG of New York. 00:07:38:07 - 00:08:01:20 Andrew he has seen singularly little - and of its colonial antiquities, almost nothing in these matters he shows an eager, appreciative ness which will make it a pleasure to act as his guide. His health is not good. Being impaired by a bronchial weakness, which some time ago developed tuberculous tendencies. Though an ample sojourn in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico itself seems to have killed the latter danger completely. 00:08:02:00 - 00:08:26:19 Andrew When in Mexico, he explored with intense interest many Aztec and Maya ruins. Indeed, I fancy he could swap yarns very interestingly with his fellow-wanderer Sechrist. Well, to return to the diary, About 6:00, I took Orton out to dinner at John's, detouring en route to the Montague Street Parapet, where I showed him the ferry city of towering flame that is the Manhattan of early evening. 00:08:27:01 - 00:08:48:03 Andrew He had never before seen this marvelous spectacle and was quite overcome by its unparalleled majesty and bizarrerie, a magic to which Lord Dunsany was keenly and appreciatively sensitive during his American visit of 1919. Orton at once announced his intention of getting a room in Columbia Heights overlooking the bay. And in that process, I shall no doubt be able to assist him. 00:08:48:17 - 00:09:12:09 Andrew We now completed our trip to John's, consumed a fine dinner of braised beef, potato, spaghetti and apple pie with ice cream and returned to 169 where we talked and looked at books till after 10:00. He was scheduled for the 1140 Train to Yonkers, and we allowed time for a walk over Brooklyn Bridge, which he had never before crossed in any fashion whatsoever, and which delighted him greatly. 00:09:12:20 - 00:09:34:09 Andrew He had indeed never before set foot in Brooklyn, though he has been in New York continuously since early October and has visited it frequently throughout his life. Reaching the Manhattan side rather early and still having much to discuss. We did not at once disperse, but instead I accompanied him by Subway to the Grand Central, where we lounged about that luxurious lower waiting room 00:09:34:09 - 00:09:58:24 Andrew next the restaurant, the one you and I waited in one evening before you took the Mt. Vernon train. Till the time of his train's departure. As it turned out, we got so deep in conversation that he almost missed his train the last of that night. And certainly would have if it hadn't been a minute or two late in starting Today, in the afternoon, when he will call me up and arrange for a meeting before the time of the gang's gathering, probably coming over here about six and taking dinner with me. 00:09:59:11 - 00:10:15:04 Andrew He will try to get off early from work and pack for his Thursday trip to Athol in time to get over here in good season tonight. His worst bother is his distance from town, which makes it impossible for him to go home after office. Hours and return to New York for the evening. That's why he wants to move in. 00:10:15:23 - 00:10:35:10 Andrew Well, after seeing Orton safely on his train, I return to 169 and have been writing ever since. Among the letters I am answering is one from Mr. Hoag, containing the melancholy news that the Greenwich High School not an ancient or historic building, thank heaven, was just burned to the ground. It was the Alma mater of most of his grandchildren. 00:10:35:22 - 00:10:55:23 Andrew I shall continue to write till well into the morning. Then I shall rest and be ready for Orton, about six. In attending the meeting, I think I'll wear my good suit and get the brown pressed. Just now It's getting beastly cold, though Tuesday was warm till evening. I've had to keep the oil stove going continuously ever since my return from the Grand Central. 