00:00:06:15 - 00:00:10:00 Sean Welcome to voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:00:10:00 - 00:00:15:21 Andrew In addition to classic works of gothic horror fiction, HPL wrote thousands of fascinating letters. 00:00:15:23 - 00:00:25:05 Andrew Boy, didn't he? In each episode, we'll read and discuss one of them. I'm Sean Branney. And that sounds. Do you think is that a screw gun? 00:00:26:09 - 00:00:30:03 Andrew I. It's a screw of some kind... 00:00:31:17 - 00:00:32:07 Sean Who are you? 00:00:32:11 - 00:00:37:22 Andrew I'm Andrew Leman. Together, we run the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. 00:00:37:24 - 00:00:48:12 Sean Well, Andrew, today we despite the background noise we're working through, we've hit the finish line. This is the the last Voluminous well. 00:00:48:15 - 00:00:51:01 Andrew The last forever. Sean ? 00:00:51:01 - 00:00:53:02 Sean The last planned voluminous, let's say. 00:00:53:02 - 00:00:56:12 Andrew Let's say it's going to sleep and hopefully it will wake again. 00:00:56:13 - 00:01:03:04 Sean Not not dead, but dreaming, you say. All right, well, this is the end of the regularly scheduled voluminous. There you go. 00:01:03:11 - 00:01:06:14 Andrew And and why, Sean, Why are we stopping voluminous? 00:01:07:02 - 00:01:20:14 Sean We could go on forever. You know, really, it was our first foray into the world of podcasting. Yeah. We wanted to try and figure out what that world's about, how to do it. And and doing mission accomplished. 00:01:21:00 - 00:01:38:20 Andrew That mission certainly has been accomplished. We also, from the very beginning, we had an entirely other podcast in mind, and it's been just impossible to produce both of them simultaneously. So we've gotten to the point where we have to stop working on voluminous in order to make room for other projects. 00:01:38:20 - 00:02:02:19 Sean And you know, in terms of its scope, we wanted to explore the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. And I think after, you know, whatever it's been three years that we've been doing this. Yeah, I'm not even sure it's been a long time. We've covered a lot of letters. And and I think, you know, it's it's mission accomplished. There certainly are more that we could do, but but at least we've covered the majority of his correspondence and we've covered the majority of his adult lifetime. 00:02:02:19 - 00:02:05:02 Sean So, you know, I think. 00:02:05:17 - 00:02:15:18 Andrew We're going to we're going to move on to other things for now. And maybe someday there'll be some more of a voluminazing. But like you said, there won't be a regularly a regular monthly episode. Yeah. 00:02:15:21 - 00:02:35:22 Sean Moving forward. Well, and with that in mind, this is a doubleheader where we each have chosen a letter. Right. I chose one from quite early. One of Lovecraft's first recorded letters that we have not the first, but certainly in the early days of 1914. And that's what I'm planning to share. What do you have ? 00:02:35:22 - 00:02:55:23 Andrew I chose a letter from close to the end of Lovecraft's life. Mine was written on May 7th in 1936, just about a year before his death. And, you know, we chose our letters independent of each other. And I didn't know what you picked until you told me and vice versa. But I think they actually make an excellent pair. 00:02:55:23 - 00:03:02:13 Sean I thought the same thing. It was like Mount Vernon for not trying to coordinate that there is some interesting overlap and tie in. 00:03:02:13 - 00:03:09:02 Andrew So so I think the thing to do is we'll just read them both. You'll read yours, then I'll read mine and then we'll discuss them. 00:03:09:02 - 00:03:49:07 Sean Sounds good. All right, well, dive in. Providence, Rhode Island, February 1914. Ed, the old Story magazine. Sir, having read every number of your magazines since its beginning in January 1905, I feel in some measure of privilege to write a few words of approbation and criticism concerning its contents. In the present age of vulgar taste and sordid realism, it is a relief to peruse a publication such as the all story which has ever been and still remains under the influence of the imaginative school of Poe and Verne. 00:03:49:24 - 00:04:20:10 Sean For such materialistic readers as your North British correspondent Mr. GWP of Dundee, there are only too many periodicals containing no probable stories. Let the all story continue to hold its unique position as purveyor of literature to those whose minds cannot be confined within the narrow circle of probability or dulled into a passive acceptance of the tedious round of things as they are. 00:04:21:00 - 00:04:44:24 Sean If in fact man is unable to create living beings out of inorganic matter, to hypnotize the beasts of the forest, to do his will, to swing from trees, a tree with the apes of the African jungle, to restore to life the mummified corpses of the Pharaohs and the Incas, or to explore the atmosphere of Venus and the deserts of Mars. 00:04:45:06 - 00:05:18:05 Sean Permit us, at least in fancy, to witness these miracles and to satisfy that craving for the unknown, the weird and the impossible, which exists in every active human brain. Particular professor's and sober Scotchman may denounce as childish the desire for imaginative fiction. Now, I am not sure, but that such a desire is childish and rightly so, for are not many of man's noblest attributes, but the remnants of his younger nature. 