00:00:06:05 - 00:00:09:13 Sean Welcome to Voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:00:09:16 - 00:00:15:18 Andrew In addition to classic works of gothic horror fiction, HPL wrote thousands of fascinating letters. 00:00:15:18 - 00:00:17:22 Sean In each episode, we'll read and discuss one of them. 00:00:18:01 - 00:00:18:14 Sean I'm Sean Branney 00:00:18:14 - 00:00:24:02 Andrew And I'm Andrew Leman. Together, we run the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. 00:00:24:06 - 00:00:27:20 Sean For today's letter, I chose one written on the 20th of December 1936. 00:00:27:20 - 00:00:30:04 Sean to Jonquil Leiber. 00:00:30:13 - 00:00:32:04 Andrew What a delightful name, indeed. 00:00:32:04 - 00:00:33:21 Sean And it's rather a delightful letter, I think. 00:00:33:22 - 00:00:34:06 Andrew Let's hear it. 00:00:34:06 - 00:00:36:18 Sean Okay. 00:00:37:11 - 00:01:06:05 Sean December 20, 1936. Dear Mrs. Leiber, concerning the matter of prosaic toil, I can scarcely rejoice that I have not discovered and engaged in some more regular and remunerative form of it than freelance revision, since the tangible results would be distinctly more helpful than the psychological atmosphere would be harmful. Instead, if ever I do stumble upon an opening, the picturesque conception of me as a non time clock puncher will swiftly and ruthlessly vanish. 00:01:06:16 - 00:01:52:07 Sean However, I shall probably be available a decade hence if still living at so advanced an age for that good weird magazine editorship, which Mr. Liber has in mind. Such a magazine would surely be welcomed by a limited and devoted circle, though in harsh fact, I gravely doubt its practicability as a commercial or even self-sustaining venture. The old W.T. group has many a time discussed something of the sort, pointing out that virtually all of the world's first rate authors (for example Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, F. Marion Crawford, Theodore Dreiser, Guy de Maupassant, etc. etc. etc.) have at one time or another written weird material and are arguing that they would probably produce a great 00:01:52:07 - 00:02:21:00 Sean deal more if a definite and dependable market existed. With this potential source of contents (to which would of course be added The presumably increased output of such acknowledged fantasists as Blackwood, Machen, Dunsany, de La Mare, etc.) argued the optimists, the right sort of publisher might float a weird magazine of the very highest grade, commanding a select and dependable public and reaching persons who would toss aside a cheap rag like WT with contempt. A pleasing picture! 00:02:21:09 - 00:02:53:04 Sean But there were not lacking pessimists to point out that this select and faithful public would of necessity be woefully small. After all, a taste for fantasy in large doses is rather an unusual thing. Most readers like it only occasionally relishing a Machen book now and then, or faintly appreciating the timid, insipid bits (like the House of the Laburnums in the December Harper's) sparingly scattered through the conventional magazines, but becoming distinctly bored when confronted by a solid or frequent diet of shadows and misery. 00:02:53:16 - 00:03:15:12 Sean Hence, the reluctance of book publishers to issue collections of weird short stories, and hence, by inference, the impossibility of finding enough readers among the literate to keep a cosmic spectral periodical alive. That Farnsworth Wright and his congeners recognized this dilemma as very obvious - for their output, is deliberately designed to attract the limitless hordes of the crude and illiterate. 00:03:15:18 - 00:03:42:07 Sean They tap a class which a civilized magazine could not reach. The course sensation seeker, the superstitious science devotee and so on. And yet they managed to retain a small literate following through the insertion of a few passable yarns, and because of the fact that no other magazine of the like subject matter exists, the editors are glad to hold this handful of the civilized if they can do so without alienating their bread and butter yielding yokelry. 00:03:42:12 - 00:04:05:16 Sean But when it comes to a choice betwixt the two, the yokelry wins every time. Caetereris paribus, the cheap, sensational story is referred to the sincere artistic effort. And the sad thing is that the editors are probably commercially right. That's what business is. If they tried to present an all civilized program of fiction, their circulation would probably dwindle below the self-supporting limit. 00:04:06:02 - 00:04:29:22 Sean But let us hope for the sake of weird literature as well as for that of the editorship, that conditions may somehow miraculously change before 1947. Good luck to the future Leiber Fabularum Pavidorum if one may attempt a base. But classic example of Paronomasia. I can appreciate the startling contrast which would have been afforded if incontinence with the whimsical wish of Father, the Viking. 00:04:30:02 - 00:04:57:15 Sean I had suddenly appeared like some skeleton at the feast at Mr. John Barrymore's Anacreon, at a gathering that your genial host would have gone to pieces over me, albeit for a far different reason than that which caused his disintegration over your distinguished governor's visage. I can well imagine for even the most potent distillate of the Golden Mays never produced a pink elephant quite so grotesque and terrifying as the thing he would have beheld. 