00:10:56:08 - 00:11:24:16 Andrew The meeting tonight will have a distinctly Yuletidish cast and promises to be a good one. Everybody except Morton is expected to be there, and with Orton as a guest, the festivities ought to be pretty brisk. Oh, by the way, one of Orton's plans, in case his Vermont magazine doesn't materialize next year, is to join a scientific expedition to unknown Mongolia, which is planning a thorough canvass of the regions not touched by the expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History. 00:11:25:01 - 00:11:51:09 Andrew He thinks he has the pull necessary to land a berth. Great life. Wish I had the ambition and enterprise to work my way around the globe and into strange far places. Your affectionate nephew and obedient servant. HPL PS Wednesday afternoon. Cold has become hideous and paralyzing, almost as terrible as on that eclipse morning last January. I couldn't sleep because of it. 00:11:51:09 - 00:12:16:20 Andrew Have to have oil stove every second. PPS in my next letter I will enclose earlier Cook letter describing Orton. These needn't be returned. P.P.P.S. It's so beastly cold near the windows. I think I'll take the stove and tip table far into the room and write there! and be I now have on a brown vest and trousers. Be thick, wrap over them and see winter overcoat over the wrap. 00:12:17:02 - 00:12:35:06 Andrew But my oil stove is nobly behaving. It is fighting single handed with not a speck of heat in the radiator. I think I'll try wearing a blanket over the overcoat, PPPPP, etc.. S Orton just telephoned that he can't get to the meeting tonight after all. 00:12:36:06 - 00:13:02:22 Sean So there you go. Well, well, well, well. Yeah. Yeah. This is clearly in one letter. I think this is what makes this particular pair of letters are super letter. So extraordinary is the dullness of the language with which he describes his relationship with his wife and the virtual ecstasy of the language with which he describes young Vrest Orton. 00:13:02:24 - 00:13:03:04 Sean Yeah. 00:13:03:09 - 00:13:21:16 Andrew Vrest Orton Who would go on to become a good friend and correspondent for the rest of his life. This was the day he met Breast Orton And when I first chose this letter because it was written at Christmas time, I did not know I was going to be picking a letter written to the very day he met a main figure in his life. 00:13:21:16 - 00:13:24:06 Andrew But it was wonderful that that that's how it worked out. 00:13:24:10 - 00:13:29:10 Sean No more likable, breezy and magnetic person never existed than he. 00:13:29:10 - 00:13:30:22 Andrew Yeah, he is. He is a. 00:13:30:22 - 00:13:32:17 Sean Dreamboat, apparently. 00:13:33:20 - 00:13:36:13 Andrew And Lovecraft is smitten by Vrest Orton. 00:13:36:13 - 00:14:01:07 Sean Yeah. So I have to dive in. We have to go there which is, you know, I a lot of people wonder, you know, is Lovecraft asexual? Was he a closeted homosexual or was he just a not especially enthusiastic heterosexual? But in this he's as and I don't mean to be pejorative, but he's as girly gushy as anything that I have ever read by HPL. 00:14:01:10 - 00:14:11:00 Andrew Yeah, it is. It is giddy. There is no doubt about it. I have never personally had a moment's doubt that Lovecraft was straight, and I still have no doubt. 00:14:11:00 - 00:14:13:17 Sean But this story, you're saying you're confident he is straight? 00:14:13:17 - 00:14:28:08 Andrew I'm absolutely confident that Lovecraft is straight up. But like you, this this letter is one of the first things that ever made me wonder. Maybe not me. Maybe he's a Kinsey two. 00:14:29:23 - 00:14:46:22 Sean Instead of a Kinsey one. Let me start let me start with your your conclusion that Lovecraft were the feeling you've always had, that Lovecraft was straight. Was is there anything in particular that that led you to that conclusion? Because there is a history, there is an asexuality to to so much. 00:14:46:23 - 00:15:06:08 Andrew I think it was his virulently homophobic remarks in other letters that had something to do with