00:05:18:21 - 00:05:51:16 Sean He who can retain in his older years the untainted mind, the lively imagination and the artless curiosity of his infancy is rather blessed than cursed. Such men as these are authors, scientists and inventors at or near to the head of your list of writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs undoubtedly stands. I have read very few recent novels by others wherein is displayed an equal ingenuity in plot and verisimilitude in treatment. 00:05:51:24 - 00:06:29:16 Sean His only fault seems to be a tendency towards scientific inaccuracy and slight inconsistencies, for example, in that admirable story, Tarzan of the Apes we meet, or the Tiger far from his native India, and we behold the hero before he is learned the relation between vocal sounds and written letters, writing out his name Tarzan, which he has known only from the lips of his every associate, as well as the names of Kolchak Tarn Taw, Numa cars, all of which he could not possibly have seen written. 00:06:30:09 - 00:07:01:20 Sean Also in the Gods of Mars, Mr. Burroughs refers to the Year of the Red Planet as having 687 Martian days. Oh, well, this is of course absurd. For a while Mars revolves around the sun in 687 terrestrial days, its own day or a period of rotation is almost 40 minutes longer than ours, thus giving Mars a year which contains but 668 and two thirds Martian solar days. 00:07:02:09 - 00:07:30:00 Sean I note with regret that this error is repeated in Warlord of Mars. William Patterson White in writing Sands of Life has shown himself to be an author of the first order. The very spirit of the old Spanish main pervades the pages of this remarkable novel. It is worthy of a permanent publication as a book. In the domain of the weird and bizarre 00:07:30:00 - 00:07:55:18 Sean Lee Robinette has furnished us a masterpiece by writing The Second Man the atmosphere created and sustained throughout the story can only be the work of a gifted and polished artist. Very effective is the author's careful neglect to tell the exact location of his second Eden. I strongly hope that you have added Perley more Sheehan permanently to your staff. 00:07:56:01 - 00:08:31:22 Sean For in him may be recognized and extremely powerful writer. I have seen Mr. Sheehan's work elsewhere and was especially captivated by a grim short story of his entitled his ancestors head, William Tillinghast Eldridge set such a standard for himself in the Forest Reaper, but it seems almost a pity for him to be the author of the Tormentor and Cowards at All, William Loren Curtis tells a homely, yet exciting sort of tale which exerts upon the reader a curious fascination. 00:08:32:12 - 00:09:02:21 Sean Chanty House seems to me the best of the two. He has contributed to the all story. Donald Francis McGrew is one of the red blooded school of writers. He describes the Philippine Islands and the army there with an ease indicative of long residence or military service on the scene of his literary productions. I hardly need mention the author of Columbus of Space, further than to say I have read every published work of Garrett Pease service. 00:09:02:22 - 00:09:28:06 Sean I own most of them and await his future writings with eagerness. When a noted astronomer composes an astronomical novel, we need not fear such things as years of 687 Martian days upon the planet Mars. As to your short stories necessarily second in importance to the novels and serials, it may be said that some of them rise much above the middle level. 00:09:28:06 - 00:10:02:17 Sean Well, a few of them fall beneath it. The merry crew of humorous writers such as Ti Bell, Jack Bryan, Frank Condon and Donald Aiken are low light and sometimes a trifle silly. Nevertheless, distinctly amusing. Khan is especially clever in drawing the characters of callow college youths. I hesitate to criticize adversely such an excellent magazine as this, but since my censure falls upon so small a part of it, I think I may express myself openly without giving offense. 00:10:03:12 - 00:10:41:24 Sean I fear that a faint shadow from the black cloud of vileness now darkening our literature and drama has lately fallen upon a few pages of the old story. The soles of Men. By Martha M Stanley was a distinctly disagreeable tale. But Pilgrims in Love by Delisle for a class is contemptible, disgusting and unspeakably nauseating. Mr. G. West of Chicago, has written that cask diplomatically handles a very difficult subject Oriental love. 00:10:42:23 - 00:11:09:12 Sean We do not care for subjects so near allied to vulgarity, however diplomatically they may be handled of such oriental love. We may speak in the words of the lazy but ingenious schoolboy who, when asked by his tutor to describe the reign of Caligula, replied that the less said about it, the better. We prefer a more idealized orient to read about. 00:11:09:20 - 00:11:42:24 Sean Let us have nature to advantage dressed as in the beautiful romance of Prince Imbecile by C McLean Savage or the Invisible Empire by Stephen Chalmers. Speaking of the last novel is not the title somewhat misleading In the United States. The name Invisible Empire is forever associated with that noble but much maligned band of Southerners who protected their homes against the diabolical freed blacks and northern adventurers in the years of MIS government. 00:11:43:02 - 00:12:16:08 Sean Just after the Civil War, the dreaded Ku Klux Klan. The broad editorial policy of the all story and making the magazine not merely a local American publication, but a bond of common interest between the United Kingdom, the United States and the various British colonies cannot to hardly be commended. Blood is thicker than water. We are all Englishmen and need just such a leveler of political barriers as this to remind us of our common origin. 