00:04:58:07 - 00:05:28:14 Sean Alas, that I was unavoidably absent for might not the shock of permanently flung the ivy wreathed genius upon a water wagon destined to bear him to new heights of accomplishment by such little slips as the course of history and of the arts, sometimes irrevocably changed. Yes, indeed, I have frequently encountered Mr. Barrymore's name in the press and must congratulate him on his ability to remain in touch with romance to an extent not common among those of our graying generation. 00:05:29:07 - 00:05:53:01 Sean It is only in an earlier and widely different phase that this luminary and I have any point of resemblance. This being our common difficulty in establishing contact with symptomatic toil. I have always appreciate that oft repeated anecdote of his youth when, as a somewhat elegant but scarcely industrious Flaneur and Oakes, he was engulfed in the chaos of the San Francisco disaster. 00:05:53:10 - 00:06:21:06 Sean Along with others, he was drafted into emergency rescue and ruined cleaning service by the military authorities in charge of the stricken area. Upon hearing of which his illustrious uncle, Mr. John Drew, is reported to have exclaimed, By God, it took an earthquake and the United States Army to put John to work. And yet the parallel is by no means perfect, since there is no period of my life in which I could not have been driven into useful pursuits by an earthquake alone or by an army without an earthquake. 00:06:21:21 - 00:06:46:06 Sean No use trying to compete with the great in color or intensity. Speaking of industrial economic matters, let me assure you that a two or $3 a week dietary program need not involve even a particle of malnutrition or unparalleled ability. If but one knew what to get and where to get it. The tin can and delicatessen conceal marvelous possibilities. 00:06:46:15 - 00:07:16:07 Sean Porridge? Mehercule! On the contrary. My tastes call for the most blisteringly highly seasoned materials conceivable and for desserts as close to 100%. C12 H22 O11 as possible. Indeed, of this latter commodity, I never employ less than four teaspoons in an average cup of coffee. Favorite dinners, Italian spaghetti, chili con carne, a Hungarian goulash save when I can get white meat of turkey with highly seasoned dressing. 00:07:16:19 - 00:07:39:02 Sean If this be asceticism, make the most of it. As for the expense element to begin with, I eat only twice daily from choice, or rather, a digestive advisability. I adopted this two meal program long before I had to economize. The rest is merely a matter of judicious and far from self-denying choice. Let us investigate a typical day's rations: 00:07:39:10 - 00:08:10:12 Sean (A) breakfast, whether I eat it before or after retiring depends on whether I retire at 2 a.m. or 9 a.m. or 3 p.m. or 9 p.m. or some other hour. My program of sleeping and waking is very flexible. Donut from Weyhasset Pure Food Market 0.015 York State Medium Cheese for sake of round numbers 0.060 Coffee with challenge Brand Condensed Milk + C12 H22 O11 0.025 00:08:10:23 - 00:08:47:00 Sean Total breakfast $0.100 (B) Dinner occurring vaguely betwixt six and nine or 10 p.m. one Can Ralph's Chili con carne (or Armors, corned beef hash or baked beans from delicatessen or armors, Frankfurt Sausage or Boyardee, meatballs and spaghetti or chop suey from Delicatessen or Campbell's Vegetable Soup, etc., etc., etc..) $0.10 two slices Bombed Bread .025 Coffee with accessories noted above .025 Slice of cake or quadrant or octet of pie 0.050. 00:08:47:00 - 00:09:12:09 Sean Total dinner $0.20 grand Total for entire day $0.30 time seven Average Total per week $2.10. Occasionally, of course, extravagant additions occur such as fruit with breakfast or cheese, with pie at dinner, or a chocolate bar or ice cream at an odd hour, or a meat course costing more than a dime or other sybaritic luxuries. But even the most blue color an indulgence seldom tops. 00:09:12:09 - 00:09:49:03 Sean I have to model three bucks and the old man still lives in fairly hale and hearty state at that. Oddly enough, I was a semi invalid in the old days when I didn't economize. Porridge. Not for grandpa. I can endorse with the most profanely fervent emphasis your appraisal of American business Bush. The fact is an ideal of toil for its own sake, and an exaltation of the grasping, aggressively acquisitive type have always seemed to me so self-evidently, barbarous and ignominious that I have never quite been able to realize their existence as important factors. 00:09:49:19 - 00:10:22:11 Sean Commercial ideals are a trifle better camouflaged in New England than in other parts of America, and as one more disposed to draw ideas from books than absorb the spirit of my physical environment. I managed to grow up with a European rather than a pioneer American scale of values regarding the individual and society. Not that I have ever scorned honest industry, for should not every person contribute all he can to society in exchange for the organized benefits it extends him, but that I have scorned the notion of industry as an end in itself. 00:10:22:20 - 00:10:56:22 Sean I cannot comprehend the exaltation of a mere process as distinguished from its objects. Working to live, I can understand, but not living to work. And the poisonous, cheapening, vulgarity of the commercial mind, the readiness to haggle, and the tendency to relate all ideas and impressions to material advantage in the rat like intensive ness associated with business enterprise has always nauseated me so v iolently that the notion of a social order founded on it has seemed to partake of a fantastic nightmare rather than sober reality. 