it. Although to be fair, you know, there are a lot of gay people who it's it's entirely possible for gay people to be virulently homophobic. Sure. So that is not in and of itself, you know, proof any more than gushing about a guy you just met is proof the other way. 00:15:06:08 - 00:15:17:14 Andrew Right? I just usually and, you know, speaking as a gay man myself, I just never my gaydar has never been tipped by Lovecraft in any way. 00:15:17:20 - 00:15:44:05 Sean I had always ended up with the feeling that he was asexual, that sexuality was just either so repressed in him or, you know, whatever I'm whatever genetic basis. It just wasn't something that got his blood flowing the way a lot of other people's blood flowing. And it didn't animal, vegetable, mineral, you know, architecture was it likely to get him was worked up as as any other sort of human being. 00:15:44:05 - 00:15:50:05 Andrew So yeah. And if you're repressing your feelings, whatever they are, you know, you're repressing then sure. 00:15:50:05 - 00:16:09:21 Sean And they're going to come out somehow and it is fascinating to see the sort of weirdly sexual imagery that shows up in a lot of his monstrosities and gaping maws and twisty tentacles. You know, it doesn't take a Freudian to to see that kind of sexualized imagery buried very deep. I'm not sure Howard would have ever seen it. 00:16:09:21 - 00:16:10:20 Sean But, yeah. 00:16:11:01 - 00:16:22:20 Andrew You know, maybe the reason he didn't like Freud was because Freud made him nervous about things that he would rather not face in himself. I don't know. Yeah. And he preferred, you know, the intellectual ism of Adler. 00:16:22:20 - 00:16:25:23 Sean To the much safer to the. Yeah. The slippery side of road. 00:16:26:06 - 00:16:28:13 Andrew To power, please. I'll take it. 00:16:30:00 - 00:16:39:11 Sean So he meets young Vrest Orton here. And boy, almost every quality of this young man just. Just delights. Yeah, Lovecraft through and through. 00:16:39:12 - 00:16:46:20 Andrew Everything about him is is just perfect. He's he's spent a year at Brown, and he has this wanderlust, and he's dressed impeccably. 00:16:46:21 - 00:16:48:08 Sean Wholly free of vulgarity. 00:16:48:10 - 00:16:51:06 Andrew Yeah, he's aristocratic all the way down. 00:16:51:09 - 00:16:59:16 Sean Yeah, It's really if you were going to if Lovecraft were going on Tinder, this is the one that he would pick because he, you know, he likes the photo. And he goes. 00:16:59:16 - 00:17:02:04 Andrew H.L. Mencken personally. Wow. 00:17:04:06 - 00:17:14:21 Andrew Mencken If you don't know him. Mencken was the editor of the American Mercury, which was a very influential magazine in New York in the 1920s. And and to know H.L. Mencken personally, that is quite a brush with celebrity. 00:17:14:21 - 00:17:32:24 Sean That's true. I thought there was a sentence in there just after the Mencken bit of of Lovecraft's wishful thinking, because here's a guy, he's he's just mad. He doesn't know him well at all. He's I don't think he'll become a nuisance for persons as well-born and well-bred as he'd never carry familiarity and gregarious ness to excess. Yeah. 00:17:33:06 - 00:17:36:10 Andrew Yeah, he's perfect, But he's not so perfect that he gets on your nerves, right? 00:17:37:17 - 00:17:39:10 Sean I'd like him to be a houseguest. 00:17:40:00 - 00:18:00:22 Andrew And they, you know, and he knows people that Lovecraft knows. He brings up. He calls them C Warner Munn in this letter. But Lovecraft got that initial first edition wrong is actually a H Warner Munn, who's another writer from Athol, Massachusetts, and was young at the time. Munn had stuff. He was sort of a bit of a prodigy, prodigy and had stuff published in Weird Tales. 00:18:01:02 - 00:18:07:19 Andrew And Munn lived until the 1980s and became a personal friend of William Pug Myers, which I was. 00:18:08:01 - 00:18:09:04 Sean Oh, that's nice. I didn't know. 00:18:09:10 - 00:18:13:18 Andrew I was there. I was interested to find that because Munn ended up in Tacoma, Washington. 