00:12:16:18 - 00:12:47:22 Sean Let the London reader reflect that in Boston, Toronto, Cape Town, Calcutta, Melbourne, Auckland and nearly everywhere else, his racial kindred are perusing the same stirring stories that delight him. America may have withdrawn from the British Empire of government, but thanks to such magazines as the all story, it must ever remain an integral and important part of the great universal empire of British thought and literature. 00:12:48:06 - 00:13:19:24 Sean I cannot praise the All Story magazine by comparing it with others, since it stands alone in its class. But I think I have made it clear that I hold this publication in the highest esteem and derive much pleasure from its pages. What I have said in criticism of some parts of it, I have said only with friendly intent, believing that the humble opinions of one more reader may prove not unacceptable to you, but ere I grow more tedious still. 00:13:20:04 - 00:13:34:14 Sean Let me close this already protracted epistle, and with the best wishes for the future of the all story, subscribe myself as your obedient servant. H p l. 00:13:38:16 - 00:14:14:23 Andrew May seven, 1936. Dear A.W. Well, Grandpa is still alive just about so I probably mentioned my aunt's transferred to a convalescent home on April seven and to this news I may add that on the 21st she returned to 66. Her recovery is steady but slow, and she still requires a certain amount of cooperation in household administration. My own program is beyond reclamation so that I am almost desperate enough to make a bonfire of all my files obligations and unanswered epistles. 00:14:15:15 - 00:14:41:19 Andrew April was hellishly cold, but now there is come a milder period some days, but not today are warm enough to permit of my writing outdoors on Prospect Terrace and in general I have a trifle more strength than I did last month. Barlow has invited me south, but I don't believe I'll be able to accept. I wish I could for a week of Charleston or Florida, where there would be some life into my old bones. 00:14:42:22 - 00:15:06:12 Andrew I surely will be grateful for the coherent copy of print Zaleski. Mine is also the first edition that all Jim Morton absolutely ruined it a decade ago by stuffing it into a briefcase with some other material when I lent it to him. Not that it was in especially good shape before. Now, after two or three more lending, it is what one might term a loose leaf addition. 00:15:07:14 - 00:15:31:05 Andrew Thanks vastly for the two nature articles which I appreciated greatly. Retreat to nature is especially fine and ought to be preserved in some collection of your essays. When my stack of unread borrowed books is a little less lofty, I'll try to get a look at the Garland volume you mentioned. I've seen other tomes with the same arguments, but I can say that they seem very convincing to me. 00:15:31:17 - 00:16:04:03 Andrew Proofs of marvels and miracles are always vague or second hand, and when tracked down, seem to dissolve like the accounts of the Hindu rope trick. My reasons for distrusting reports of occult phenomena might be grouped roughly under some half dozen headings, essentially as follows One believers wholly ignore the tremendous body of anthropological knowledge, which shows how legends and folk beliefs are constantly created and persistently diffused in complete defiance of facts. 00:16:04:21 - 00:16:49:02 Andrew Most of the supernatural events reported never happened at all. Other accounts represent amplifications and distortions of events which were not supernatural. Mere erroneous reporting and judicious editing explains a good part of the plausible tales which are circulated. This principle is admirably illustrated by the numberless other silly errors, habitually entertained by immense numbers of persons of every kind. Absurd historical, scientific, economic, philosophical and miscellaneous beliefs which persist in spite of sound scholarship and which ought to show how easy it is for fallacy to have the widest and most serious acceptance. Two believers 00:16:49:02 - 00:17:20:16 Andrew likewise, ignore the tremendous myth making capacity of the human mind. No eminent psychologist who understands our complex mental processes and obscure motives has ever believed in the supernatural. Volumes could be written on motives for harboring and promoting supernatural delusions. Motives which involve escape, ego, assertion, mental indolence, self vindication and instinctive believers. Religious mania and dozens of less obvious considerations. 00:17:21:12 - 00:17:55:20 Andrew The average ignorant person feels compelled in order to obtain mental ease to produce evidence for the supernatural. Conscious, though, almost involuntary mendacity is a larger factor in occult reports than is commonly realized. Three Sheer error unchecked by a knowledge of how completely irrational occultism is accounts for a vast number of tales. A simple person is impressed by a coincidence or hallucination or bit of transposed memory, which presents a puzzle to him. 00:17:56:02 - 00:18:28:11 Andrew And occult solution is as natural as irrational one, since he does not realize how utterly, basically, and typically all assumptions of the supernatural conflict with everything, we really know the universe. Therefore, he accepts the mythical interpretation at once because it is usually vastly simpler than the real explanation could possibly be. Four it is significant that all tales of the occult are based on archaic prototypes which were evolved when nothing was known of the composition of the cosmos. 