00:10:57:08 - 00:11:23:18 Sean Yet I suppose such a reign of commercial ideas does exist. Indeed, I see many evidences of it when I view the objective phenomena of today, but I fancy its triumph will be short lived. Mechanization of industry and diffusion of knowledge are laying the foundations for widespread change and Squire Archy and capitalism must alike go down in time before some planned society more rational and equitable than either. 00:11:24:08 - 00:11:51:24 Sean Let us hope that in this part of the world, the coming transition will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, as indeed we may expect from any fabric whose cultural roots are of Northwestern Europe. But so far as past and present are concerned, I would certainly be more at home in England than in America. Indeed, if I were not so wrapped up in Antiquarian ism that I virtually am in England spiritually, I would probably find my milieus psychologically unendurable. 00:11:52:09 - 00:12:11:04 Sean I get by because I have blinders on. It's interesting to know that you have a touch of piracy in your ancestry. I have a counterfeiter as a great, great uncle about whom I'll tell you sometime. He was also a silversmith with pieces surviving in the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and elsewhere. 00:12:11:12 - 00:12:40:17 Sean He'd have been hanged in 1770 of his neighbors, who were probably implicated in the coining. Such offenses, being lightly regarded in the colonies, hadn't affected a jail delivery. I am linearly descended from his elder brother, born in 1723. I wish I could have seen your ancestral crag of St Michael's mount, descriptions of which have always fascinated me. If picture speak truly the castle on its summit must be one of the loveliest and most ethereal, fantastic objects outside the pages of Dunsany. 00:12:40:24 - 00:13:08:12 Sean To which it added the charm of long history and the rumor that a giant skeleton was discovered in a secret dungeon beneath it a century or so ago. The appearance of the mount with its pinnacle citadel under certain lighting and atmospheric conditions, as, for instance, outlined against an orange sunset. Must be exquisite beyond description. And the little village on the shore doubtless shares that fascinating quality which all CORNISH seaport seemed to possess. 00:13:08:21 - 00:13:33:16 Sean Which reminds me, I suppose you've read E.F. Benson's splendid weird tale. Negocio Merimbula, which is laid in a typical CORNISH village betwixt the sea and an overshadowing crag. Mount's Bay, I believe, still reveals at low tide the spectral black trunks, which bespeak its former life as a forest above the water. One can imagine dark and curious things in connection with a wood beneath the waves. 00:13:33:24 - 00:13:59:00 Sean All told, I believe Cornwall must form the most picturesque and fascinating spot in England, with its plenty of relics of the past, its bold topography, its ancient villages, its tenacious folkways, its suggestions of subtropical vegetation. This, in a latitude of northern Newfoundland. So potent are the subtler elements of climate formation and its legends of dim yesterdays and of the sunken lands of lioness. 00:13:59:07 - 00:14:30:12 Sean I have several ancestral lines which remotely extend back to Cornwall. Carew Edgecombe refuses, hence feel that it is no alien soil. It is an ancient dam known here, however, that Lovecraft saw chiefly scattered largely in the valley of the Tane, near Newton Abbot. Historically, Cornwall and Devon are pretty much a unit. Both may have known the footstep of the Phoenician trader as far back as 100 B.C. and in Egypt, tin vases, perhaps of Canterbury in Origin have been found in tombs even older than that. 00:14:31:05 - 00:14:59:18 Sean That is the kind of contrast which ought to appeal to Father of the Viking and not very far from your St Michael's Mount at St Hilary on the mainland. There is a stone with Roman inscription. Flavio if Leo Constantine p I sorry DVC Constantini p i Augustine filial dating from 8307 and bringing the region vividly into the stream of classical history. 00:14:59:22 - 00:15:27:00 Sean Truly a fitting locale for Adrian Stevens and his Devil Tower. I note with great interest the list of Mr. Libraries and of Anglian lives and regret that none of them are in my own ancestry. My aunt knows Bronson's in the city. Indeed, until recently, to Maiden ladies of that name conducted Providence's most select school for small children. The Bronson School was in Hope Street, next to the Hope Street High School, which I attended 1904 to 1908. 00:15:27:00 - 00:15:56:13 Sean And in those days we used to tell fellow students whose egos we wished to deflate that they were in the wrong building, implying they belonged over at the Mrs. Bronson's with the five year old. Temple is also represented hereabouts. Indeed. If the rain lets up this afternoon, my aunt and I are going to hear a lecture on old textiles at the School of Design halfway down the hill by one who combines a temple line with our Casey line, the latter one on which the counterfeiter of 1770 occurs. 00:15:56:22 - 00:16:23:06 Sean Rather odd, by the way, to find an Irish name like Casey and early Rhode Island. That's my only line of ancestry outside England and Wales. The cases of seated in Tyrone of the Anglo Irish Protestant persuasion were engulfed in the massacre of 1641. And of this branch, only a six year old boy named Thomas survived. He was rescued by his nurse and taken to his mother's family in Gloucestershire, where he emigrated to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1658. 