00:18:13:19 - 00:18:14:16 Sean Oh, well, there you go. 00:18:14:17 - 00:18:30:18 Andrew So he was he and Pug Meyer knew each other personally. So, you know, it's the degrees of separation between us and Orton. And Orton went on to found a very successful business called the Vermont Country Store, which is still in operation and is run by Orton's son and grandson. So. 00:18:30:24 - 00:18:53:18 Sean Oh, that's great. Yeah. WARNER Munn met Lovecraft. It had not yet met Lovecraft in person at this point in time. They met in 1927 and then it was in 1928 that he took Lovecraft back into Dunwich Country in western Massachusetts and took him to a place they called the Bears Den, which he then when Lovecraft chose to incorporate into writing about Dunwich for the Dunnwich horror. 00:18:54:04 - 00:19:13:06 Andrew And he talks about Orton, how you know, there were in many ways where spectacular the opposite in manner he's suave and urbane and well-dressed and handsome. But we share this common New England heritage, so we really understand each other. And you know, they stayed up all night reading books and gave in And you almost expect to hear Lovecraft say, you know, they. 00:19:13:06 - 00:19:14:24 Sean Braided each other's hair. Absolutely. 00:19:15:00 - 00:19:15:18 Andrew It was. So it. 00:19:15:18 - 00:19:18:00 Sean Is. And it was a sleepover. Yeah. 00:19:18:01 - 00:19:25:09 Andrew It basically was. And then, you know, oh, in the morning we went I escorted him to Grand Central and we talked and talked and talked. 00:19:25:09 - 00:19:27:03 Sean Almost missed the trains, busses, train. 00:19:27:03 - 00:19:29:10 Andrew It's a total meet cute from a romantic comedy. 00:19:29:11 - 00:19:42:13 Sean It absolutely has. In fact, you know, Lovecraft extolling all these virtues in them. And he gets to the section where Orton's health isn't good and it's almost he likes that, too, because he's like, he's not he's wonderful, but he's not too healthy, just like me. 00:19:42:13 - 00:19:57:22 Andrew I'm all but he's also he almost has tuberculosis, but he travels so much in dry climates that it saved him from the tuberculosis, but he's still always husky. His voice is husky from that bronchial oh, that bronchial condition. And he hates New York just as much as I do. 00:19:58:05 - 00:20:18:03 Sean The ideal man. They went out to dinner at a restaurant called John's, and if in other letters, we'll get into it. Lovecraft talking about his typical menu for the day. But I will tell you that going out to dinner for a fine dinner of braised beef, potato, spaghetti and apple pie with ice cream is that's living it up. 00:20:18:03 - 00:20:19:01 Sean That is Howard. 00:20:19:01 - 00:20:27:23 Andrew That is living it up for Howard, a guy who's used to eating, you know, a cold can of beans and a slice of bread. Yeah, that is a lush dinner. So he's clearly showing off or. Yeah. 00:20:28:00 - 00:20:29:22 Sean Restaurant and pulling out all the stops. Yeah. 00:20:30:06 - 00:20:43:14 Andrew And then he's super looking forward to having Orton show up at the meeting that night of the Kalem club because the gang is going to come over to Lovecraft's apartment and he's really looking forward to showing off Orton to the other boys in the town. 00:20:43:18 - 00:20:46:15 Sean You're going to be cool if you bring dressed Orton with you. 00:20:46:15 - 00:21:06:21 Andrew So all of them, except for James Ferdinand Morton, were expected and Lovecraft was really looking for. He's. I know that they'll hit it off. He's going to be a hit. So he's really looking forward to showing them off to the Kalem Club. And the Kalem Club was Kleiner and Loveman and Long and James Ferdinand Morton and Everett McNeil. 00:21:06:21 - 00:21:12:13 Andrew It was all of Lovecraft's friends in New York, and they met weekly at Lovecraft's apartment to. 00:21:12:20 - 00:21:14:17 Sean Socialize, socialize and talk about. 