00:18:28:23 - 00:19:03:20 Andrew Virtually all these myths obviously postulate an universe of the ancient, legendary kind with the heavens tributary to the earth. Mankind at the center of things. The archaic dualism of matter and spirit existence, external, transient and deceptive appearance is real popular eschatology of exact relative things, absolute human values, emotions and personality, cosmically important, etc., etc., etc. The tales become irrelevant and absurd when considered in the light of time. 00:19:03:22 - 00:19:40:14 Andrew Space, matter and energy is known today when modern charlatans try to drag contemporary science into their fakery, they produce an amusing spectacle, radically mistaking and misinterpreting the science they adopt and blithely blending it with the most utterly contradictory concepts of ancient folklore. Hence the circus of vibrations, ectoplasm, animal magnetism, etc.. Five. No evidence of the supernatural has ever been detected by any person, not emotionally or traditionally inclined toward irrational belief. 00:19:41:04 - 00:20:19:14 Andrew The high percentage of religious, egotistical, emotional, ignorant, eccentric, inferior, culturally orthodox that is trained in the humanities instead of the sciences, senescent and downright senile types. All types attaching high importance to emotional appearances and hostile to cool, objective vision and impersonal scientific analysis among believers cannot be ignored. It would be silly to accept any theories or beliefs repudiated by the bulk of first rank physicists, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, astronomers, philosophers, etc.. 00:20:20:01 - 00:20:59:01 Andrew Moreover, we may justly ask why, if occult phenomena do occur, they never manifest themselves, except to persons already inclined to believe in them. Such precise selective. This is too significant to overlook. Six. Whenever rational investigators have organize to investigate an allegedly supernatural occurrence to the very bottom, a natural explanation has been found. Moreover, virtually every known supernatural manifestation, including mind reading, is constantly reproduced on the vaudeville stage by coldly mechanical and materialistic performers. 00:21:00:00 - 00:21:32:11 Andrew However, I shall read the Garland volume with the keenest interest when I get the chance. Just as I have read similar volumes by Chevrolet Flammarion Jung Stealing and others in the past, glad your literary opportunities continue to multiply and that you will have another tale in Scribner's. Your new plan with the novel revision as you go is probably wise, although you may later on wish to make changes in the early parts to harmonize with newly introduced and unforeseen elements in the subsequent sections. 00:21:33:03 - 00:22:04:03 Andrew Congratulations on the editorship of the Wisconsin Anthology Harrisons anthologies are sometimes regarded more or less as rackets, but a certain number of them undoubtedly do represent bona fide ventures and really well selected material. I am sure that no one could do your native state better justice than yourself. I was glad to see they shall rise. An old friend in manuscript form, in print, and do not believe it is by any means as bad a story as you think. 00:22:04:19 - 00:22:31:02 Andrew Both March and April weird tales were definitely above the dismal average. Jacoby's and Bloch stories being worthy companions for yours in the latter issue. Haven't had a chance to read the May as yet, although I got it the other day. And so old Satrap foreign business is calling for some spicy sex stuff. DiMaggio's covers are well, well. Once in a while, there may be room for a weird story. 00:22:31:14 - 00:22:53:19 Andrew I wish somebody would found a rival magazine, but for you, there isn't much hope for it. Your mention of Springtime Rambles a month ago convinces me that your season must have advanced ahead of ours, for which I envy you. I haven't been able to take any real walks as yet, but my aunt and I were treated to a delightful motor ride in southeastern Massachusetts last week. 00:22:54:12 - 00:23:25:13 Andrew The full vernal glory of flowers and leaves has developed only within the past few days, but just of this moment, as the Rhode Island landscape is surely a joy to be I glad to hear that you've taken to astronomical observation in which pursuit a good field glass is certainly nothing to be despised. Have you ever studied Garrett P Services astronomy with an opera glass that classic which has guided the amateur observers of two generations and more, ought to be full of helpful hints for you. 00:23:25:23 - 00:23:44:14 Andrew If you haven't to copy, I'd be glad to send you mine for a long term loan. By the way, if you want a shot of the Andromeda Nebula, you can get one now by making your observations in the morning before dawn. Andromeda is high in the sky. By 3 a.m., I'll see that a copy of Innsmouth comes your way. 00:23:44:14 - 00:24:06:00 Andrew When or if ever, Hillbilly Crawford completes his edition. Only about a quarter of it appears to be set up. I like Patel's illustrations extremely and fancy. They will be about the most important part of the volume. In a few days, the shadow out of time will appear and astounding. Hope it gets as good illustrations as Mountains of Madness did. 00:24:06:00 - 00:24:27:12 Andrew The new Fantagraphics came the other day with the opening installment of two Gunn Bob's High Bori and Age. Two Gunn sent me a new snapshot of himself last month. He's grown a drooping mustache and in a ten gallon hat, looks exactly like a Western cinema Sheriff. Which reminds me to thank you for the very pleasing new snap of yourself. 