00:16:23:16 - 00:16:52:12 Sean Sam, the counterfeiting Silversmith. Born 1724 and my ancestor John, born in 1723, were his grandsons. Other descendants appear elsewhere in the history. Captain Wanton Casey fought with the rebels in the trouble of 1775 to 83. General Silas Casey was an author of a book of military tactics and died in the Mexican War. And another of them was the engineer who either started or finished, I forget which the Washington Monument while the later scion was 00:16:52:22 - 00:17:16:00 Sean may God forgive him. The architect of Washington's Baroque and dead is in the Library of Congress. Fine boys, all of them. Even if one of them did go a bit wrong towards the end of the 1760s and misapplied his talents in constructing near silver bar reliefs of the reigning bourbons and Burgundies, the corpora delicti were fake Spanish mildred and Portuguese moist areas. 00:17:16:10 - 00:17:29:19 Sean The lecture we are perhaps about to hear is Miss Elizabeth Temple Casey, assistant curator of the School of Design Museum. Your obedient etc. HPL. 00:17:31:13 - 00:17:35:20 Andrew All right, Sean, that was. That was delightful. Who is Jonquil Leiber. 00:17:35:24 - 00:17:52:20 Sean Jonquil Leiber is at this point in history, the young bride of Mr. Fritz Leiber, who is an aspiring. He's both an actor, which I thought was interesting. Right. And he will go on to have quite a significant career in writing science fiction. Yeah. 00:17:53:01 - 00:17:59:10 Andrew His dad was also named Fritz Leiber and ran a Shakespearean acting company. Young Fritz grew up in the theater. 00:17:59:10 - 00:18:07:00 Sean Yes. I was reminded of my poor son being dragged around by my wife and I had our theater company. Right. So, yeah. So he. 00:18:07:04 - 00:18:09:00 Andrew He may make good yet. 00:18:09:00 - 00:18:33:01 Sean Which one? You. Your son. Oh, okay. Good. So, yes, Jonquil Liber. She married Fritz in January of 1936. This is December of that same year. So they are young folks. They haven't been married all that long. I decided not to. Not to burden the audience with going too deep into Fritz's history, because this was really a letter to Jonquil rather than to Fritz. 00:18:33:01 - 00:18:53:00 Sean So and there's not a lot of biographical information available about her. One of the things that I thought was interesting is the correspondence between the laborers and Lovecraft. They both wrote to him. Both Jonquil and Fritz exchanged letters with Lovecraft, and he wrote back to them both individually rather than as a couple, which was I thought was rather interesting. 00:18:53:00 - 00:18:56:23 Sean But she was the one who initiated the correspondence with Lovecraft. 00:18:56:24 - 00:18:57:12 Andrew Oh, nice. 00:18:57:12 - 00:19:32:19 Sean Yeah. Fritz was an aspiring writer and interested in writing this type of material, and he particularly loved the story, The Color Out of Space, which he had read in Weird Tales. Right. Good, good, Good taste there, Fritz. Very good. Yeah. So she knew that he was a fan of this author Lovecraft. And in one of the essays written by Labor about his relationship with Lovecraft, he describes in the preceding winter, he describes sitting with Jonquil and Fritz, reading aloud at the Mountains of Madness, which had just been published in the astounding stories. 00:19:32:19 - 00:19:44:05 Sean And they were so taken with Lovecraft and his imagination that introducing Fritz to Lovecraft might help spur his writing career. So she wrote to him to initiate that. And by gum, I'd say it worked out pretty well. 00:19:44:05 - 00:19:47:24 Andrew So she wrote on Fritz's behalf, but without Fritz's knowledge. 00:19:47:24 - 00:19:57:22 Sean As far as I know, he was not aware of it initially. And I don't think he responded poorly to it. So she wrote two weird tales to get Lovecraft's address and then wrote to Lovecraft directly. 00:19:57:23 - 00:19:59:16 Andrew So back in the days when that worked. Yeah. 00:19:59:24 - 00:20:05:14 Sean Exactly. That's all. All it took to be pals with the famous author was having your wife write too weird tales. 00:20:05:15 - 00:20:07:15 Andrew Nice. Well, good for her. Good for all of them. 00:20:07:22 - 00:20:23:15 Sean And good for all of us. Yeah, it was an interesting set of of conversations that they had. And this is another one where it's we're a couple letters into it. It was only a month or so before that. The this exchange of letters had begun that we get to this part. 00:20:23:16 - 00:20:26:14 Andrew Do we have their side of the correspondence at all? 00:20:27:00 - 00:20:52:17 Sean We don't. It's too bad. Yeah, it is too bad. So we can't know exactly what's triggering the whole conversation. But this is we've heard in some of the other letters I call the fan letters, the early Douglass letter, the Robert Barlow letter, where it's kind of a fan getting to know Lovecraft. And there's certainly that color of it comes through in this that I think, oh, yeah, questions are being put to Lovecraft and he's giving answers, but very forthcoming answers. 00:20:52:17 - 00:20:54:04 Sean Very forthcoming answers indeed. 00:20:54:06 - 00:21:06:15 Andrew Do you know if the he mentions at the beginning of the letter this this editorship, which Mr. Leiber has in mind, was that just in general sort of way, do we know or is that a specific job that Fritz Leiber was referring? 00:21:06:17 - 00:21:14:19 Sean Apparently, he had put forward the idea of Lovecraft becoming the editor of a magazine of fantastic tales, but a. 00:21:14:19 - 00:21:16:00 Andrew Hypothetical, a magazine. 00:21:16:00 - 00:21:34:14 Sean Or. Yeah, they're planning it at least a decade out, which is why he's referring it while if I'll still be alive then and 1947. And of course that that side of it doesn't go very well. But yeah, the the language Lovecraft uses to describe the notion of himself having a job still strikes me it's really, really fascinating. 