00:21:15:04 - 00:21:35:04 Andrew Literature, compare notes, read each other, the stories that they were working on at the time. Lovecraft apparently really enjoyed these meetings and really went all out despite his poverty. He served cake and he went down to the local delicatessen and brought back a bucket, literally a bucket full of coffee to serve to his friends because he hid in his little apartment. 00:21:35:04 - 00:21:46:20 Andrew He he couldn't cook anything. He had no his apartment had no kitchen of any kind. If he he if he the only way he could heat anything was on the radiator or the little oil stove that he bought to keep the place warm. 00:21:46:20 - 00:21:48:21 Sean That helps cold beans make more sense. Yeah. 00:21:48:21 - 00:22:08:04 Andrew That's why he ate so poorly is cause he he could not cook anything in his apartment. But when the guys were coming over for the Kalem Club, he pulled out all the stops and went down to the corner and brought back hot coffee and all that stuff. So the Kalem Club was, you know, very important to Lovecraft, and he was really looking forward to introducing Orton to the boys. 00:22:08:04 - 00:22:09:24 Sean He he didn't always host, though, did he? 00:22:10:09 - 00:22:11:18 Andrew He didn't always host, but. 00:22:12:13 - 00:22:15:02 Sean They kind of moved around to different. 00:22:15:03 - 00:22:33:24 Andrew I know they I know they sometimes met at McNeil's apartment and I think they met in other people's places, too. But I get the impression from some of the stuff I've read in Joshi's biography that that Lovecraft really was the heart and soul of the Kalem Club. And most of the meetings happened at Lovecraft's apartment. I could be wrong about that. 00:22:33:24 - 00:22:37:07 Andrew But certainly Lovecraft really enjoyed being the host of the meeting. 00:22:37:07 - 00:22:37:24 Sean Sure, sure. 00:22:37:24 - 00:22:43:16 Andrew And when he dropped when he moved back to Providence, the Kalem Club more or less just disintegrated. 00:22:43:16 - 00:22:54:04 Sean The party's over. Yeah. All right, so it's getting beastly cold out, but we're we're we're waiting for the meeting in which Vrest will be presented to the fellows. 00:22:54:12 - 00:23:06:00 Andrew I guess when he says that he expects tonight's meeting to have a distinctly Yuletidish cast, do you think he's referring to the weather, or do you think he's anticipating something? Oh, I think specifically. 00:23:06:01 - 00:23:13:00 Sean Might Mr. sing carols or recite holiday poems to each other? Yeah, that was that was my that was my read on. I mean, it is two. 00:23:13:00 - 00:23:16:01 Andrew Days before Christmas. So if there's ever going to be a Christmas Eve meeting, this would. 00:23:16:01 - 00:23:18:02 Sean Be the and he you know, Lovecraft loved Christmas. 00:23:18:03 - 00:23:32:22 Andrew Lovecraft did love Christmas, which kind of takes you by surprise, considering what a stick in the mud he often was and how much he hated, you know, the whole Christ part of Christmas. But he sure did enjoy the festivity, part of Christmas. Yeah. 00:23:32:22 - 00:23:37:21 Sean And and writing and reaching out to the people he cared about was clearly important to him. 00:23:37:21 - 00:23:53:15 Andrew Apparently, if his marriage is any indication, Lovecraft did a lot of the things he did out of a sense of obligation. Do you think he wrote 50 Christmas cards because that's what a gentleman was expected to do, or do you think he wrote 50 Christmas cards because he really enjoyed writing 50 Christmas cards? That's a lot of Christmas cards. 00:23:53:16 - 00:24:13:14 Sean It is a lot of Christmas cards. And but I think a sense of obligation leads one to write some of those some of the corporate Christmas cards We get that Sure have a happy you know it's stamped on there and it says have a happy holidays and yeah no actual personal effort or communications going to he's writing everybody their own unique poems. 