00:24:28:11 - 00:24:30:02 Andrew Patriarchal blessings. HP 00:24:30:14 - 00:24:45:22 Sean Well, that that was a lot of fun. And that was an interesting pairing for things that came more than 20 years apart in time. Uh, yeah, that was. It was enjoyable to me. 00:24:47:03 - 00:24:48:01 Andrew And to me. 00:24:48:04 - 00:24:52:00 Sean Oh, well, that's good. The rest of you can feel you'll have to sort it out. 00:24:52:00 - 00:25:03:18 Andrew For yourself, like it or lump it. So tell me on your your letter, when you first presented it to me, it was from a very interesting website that I had not been aware of before. How did you stumble across this letter? 00:25:04:09 - 00:25:30:20 Sean I'm not sure. I even entirely remember. I think it may have shown up in my my Facebook feed I had started with the idea of wanting to find, you know, the first letter or something very early in his epistolary career and not all that surprisingly, those are not his best letters on the whole. They just tended to be a little he got better at it as he went on. 00:25:30:20 - 00:25:38:08 Andrew So and this is a letter to an editor. This is like intended for publication and not a personal letter to someone he knows. 00:25:38:08 - 00:26:08:02 Sean Right. And a bunch of the early ones from him are letters to editors that are of the letters that are still extant. So I thought, well, this is an interesting way to to get to meet young H.P. Lovecraft. And one of the other qualities I liked about it is through the course of the his correspondence, we see so many instances of young fans writing to him to read his material in the pulp magazines and saying, Gee, Mr. Lovecraft, I think your stories are really swell. 00:26:08:08 - 00:26:35:16 Sean And he says, Oh, that's nice and blah. But, you know, and sure, a dialect gets going that way. And here we get there's something. So, I don't know, pleasantly earnest in Lovecraft. The fan boy Yeah. Writing into his favorite magazine, the All Story magazine to and extolling the virtues and this is how it first came to my attention because the website through which I read this letter was one for Edgar Rice Burroughs fans. 00:26:35:24 - 00:26:55:10 Sean Carbs Connecting, connecting the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs to H.P. Lovecraft. And I got to thinking about it and I was like, Well, yeah, Edgar Rice Burroughs is a major figure in the literary scene, particularly for its not quite weird fiction, but it's not. 00:26:55:11 - 00:26:56:13 Andrew It's a boy's adventure. 00:26:56:22 - 00:26:57:18 Sean Adventure fiction. 00:26:58:08 - 00:26:59:10 Andrew It's dime novel. 00:26:59:10 - 00:27:19:11 Sean It's pulp stuff, it's through and through. And so seeing Lovecraft as a fanboy saying, Boy, I really love, you know, Edgar Rice Burroughs and then seeing the other authors that that he extolled the virtues of. But it just struck me as a nice starting point of seeing him as a young man with no meaningful literary career at this point. 00:27:19:18 - 00:27:34:13 Andrew And no ambition of his own in that direction. Right. You know, he hadn't he doesn't yet think of himself as a writer. So he's praising Edgar Rice Burroughs and a lot of these other people. And, you know, later he has he does not have praise for Edgar Rice Burroughs. 00:27:34:14 - 00:27:58:02 Sean Well, that kind of solved my mystery of of you know, I was like, boy, I don't think Edgar Rice Burroughs comes up in supernatural horror literature. And I couldn't think of anyplace else that he came up. And then, you know, apart from a couple of backhanded swings here and there and other correspondence, you know, Lovecraft seems to really have gotten over Edgar Rice Burroughs like. 00:27:58:08 - 00:28:10:08 Andrew Like most people, I think it's it's it's just it's super interesting. You know, when I was reading this, I was, you know, thinking, you know, of course I've heard of Tarzan, but I personally have never read a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs. 00:28:10:08 - 00:28:20:13 Sean And so I had the same thing I had never read. I don't think I've ever actually read any of the original source material. I just know the answer. Larry Yeah, but it's Murrow's brands that in. 00:28:20:13 - 00:28:26:07 Andrew His day, I mean, he was the first, you know, multi-media mogul. He invented pop culture. 00:28:26:07 - 00:28:28:00 Sean He was the king of the jungle. 00:28:28:06 - 00:28:52:19 Andrew He was there's a town named after him. And, you know, yeah, it's he you know, not only did he invent the character of Tarzan, but he was the first author ever to incorporate himself and turn his writing into and literally into an industry. And it was it was like 100 years ago, last week that Lovecraft, that Edgar Rice Burroughs became Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.. 00:28:52:19 - 00:29:01:21 Andrew And he he turned, you know, not just the stories that were published in all story and other magazines, but he turned them into comic books, He turned them into movies. 00:29:01:21 - 00:29:03:06 Sean He was everything he could. 00:29:03:06 - 00:29:06:10 Andrew He was a trans media visionary, I think. 00:29:06:11 - 00:29:07:08 Sean In the cash. 00:29:07:09 - 00:29:23:20 Andrew Cow. Yeah, milk in the cash cow. And it was, you know, Rudyard Kipling I was reading Rudyard Kipling, who of course, 15 years or so earlier had written The Jungle Book, you know, couldn't help but notice that Edgar Rice Burroughs was working his side of the street and said, you know, Edgar Rice. 00:29:23:20 - 00:29:24:24 Sean Checked off their Edgar. 