00:21:34:14 - 00:21:35:12 Andrew Really tortured. 00:21:35:19 - 00:21:36:05 Sean Yes. 00:21:36:05 - 00:21:43:12 Andrew Like the whole first paragraph of this letter is just, you know, wish I could get a job, but it's the way he puts it. It's really. 00:21:43:12 - 00:21:50:13 Sean Complicated. And I'm going to really spend a lot more time discussing the idea of me having a job than actually trying to get a job. 00:21:50:13 - 00:22:15:24 Andrew Although the way he, you know, his assessment of the the difficulty of getting quality supernatural fiction published and the tendency of editors like Farnsworth Wright. And the rest of them to cater to the lowest common denominator, because as as Lovecraft says, you know, they're commercially there. Right? That is what you have to do. And you know, it it makes me think, you know, it's all it's always been thus and still is. 00:22:15:24 - 00:22:17:04 Andrew That's how movies get made. 00:22:17:08 - 00:22:25:17 Sean That's not the same thing. It's the movie business all over the place. Because, you know, if you don't sell the tickets, it just doesn't really matter. There won't be a second movie. 00:22:25:17 - 00:22:46:17 Andrew Yeah. You know, we're coming into Academy Award season now. All the high, all the fancy films are being released now. So, you know, for awards so everyone will remember them come Oscar nominations, time. But, you know, if it was like this all year long, if it was prestige pictures all year long, Lovecraft's right. People would get tired of it, probably. 00:22:46:17 - 00:22:49:16 Andrew And just wanna rock em, sock em. Action adventure. 00:22:49:17 - 00:23:12:15 Sean Sure. And it's the Rock em Stockholm Action adventures that pay for the artsy fartsy, you know, highbrow films that will get the attention of the Oscars. Because that's how that's how as a business, you know, Hollywood mitigates risk, is to go, well, you know, let's make a blockbuster that will do billions of business worldwide. And then if our, you know, our artistic film, it's not. 00:23:12:15 - 00:23:13:03 Andrew Cinema. 00:23:13:12 - 00:23:47:07 Sean It's not cinema. Yeah. I think, you know, as you say, that's it's always been there, always in the business of art. Yeah. There's a mix of highbrow and lowbrow and, and when it's being commodified and certainly, you know, writing is a commodified form of art. Yeah. The two are, the two are necessary evils. I thought Lovecraft's description of, of a possible meeting with John Barrymore was just a fascinating little, little excursion. 00:23:48:13 - 00:24:00:21 Sean I had never followed Mr. Barrymore's career particularly closely, so I was just trying to kind of figure out, you know, where Lovecraft was coming out with this. But he's on the rocks at this point in his career. Things are looking bad. 00:24:00:21 - 00:24:02:20 Andrew And he's a tabloid fodder. 00:24:02:20 - 00:24:18:20 Sean As we say. You know, nothing tends to ever change. And it felt very contemporary as he's being checked into this sanatorium for his alcoholism and he can't remember the words on set and all this kind of thing. But no matter how much he drinks, he won't be prepared for the sight of meeting Lovecraft in person. 00:24:19:04 - 00:24:29:16 Andrew Well, this is another one of the things where I wish we had John equals letter because it's like, did this meeting with John Barrymore, is this something that actually happened or is this purely imaginary? 00:24:29:19 - 00:24:47:19 Sean My take on it was that she thought, oh, he would have liked to have met you. And so it never would have happened. But had Lovecraft gone to the John Barrymore party. Right. You know, I think she thought, oh, he would be so impressed with you and blah, blah, blah. And Lovecraft's like, Oh, he would have been horrified by me. 00:24:48:00 - 00:24:50:13 Sean But hey, neither of them likes to work. 00:24:50:13 - 00:25:04:16 Andrew So it is funny how how apparently familiar Lovecraft is with John Barrymore's comings and goings because he describes these anecdotes of, you know, the San Francisco earthquake. And clearly Lovecraft is reading the National Enquirer. 00:25:04:16 - 00:25:05:10 Sean I think he is. 00:25:05:10 - 00:25:12:02 Andrew He knows what's going on with John Barrymore and his illustrious family, etc., etc.. Yeah, it was it was interesting. 00:25:12:03 - 00:25:16:09 Sean Yeah. And then one of these other shades of him that we don't tend to see elsewhere, and that's. 00:25:16:17 - 00:25:18:14 Andrew Gobbling up that gossip. He loves it. 00:25:19:01 - 00:25:45:09 Sean One of the other qualities of Lovecraft, that is, I don't know, fans tend to show interest in in is his dining habits between his his passion for ice cream and his passion for very sweet coffee. Yeah. And this really walks through late in his life. What what the guy, you know, with terrible digestive issues is is actually eating and somebody who has no expendable income. 00:25:45:09 - 00:25:46:14 Sean It's such a detailed. 00:25:46:22 - 00:25:47:12 Andrew Look. 00:25:47:12 - 00:25:49:17 Sean At his his dining habits. 00:25:49:23 - 00:25:58:09 Andrew It really and a guy who at this point never cooked for himself as far as I can tell, the only thing on this list that gets cooked at all is the coffee. 