00:24:13:14 - 00:24:14:12 Sean Yeah I. 00:24:14:12 - 00:24:15:14 Andrew Think he is putting in a lot of. 00:24:15:14 - 00:24:19:23 Sean Effort. That amount of effort indicates that there is something personal. 00:24:20:01 - 00:24:30:02 Andrew He does appear to have some, you know, genuinely fond memories of Christmases of his childhood. Right. If his list of what maybe old family servants cooking up elaborate meals is any indication, we talk. 00:24:30:02 - 00:24:32:14 Sean More about the servants than we do about the family. But okay. 00:24:33:21 - 00:24:35:00 Andrew Well, Matt, Delia. 00:24:37:13 - 00:24:59:08 Sean Helping her hide her flask. So, yeah, as he's wrapping up with and Annie, he talks about getting responding to a letter from Mr. Hoag. And Mr. Hoag was an elderly poet from Troy, New York. He was part of the amateur press circle with Lovecraft, and it's believed that he was one of Lovecraft's sources of information about the Catskills. 00:24:59:15 - 00:25:28:23 Sean Oh, yeah. And as we spent a bunch of time with Lovecraft in the Catskills in recently adapting Beyond the Wall of Sleep and the lurking fear, right. That Mr. Hoag was, I don't know, his designated cat in contact up there. But one of the other things that was interesting about Hoag is I think it was in Joshi's biography, I am Providence, where he floated the idea that Mr. Hoag was actually the real world inspiration for Zadok Allen. 00:25:29:02 - 00:25:46:00 Sean Oh, really? Who was born in 1831 and died in 1927, just like Mr. Hoag. Oh, wow. So I thought that was an interesting thing in there. Hoag was not somebody with whom I was familiar before this, and he is somebody, you know, he was again born in 1831, so he's quite a bit older than Lovecraft. 00:25:46:00 - 00:25:51:11 Andrew Wow, that's 60 years Lovecraft Senior, right. And yeah, he was an adult during the Civil. 00:25:51:11 - 00:26:04:02 Sean War, right. And died and died two years after this letter was written. So I'll be darned. So Lovecraft would go on. I don't know. Our typed version of this is 22 pages. I don't know. How do you know how long the the manuscript was? 00:26:04:13 - 00:26:15:03 Andrew If I recall, it's in the 30-35 ish pages is long. Yeah, it's a long letter. And it was, you know, to be fair, it was really two letters in one. He stopped halfway through and then picked it up the next day. 00:26:15:03 - 00:26:16:24 Sean Yeah, but he still can't bring himself to stop. 00:26:16:24 - 00:26:21:24 Andrew It is interesting. I mean, and it does just flow, doesn't it? I mean, you can almost hear him just saying this out loud. 00:26:21:24 - 00:26:23:22 Sean Yeah. There's a sort of stream of consciousness. 00:26:23:22 - 00:26:42:21 Andrew Quality, too. Absolutely. And, you know, he goes back to the diary, changes, he changes, tacks halfway through a paragraph and picks up something that he mentioned eight pages ago and goes back to it. Yeah, it's very it's very conversational. And a lot of people said Lovecraft's letters were just the way he spoke. He wrote the way he spoke when he was writing letters. 00:26:43:04 - 00:26:46:07 Sean And the more of his letters we spent time with, I'm coming to believe it. 00:26:46:07 - 00:26:47:12 Andrew I am coming to believe it, too. 00:26:47:13 - 00:26:52:14 Sean There's very little few places where he's putting on affect. I think that's just how he was. 00:26:52:21 - 00:27:13:05 Andrew He talks about at the close to the end of this letter, he talks about Orton's plan to create a Vermont magazine. And Orton did go on to create a magazine called Call a Fan, which was all about the hobby of book collecting. Orton became something of an expert in typography and book design and book collecting before he started his Vermont country store in the 1940. 00:27:13:05 - 00:27:20:17 Andrew So Orton's plans for a magazine didn't come out exactly the way he was talking about it in 1925, but he did create a successful magazine. 