00:29:24:24 - 00:29:31:17 Andrew Rice Burroughs, you know, deliberately and explicitly set himself out to see how bad a story he could write and get away with. 00:29:32:19 - 00:29:47:07 Sean Well, so so a quick history for Edgar Burrows. He was born in Chicago in 1875, lived till 1950. He his family was descended from a very old line, going all the way back to New England Puritans. 00:29:47:07 - 00:29:50:17 Andrew Yeah, he Had like seven signers of the Declaration of Independence in his family. 00:29:50:17 - 00:29:53:04 Sean Tree. Very, very old and robust American family. 00:29:53:07 - 00:29:55:24 Andrew And you can see why Lovecraft found that in very admirable. 00:29:55:24 - 00:30:28:08 Sean Oh, absolutely. And then another interesting Lovecraft coincidence. He in one of his early jobs, he was involved in a mining operation in the Snake River Valley, Idaho, where, of course, Lovecraft's grandfather was was working on trying to find the lost Hawaiians. Right. See episode x X, Right. More details on that. Rice Burroughs later sold pencil sharpeners wholesale, which wasn't that great was when that's that's when you know you're feeling like your creative career has bottomed out is when you're in the wholesale pencil sharpener business. 00:30:28:20 - 00:30:55:24 Sean But I found a quote I really love because it painted Rice Burroughs as sort of the anti Lovecraft. You know, Lovecraft has so much contempt throughout his literary career for people who are writing for a buck. And, you know, you're you've got a letter to August Derleth and there's there's a few sparks that come from that there. But so Edgar says if people were he discovered if people were paid for writing such rot, as I read in some of these magazines, I could write something just as rotten. 00:30:56:05 - 00:30:57:05 Andrew Oh, yeah. 00:30:57:18 - 00:30:58:02 Sean Wow. 00:30:58:02 - 00:31:02:16 Andrew What the most cynical start to a fabulous literary career. 00:31:02:16 - 00:31:05:15 Sean Absolutely. I'm. I'm just here for the money, right? 00:31:05:15 - 00:31:10:17 Andrew I write the stuff that I would find entertaining, and I sell it in every way I can. 00:31:10:17 - 00:31:32:24 Sean Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah. And Rice Burroughs career as a writer had just begun in He sold his first story in 1912, which is just two years before this letter. So he's a new kid on the block and has this hot sensation of Tarzan. And Tarzan went on to be he did 26 different Tarzan books, as you were saying, he's in all forms of media that he could possibly get. 00:31:32:24 - 00:31:53:00 Sean And he also had these hollow Earth IT writer adventures polluted, which is another place that Lovecraft ended up going down further in time. He also was a huge Anglophile. Yes, he was also a horrible racist. An opponent of eugenics. Yeah. 00:31:53:00 - 00:31:59:11 Andrew He believed in scientific racism. You know, the theories that were popular in the day, he believed them wholeheartedly. He was. 00:31:59:15 - 00:32:01:00 Sean Like another friend of ours. 00:32:01:05 - 00:32:19:02 Andrew Totally in favor of eugenics. And, you know, like I was saying at the beginning, I haven't read a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs. So, you know, I've seen I saw it John Carter of Mars. I've seen any number of Tarzan movies. I even went and watched at the Earth's Core, which is movie based on the the first Pellucid hour novel. 00:32:20:03 - 00:32:23:06 Andrew And it has Peter Cushing in it just a year before Star Wars. 00:32:23:10 - 00:32:24:09 Sean Oh, wow. It was. 00:32:26:02 - 00:32:48:10 Andrew The special effects are so shockingly primitive looking in this movie. That's literally just a year before Star Wars was made. It was like, wow. But it is interesting for someone who, like me, has doesn't know Edgar Rice Burroughs that well. Once you look at this stuff, you go, this stuff is baked into every piece of popular fiction that was written after it. 00:32:48:10 - 00:33:14:04 Andrew And this this clipping from the LRB scene where you found this letter originally, you know, goes on to point out, you look at all these movies of yore. Yeah, Lovecraft went into the Hollow Earth. Lovecraft went to Venus Lovecraft, totally cribbed all of these Edgar Rice Burroughs things, even while, you know, disdaining Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is fascinating. 00:33:14:04 - 00:33:38:14 Sean Sure. Well, you know, but Lovecraft wants to be true to his own literary vision and to be creating meaningful expressions of, you know, atmosphere and evoking a certain mental state. And, you know, Rice Burroughs going, just just give me a Jack and let me go. So, you know, they both have a lot in common and they have a lot that really differentiates the two of them as well. 00:33:38:14 - 00:34:02:07 Sean So so in this, you know, fan mail, we get this, you know, glowing embrace to Edgar Rice Burroughs. And then Lovecraft is, you know, really very generous with his praise for a whole lot of other writers who were writing for these guys. And you know, of course, Rice Burroughs went on to become incredibly famous and most of the rest of these folks have been lost to posterity. 00:34:02:23 - 00:34:36:09 Andrew The mind blowing. Well, the delicious pedantry in this letter about how Edgar Rice Burroughs is great, except that he has the length of the Martian years off by a few days. Yes. Oh, my. And you know, it's so amazing that Lovecraft can simultaneous sleep, praise his incredible imagination and yet complain that he's scientifically inaccurate. And it's they seem to be it's just this wonderful dichotomy that, you know, on the one hand, we must have stories of imagination. 00:34:36:09 - 00:34:38:11 Andrew Anyone can write a probable story. 