00:25:58:20 - 00:26:17:19 Sean Well, and even that he may be getting at well, I guess the way he describes it, it doesn't make it sound like he's buying the can he if you're picking your brand of condensed milk that's going in the coffee, it's probably a cup at home. Yeah. Something I was very eager to share with you, Andrew. And I'm sad I can't share it particularly well with you folks out in podcast land. 00:26:17:19 - 00:26:41:04 Sean Yeah, but maybe we can put it on our website or something like that. Yeah. Is Lovecraft buying his donuts at the way basket? Pure food market. Yeah. What's this I have for you? Advertising copy from the way Bassett Pure Food Market. It's a print ad that appeared in the newspaper and it shows the prices and what's on sale at the way at Pure Food Mart. 00:26:41:04 - 00:27:05:14 Andrew Wow way BASSETT Hey, Pine and Peck Streets that is gorgeous Fresh caught swordfish for $0.30 a pound, Halibut cheeks $0.20 a pound. Clams, fresh open clams, $0.35 a quart. Webster's Best New pack spinach just $0.16 a can, or three for 45. No wonder he ate so well. 00:27:06:12 - 00:27:08:08 Sean When he goes to the store and buys donuts. 00:27:08:11 - 00:27:12:06 Andrew Fresh made beef links, $0.25 for £2. 00:27:12:13 - 00:27:34:00 Sean I did $0.25 for £2 because Howard gives us the prices for the things and tells us exactly what he's eating and then what he's paying for them. Yeah, I also used a an inflation adjuster just to give a better sense of how what he's paying would stack up in the modern world. Yeah. So his donuts he's getting for the modern equivalent of $0.37 each. 00:27:34:13 - 00:27:35:07 Andrew Well, that's pretty good. 00:27:35:19 - 00:27:59:01 Sean And I fell down the the donut manufacturing rabbit hole. Donuts, donuts are one of the two most profitable foods manufactured in the United States. a modern donut costs roughly $0.12 to make the current going price for a donut in the United States is roughly around a dollar. Depend on the size and how many frills are on it. 00:27:59:01 - 00:28:09:11 Sean So you've got to you know, you've got an 80 plus percent, it's a good margin profit margin on there. So the donut makers are in the money. So his but the. 00:28:09:12 - 00:28:12:00 Andrew The nutritional value, Sean, is inestimable. 00:28:12:00 - 00:28:14:02 Sean Well, yes, the happiness, the joy. 00:28:14:02 - 00:28:18:06 Andrew And that's how you can't put a price on frosting. You can't do it. 00:28:19:16 - 00:28:33:08 Sean So for his breakfast cheese, he's spending the modern equivalent of a dollar 11 his coffee with his C 12 H 22 O 11 which is just the most pompous possible way to say I like really sugary coffee. 00:28:33:09 - 00:28:34:17 Andrew Just can't say sugar king. 00:28:34:20 - 00:28:41:04 Sean He really can't. Is he spending about $0.56 a piece on that? So his total breakfast cost is about $1.85. 00:28:41:07 - 00:28:45:21 Andrew So go back that coffee that you just what was that modern day equivalent? 00:28:46:16 - 00:28:47:10 Sean $0.56. 00:28:47:10 - 00:28:50:24 Andrew 56. And I spent 350 for the cup of coffee I'm drinking right now. 00:28:50:24 - 00:29:19:02 Sean What a chump. Yeah. So we're paying too much for our donuts. We're paying too much for our coffee. But I had you bought, say, a, you know, a lower end grocery store brand coffee. And had you made it at home. Yeah. Then the $0.56 a coffee cup price might not seem too bad. So then we get into dinner and the the fascinating times he eats it, some of which overlap with when he eats breakfast. 00:29:19:02 - 00:29:44:04 Sean But okay so one can of chili con carne is going for a dollar 85 now I looked right now if you were to go buy canned chili con carne the current going rate seems to be about to 90 a can and that's if you're buying it in like a 12 pack. So again, the relative inflation in the canned chili con carne market is something we have not paid adequate attention to. 00:29:44:04 - 00:29:59:00 Sean Andrew Clearly, the two slices of bread that's going for $0.56, the same with the coffee and then on pie. And he's the only person in the history of the world who's ordered his pie in Acton's poor quadrant. 00:29:59:00 - 00:29:59:21 Andrew That's a lot of pie. 00:30:00:08 - 00:30:18:21 Sean But that's big. But accent is such a geometrically specific quantity of pie is running him about a buck 11. So his grand total for an entire day breakfast and dinner combined is $5.55. So over the course of a week in modern dollars, he's spending $38.88. 00:30:18:21 - 00:30:20:05 Andrew He's still eating pretty damn cheap. 00:30:20:06 - 00:30:26:03 Sean He is eating pretty damn cheap. And it's only two meals a day. And it does involved canned chili con carne. 00:30:26:08 - 00:30:33:01 Andrew And it does. Yeah, it does involve, you know, intestinal cancer, other other drawbacks. 00:30:33:12 - 00:30:40:22 Sean Yeah. Interestingly, I had a hard time believing him or I guess it's his notion of liking food that's blisteringly hot. 00:30:41:10 - 00:30:43:21 Andrew Yeah, it's hard to know whether he's I California. 00:30:43:21 - 00:30:52:19 Sean I'm like, Yeah, whether his food is really hot and I just can't picture Lovecraft eating some some habanero chilies or something. 00:30:53:01 - 00:31:04:15 Andrew You know really. He describes all these exotic foods Italian spaghetti, Hungarian goulash and but what he really likes is white meat of turkey with highly seasoned dressing. And I don't know whether that just means salty stuffing. What does. 00:31:04:15 - 00:31:06:06 Sean That mean? I think that's salt and pepper, probably. 00:31:06:06 - 00:31:25:17 Andrew Yeah. So I remember our dear friend and the composer of the music for this show, Troy Sterling niece. I attended his wedding and his folks come from, you know, North Dakota. And they were they were making jokes on themselves at the wedding dinner about how all this food is too spicy. And it was you know, it was it barely had salt on it. 00:31:25:19 - 00:31:31:16 Andrew Right. And they recognized that their idea of spicy and my idea of spicy were radically different. 