00:27:20:17 - 00:27:25:07 Sean Well, how about his expedition to Mongolia and sounds a little Roy Chapman Anders to me. 00:27:25:07 - 00:27:39:20 Andrew Well, because Roy Chapman Andrews was the guy who led those American Museum of Natural History expeditions to Mongolia. And it was you know, it was also in the mid-19th y'know, it was the first time anybody discovered dinosaur eggs. Those those expeditions were big news at the time. 00:27:39:20 - 00:27:46:12 Sean So exciting stuff. Yeah, just just more, more qualities about Orton to just make him that much dreamier to Howard. The thought that. 00:27:46:15 - 00:27:52:04 Andrew Orton could join with, you know, the real official expeditions. Not that Prorok amateur, not. 00:27:52:04 - 00:27:54:19 Sean A dodgy one. Yeah. Yeah. But ones that have a real museum, totally. 00:27:54:19 - 00:27:59:19 Andrew Legitimate one that produces, you know, 4000 pages of scholarship as a result. 00:27:59:19 - 00:28:12:24 Sean Yeah, right. Well, so he finally makes it to the sign off and of course signing off to his beloved aunt as your affectionate nephew and obedient servant, HPL. But then we've got to move it to a set of four post scripts, and. 00:28:13:10 - 00:28:14:21 Andrew I cut a few of the post scripts. 00:28:14:21 - 00:28:15:20 Sean To Are there more? There are. 00:28:15:20 - 00:28:19:05 Andrew More, There are more post scripts to this letter than than I read. 00:28:19:09 - 00:28:22:02 Sean All right. And then finally we get to the punchline that. 00:28:22:05 - 00:28:24:11 Andrew Oorton telephoned and he's not going to be here after. 00:28:24:11 - 00:28:25:18 Sean All. Whomp. Yeah. 00:28:26:00 - 00:28:35:03 Andrew Oh, yeah. So all that gushing. And in the end, Orton never made it to the meeting, but he did go on to become a good friend. 00:28:35:03 - 00:28:38:06 Sean Yeah, this was nice to see that this wasn't just a. 00:28:38:15 - 00:28:40:03 Andrew A one night stand. 00:28:40:03 - 00:28:47:18 Sean Where you were a fad. You know, that he he actually became part of Lovecraft's, you know, circle of correspondents. 00:28:47:18 - 00:29:08:22 Andrew And, and Lovecraft went with in Vermont to visit him. And that's where he met, you know, some of the experiences he had there ended up in the Whispering Darkness. And yeah, Orton turned out to be a good friend of his for the rest of his life. And it it was a lot of fun to read the letter that Lovecraft wrote the day he met Vrest Orton. 00:29:08:22 - 00:29:10:12 Sean Because he was smitten. 00:29:10:13 - 00:29:15:04 Andrew He made quite an impression on me to. seems dreamy 00:29:15:06 - 00:29:17:10 Sean Exactly. If only we could meet him. Yeah. 00:29:17:21 - 00:29:26:10 Andrew All right. Thanks. Today to the Brown Digital Repository for, again, making this letter available to people in a beautiful high resolution scan. 00:29:26:16 - 00:29:35:14 Sean You can read this letter and see lots of other original Lovecraft manuscripts at their Web site at Repository.library.Brown.edu. 00:29:35:18 - 00:29:38:00 Andrew I'm your obedient servant, Andrew Leman. 00:29:38:11 - 00:29:41:07 Sean And I am cordially and respectfully yours. Sean Branney. 00:29:41:19 - 00:29:44:22 Andrew From us to you have a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays. 00:29:45:03 - 00:29:48:19 Sean Scary, scary solstice. Whatever you celebrate, we hope it's a wonderful one. 00:29:48:19 - 00:29:52:02 Andrew You've been listening to voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:29:52:03 - 00:29:55:09 Sean If you've enjoyed the show, we'd appreciate it. If you take a moment to post a review or. 00:29:55:09 - 00:29:58:12 Andrew Write a Christmas card, tell all your friends about voluminous. 00:29:59:00 - 00:30:25:16 Sean Brought to you by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Come check out all we have to offer at HPLHS.org