00:34:38:11 - 00:34:40:23 Sean God help you if you get the length of a martian day around. 00:34:40:23 - 00:34:58:18 Andrew But at the same time, it has to be actually really accurate. You know, he can't forgive, you know, fudging the length of a martian year. And yet it's just it's just an amazing ability to have mutually exclusive criteria. 00:34:58:18 - 00:34:59:20 Sean Cake and eating it to. 00:34:59:21 - 00:35:04:14 Andrew Working at the same time It's yeah it's just it's just crazy. 00:35:04:14 - 00:35:29:01 Sean Yeah that that just absolutely cracked me up how genuinely irked he seemed by the fact and going would the story in any way, shape or form have been any better if? The Martian day was more accurate and of course to Lovecraft it would have, would be. But to the rest of the world we go, Yeah, who cares? So yeah, we we get a litany of other authors here. 00:35:29:01 - 00:35:52:11 Sean And I also thought, you know, we've looked at lists that are similar to this in when we recorded supernatural horror and literature. Lovecraft So you know he's quite and do lots of his correspondence. He's like, Well, you should read this story, you should read this story, you should read this author, you should read this author. Yeah. And here I thought it was really interesting that his list of people he endorses from the all story are in a great many of different genres. 00:35:52:14 - 00:36:04:14 Sean Yeah, some guys are Western right now is sci fi is all all kinds of things he really likes Perley Moore. Sheahan Right. Who was an early film writer? Yeah, Detective stories. 00:36:04:14 - 00:36:09:03 Andrew He wrote the script of Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Lon Chaney one from 1923. 00:36:09:03 - 00:36:17:10 Sean Yeah, I love the I was looking at, you know, some of the works that these other guys had done because sadly, you know, most of these stories are no longer extant. 00:36:17:10 - 00:36:20:19 Andrew Yeah, you have to dig far and deep to find any of these stories. 00:36:20:19 - 00:36:30:01 Sean And a whole lot of them, they are simply not to be found. They're only from indices of all Story magazine and things about people, some of them clearly no actual copies. 00:36:30:01 - 00:36:35:07 Andrew We found a few, and I'll be sure to post at least the covers and a couple of the actual stories are readable on our. 00:36:35:07 - 00:36:35:19 Sean Yeah, a lot. 00:36:35:19 - 00:36:37:05 Andrew Of put them on the page for this episode. 00:36:37:05 - 00:36:49:20 Sean A lot of the cover art from All story was terrific. Yeah, it's really nice paintings. I could see why why he would totally get a get into that. So yeah, I really want to read the monkey Man from 1910. Yeah. 00:36:50:02 - 00:36:53:04 Andrew I really wanted to read, you know, Pilgrims in Love. 00:36:53:04 - 00:36:56:05 Sean Which, Oh, well, now, if we're going to do so. Pilgrims in love. 00:36:56:06 - 00:36:57:06 Andrew Oh, did you find. 00:36:57:06 - 00:37:20:19 Sean I tried. So did I. I tried, I tried, I tried. But what I did manage to find is a synopsis of details and. Oh, good. So I can share that. But the. Yeah, you know, first Lovecraft gets ticked off by the length of the Martian day, but the language he uses about pilgrims in love. Yeah. So. Oh, over the top indignation. 00:37:20:19 - 00:37:25:15 Sean I'm like, what kind of depraved filth has this relatively. 00:37:25:19 - 00:37:35:13 Andrew I did find souls of men, but it's a 350 page novel, and it's like I skimmed some of it looking for things that would outrage me. And there was nothing. 00:37:35:13 - 00:37:38:01 Sean It was was a little slow. It's a story of a. 00:37:38:01 - 00:37:39:20 Andrew Of a woman and her husband and. 00:37:39:21 - 00:37:40:08 Sean Out on the. 00:37:40:08 - 00:37:47:23 Andrew Ranch. Out on the ranch in Cuba. And then she goes to New York and then eventually they get back together. It's like, oh, okay. I mean, he's long. 00:37:47:23 - 00:37:51:24 Sean But pretty upsetting. Well, I thought it was perhaps because it was a female centric. That could be. 00:37:51:24 - 00:37:54:21 Andrew It. It is written by a woman and features a. 00:37:54:21 - 00:37:57:02 Sean Well, let me tell you about Pilgrims in Love 00:37:57:02 - 00:37:57:23 Andrew Please do. 00:37:58:16 - 00:38:27:18 Sean Merge. LEP, a beautiful slave girl, is bought by Hussain Eggs, the son of the Shah of Persia, hitherto blind to women's charms. The young man succumbs and marries her. The couple moves to Vienna, where Hussain Aga is ambassador and their murdered LEP finds that she fears the accidentals and she remains secluded in their home, giving rise to odd rumors about her Among the local gentry. 00:38:28:10 - 00:39:01:07 Sean They coax Hussain Aga into hosting a party, and when he is drunk, they persuade him to call for more gallop and unveil her burglar obeys, but then flees in horror and embarrassment, resenting Hussain aga for what he has made her do. She finds refuge with one of the local gentry and the affairs of state become greatly agitated. Hussein Aga must depart Vienna and learning this burglar forgives him and returns to him, finding him miserable over what he has done to her. 00:39:02:04 - 00:39:29:06 Sean They leave Vienna. This is an outrage. Oh, boy. I hope. I hope whatever was under those veils was described in wildly saucy adjectives because it has clearly just pushed Lovecraft beyond the pale of what he can endure. And then he turns around and, you know, uses the the royal we insult. 00:39:29:07 - 00:39:30:05 Andrew You do not approve? 00:39:30:05 - 00:39:34:20 Sean Oh, we certainly do not. So. Oh, he's so pompous. It's delightful. 