00:31:31:16 - 00:31:35:22 Sean Sure. Sure. That's I heard a definition of of Irish cooking. 00:31:36:01 - 00:31:40:20 Sean Yeah, well, it's like English cooking, but not so spicy. 00:31:40:20 - 00:31:53:19 Sean Which was pretty great. So, yeah, it's obviously what you are used to. And I suspect, you know, a Hungarian would probably look at the goulash that Lovecraft goes. What, That and an Italian would look at the spaghetti that Lovecraft sees and it was what the hell. 00:31:54:02 - 00:31:59:01 Andrew I mean he's eaten canned boyardee, you know, spaghetti. So that's his idea of Italian spaghetti. 00:31:59:01 - 00:32:19:01 Sean Yeah. And kind of disturbing to know the Boiardi brand was alive back then. So he moves out of gastronomy, though, into back into his regular rebukes of the business world and his disdain and scorn for it. I liked his , not if I liked it, but his his contempt for people. 00:32:19:01 - 00:32:20:18 Sean Who have a readiness to haggle. 00:32:20:18 - 00:32:32:15 Sean Yeah, struck struck me as interesting is one of these things where haggling is maybe just beneath him that a gentleman just ought to pay the price on the card. And the gentleman who suggested it to accept the price in the car to. 00:32:32:15 - 00:32:40:08 Andrew Haggle is to acknowledge that there's a price to things. And it's tacky to acknowledge that things cost money. So maybe that's part of what. 00:32:40:10 - 00:32:43:21 Sean And yet he goes through an exhaustive detail the cost of a donut. So yeah, but. 00:32:44:10 - 00:32:56:06 Andrew He's proud of that because he's getting away with something he feels he's he's eating so cheaply and in his opinion, so well. Right. That, you know, he's just it's pure boasting that I'm able to I can eat for just $3 a week. 00:32:56:09 - 00:32:58:05 Sean Right. Without suffering at all. Yeah. 00:32:58:11 - 00:33:27:06 Andrew One thing in this section of the letter that caught my eye was he says I was one more disposed to draw ideas from books than to absorb the spirit of my physical environment. So I managed to grow up with a European rather than pioneer American scale of values. And it it occurred to me to wonder, because you and I, after we shut off the microphones in a recent conversation, we were talking about, you know, did Lovecraft learn to be a racist from his family? 00:33:27:06 - 00:33:49:15 Andrew Right. Did he You know, I had suggested that no one is born a racist. You learn to be a racist somewhere. And so I presume he learned it from his the people he was surrounded by when he was growing up. And that's, you know, his family. But this reading, this sentence, it made me wonder, did he did he learn his cultural attitudes from his reading as a youth? 00:33:49:15 - 00:34:07:19 Andrew Because he spent probably just as much time with books as he did with his family members. So I wonder if, you know, maybe some of his conservative attitudes were picked up from from his reading rather than from Aunt Lillian and his mother and grandpa Whipple and all those people. 00:34:07:19 - 00:34:27:03 Sean Yeah, it's it's hard to know with any certainty that that sentence you brought up to us is doubly curious for a guy who is so inured in Providence and New England going, Oh, I'm not affected by my physical surroundings. And yet, you know, I wilt like a daisy when I go to New York because I miss my providence so much. 00:34:27:03 - 00:34:50:10 Sean It it kind of flies in the face. But I, I also was struck by his he's so cynical so much of the time. And then there's this what just struck me as crazed optimism in the notion that that that fancying the truth, the triumph of the business mind will be short lived and somehow reason and rationale will will make a comeback. 00:34:50:10 - 00:34:59:05 Sean And I was like, oh, boy, if he could have lived to today, he would see that the the trend line just went as far as he's concerned, just went down, down, down. 00:34:59:06 - 00:35:02:10 Andrew I had never encountered the word Squire Archy before. It's great word. 00:35:02:10 - 00:35:03:06 Sean It is a great word. 00:35:03:10 - 00:35:12:00 Andrew For a minute. I like oh, did he come up with that word? Because it's a great word he didn't, but it is still a the Squire Archy I got to deploy that word more often. 00:35:12:09 - 00:35:29:24 Sean Well, Fortune Fortunately we live in a time where it's perfectly apt every day sort of thing. So bring back the Squire Archy. This is a letter. One of the things that also struck me about is it kind of hops and skips from very different topic to very different topic and comes out with this real interesting view of the mountain 00:35:29:24 - 00:36:00:08 Sean Michael And off the coast of Cornwall and then a little bit of Lovecraft's genealogy. Yeah. Which was interesting that he's he seems to take such pleasure at having a rogue counterfeiter among his people, But I would have imagined him preferring to think of his ancestors as, again, you know, sitting on the verandah, you know, watching the or a throne slaves do their thing and yeah, you know, and curling their wigs and, you know, having a restful afternoon. 00:36:00:08 - 00:36:12:03 Sean So the fact that there's still almost something impish and boyish in you I had a, I had my own, not only did I have a counterfeiter, I had an Irish person 00:36:12:19 - 00:36:18:14 Andrew But, you know, sufficiently distant, great granduncle to not reflect badly on me. 00:36:18:17 - 00:36:22:14 Sean Right. Oh, everybody's got one somewhere in their family line. But. 00:36:22:18 - 00:36:33:16 Andrew And at least this counterfeiter, a great granduncle, was also a very talented silversmith whose work is displayed in museums, of course. So as counterfeiters go, he is pretty classy. 00:36:33:16 - 00:36:36:03 Sean Yeah, he certainly has. 00:36:36:03 - 00:36:45:20 Andrew I was not particularly aware of St Michael's Mount in Cornwall before reading this letter, and it does seem to be a beautiful fairy tale kind of place. 00:36:46:00 - 00:37:04:03 Sean Yeah, well, I had wondered it when I first read it, if he was referring to them also, Michel, which is apparently they're the equivalent on the other side of the channel. Yeah, off the French coast, which if you haven't ever seen pictures of it, they're both of them are castle like fortifications on islands that are essentially accessible at low tide. 00:37:04:03 - 00:37:04:21 Sean And if you just walk. 00:37:04:21 - 00:37:05:04 Andrew To them. 00:37:05:06 - 00:37:06:24 Sean Inaccessible at high tide. 00:37:07:01 - 00:37:16:11 Andrew And they're both apparently they are related the same religious order was in charge of the fortifications at both places. They did have a relation sometime in the distant past. 00:37:16:11 - 00:37:27:07 Sean And when he talks about them finding a giant skeleton in, they really did. Yeah. Workmen in the 19th century dug up the skeleton of a man who was apparently seven foot eight. 00:37:28:07 - 00:37:43:05 Andrew And there's a legend, you know, it's I don't know if it's the same Jack as the one from Jack and the Beanstalk, but Jack the Giant Killer is a legend affiliated with St Mary's, St Michael's Mount and the Giant who lived there and all that stuff. It is it is a fascinating place that I was delighted to discover. 00:37:43:05 - 00:37:51:00 Sean I've never heard, even when he talks about it being done Seine and at sunset. Yeah, it probably is. Yeah, probably what looks really nice. 00:37:51:00 - 00:37:55:08 Andrew Next time I'm lucky enough to be in England. I'll have to go down to Cornwall and check it out. 00:37:55:18 - 00:37:58:08 Sean I've never been to Cornwall myself. Have you ever been down there? 00:37:58:15 - 00:38:03:24 Andrew No, I've never. I've been in London and I've been up north. I've been lacking wacky country. 00:38:03:24 - 00:38:04:11 Sean Oh, yeah, Yeah. 00:38:04:11 - 00:38:06:19 Andrew But. But never, never south. 00:38:06:21 - 00:38:21:24 Sean Well, we'll have to do something about that. Yeah. All right. One last thing on getting back to Fritz Leiber. Yeah. The one of his most famous literary creations was a pair of characters called Forward and the Great Mouser. 00:38:22:00 - 00:38:23:01 Andrew Say that again. 00:38:23:01 - 00:38:45:08 Sean I'm just guessing because I don't. I don't like Lovecraft. There's just not enough vowels to get you through the word. But I went for Fulford. Yeah, I don't know either. And the Great Mouser. And at this point they're really just the germs of an idea, and they go on to be this tremendous franchise that he writes many, many stories and then many, many books about this pair of characters. 00:38:45:08 - 00:39:23:07 Sean And they're they're a little bit SteinbeckIan of Swafford, who's this, you know, huge barbarian Viking, and then the great Mouser who's who's, you know, teeny tiny fella and a sly thief. And they go on all kinds of adventures together. So yeah, I was looking at some criticism, a criticism and just mean in the literary sense. And Steve Joshi was pointing out that of all of Lovecraft's correspondants, Fritz Lieber was the only one that he would put on equal footing with Lovecraft as a creative, as a writer. 00:39:23:07 - 00:39:25:08 Andrew The only one he would put on, correct? 00:39:25:08 - 00:39:35:07 Sean Yeah. That he held Lieber's work in such esteem and thought that his literary contributions were perhaps of all the people Lovecraft corresponded with. 00:39:35:12 - 00:39:36:23 Andrew Including Clark Ashton Smith. 00:39:36:23 - 00:39:42:21 Sean And that's I'm just I'm just saying what I read. So there you go. 00:39:42:21 - 00:39:50:04 Andrew Clearly, we have some more reading to do. Clearly we do. There we'll be reading. This was a letter to Jonquil Leiber, but I'm sure we'll be reading letters to Fritz himself. 00:39:50:05 - 00:40:03:02 Sean No doubt there are more that were exchanged between Lovecraft and Fritz than than John Cole. But anyway, this was a unique view into having breakfast with Lovecraft and a quick trip out to Cornwall and a lot of other fun stuff. 00:40:03:02 - 00:40:06:24 Andrew It was a fun, bouncy, diverse type of letter. Yeah, thanks for bringing it in. 00:40:07:02 - 00:40:08:01 Sean Our thanks today. 00:40:08:01 - 00:40:13:02 Sean To the folks over at Wildside Press who published Fritz Leiber and H.P. Lovecraft. 00:40:13:05 - 00:40:14:07 Sean Writers of the Dark. 00:40:14:13 - 00:40:20:10 Andrew You can learn more about them and get a copy at WWW.wildsidepress.com 00:40:20:11 - 00:40:22:17 Sean I'm your obedient servant Sean Branney 00:40:22:20 - 00:40:26:04 Andrew And I'm sincerely and respectfully yours. Andrew Leman. 00:40:26:04 - 00:40:28:16 Sean You've been listening to voluminous the letters 00:40:28:16 - 00:40:29:14 Sean Of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:40:29:22 - 00:40:34:17 Andrew If you've enjoyed the show, we'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment to post a review or a rating. 00:40:34:24 - 00:40:37:19 Sean Or even better, tell a friend or two about voluminous. 00:40:38:00 - 00:41:05:06 Andrew Brought to you by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Come check out all we have to offer at HPLHS.org