00:39:34:20 - 00:39:43:04 Andrew I found I found another letter from another person entirely, also written in all story weakly, but it sort of had a funny tone, if you'll permit me. 00:39:43:04 - 00:39:43:17 Sean Yeah, sure. 00:39:43:17 - 00:40:03:17 Andrew This is another letter. The title is A Wise Englishman. It's written from Winnipeg, Canada, and it says editor of the All Star magazine. I have just completed reading your all story weekly of March 14th, and I must say right here that it was the best book of yarns. I have read this side of the water. About two months ago I quit reading a certain American book, which I had been reading for four months. 00:40:03:22 - 00:40:23:23 Andrew Well, I absolutely got fed right up to my neck with disgust. As in nearly every number there appeared a tale wherein the Englishman was a fool and always American was a wise man. Oh, well, sir, as I said, I got fed up. And so I had to send to the old country for my reading matter. A fellow told me, an Englishman, also to try the old story. 00:40:24:00 - 00:40:44:14 Andrew And the first tale I read was this banking fine yarn of London, England, entitled Midnight in Wimbledon Terrace. And believe me, I was really sorry when I had finished the tale. It was a tale too. There was no silly rot about the English fool and the American wise man. I guess it's only natural in an American book, but to hang it all, why the dickens? 00:40:44:14 - 00:41:01:24 Andrew Can't they write the same sort of yarns as your midnight in Wimbledon terrorists? I will finish now trusting that your book gets the success. It really deserves, I assure you I will buy it every week trusting I can read your old story for a good long time to come. Yours very truly. A m. 00:41:01:24 - 00:41:04:20 Sean Well, no doubt Lovecraft would have really adored. 00:41:04:20 - 00:41:13:06 Andrew The you know, clearly the whole story, you know, had an appeal with the Anglophiles. And that seems to be what Lovecraft is certainly. 00:41:13:07 - 00:41:19:14 Sean Oh, most likely, yeah. It's a magazine for Englishmen and should be enjoyed by the oh. 00:41:19:23 - 00:41:25:05 Andrew As we are all Englishmen. It's like, Oh, who you talking about, brother? Exactly. 00:41:25:05 - 00:41:30:22 Sean I'm like in Cape Town in Calcutta. I really do. 00:41:31:01 - 00:41:32:13 Andrew You know. 00:41:32:13 - 00:41:57:24 Sean But it does show, I guess. You know, one of the things it does demonstrate, though, it's like Lovecraft's not alone in his world view and his still in the, you know, the 19 teens here clinging to the old country. And and that sense of being part of something great, a noble tradition that is so profoundly and personally important to Lovecraft, he says. 00:41:57:24 - 00:42:20:19 Andrew We prefer we prefer a more idealized orient to read about. Let us have nature to advantage, as in the beautiful romance of Prince in Bissell by Q McClain, Savage and Prince Imbecile that set in Japan and Q McClain Savage I was trying to find photos of all these guys. Q McClain Savage looks exactly like Rich McCall Penney bags from Monopoly. 00:42:20:19 - 00:42:31:02 Andrew I mean, the mustache, the monocle, everything. This is this is a cartoon character come to life. C McClain Savage I'll post this picture of him. It's unbelievable. 00:42:31:02 - 00:42:56:17 Sean People should realize that that dude from Monopoly is based on a real guy. He's not just some made up thing by an illustrator at Parker Brothers. So yeah, and of course, Lovecraft has is just GROSS. Yeah. You know, I wish we could have more pro Klan stories and feeling like you got really gypped in a story called The Invisible Empire, when it's not about that, it. 00:42:56:17 - 00:42:59:16 Andrew Really should have a trademark symbol next to it or something more of a. 00:42:59:16 - 00:43:27:20 Sean Letdown. So but on the whole, I did still find this a fun early representation of a Lovecraft letter. And and so many themes that we have explored, you know, over the last couple of years through his correspondence come bubbling up even with him as a very young man. His enthusiasm for good literature, his contempt for things he doesn't like you, know, boy, it's right there at the surface. 00:43:28:19 - 00:43:52:01 Andrew And his, you know, his fulgent praise of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who in later life he would go on to, you know, classify with all the other hacks who ever wrote for a dollar. Yeah. You know, and it's just interesting to see how after he himself began trying to write how his standards for literature changed drastically. 00:43:52:01 - 00:44:05:02 Sean Sure. Sure. Absolutely. So anyway, that's what led me to pick it. And that's, uh, that's where a portrait of Lovecraft in 1914. All right, So then you picked up a letter to our old pal August Derleth. 00:44:05:02 - 00:44:24:04 Andrew Yeah. I was knowing that this was going to be the last episode of Voluminous for a while I had in mind I want to pick I was originally going to pick of the last letter that Lovecraft ever wrote. And the last letter, the one that was still on his desk on mailed when they took him to the hospital for the last time, was actually to his old friend James F Morton. 00:44:24:12 - 00:44:53:07 Andrew And I thought that was going to be perfect because James Morton is one of my favorite of Lovecraft's correspondence. And I thought this is the last letter to him. And it would be interesting. And then but the more I read that letter, it covers it tells stories that we've already heard from Lovecraft. And it's I realized I was picking it for purely sentimental reasons, not because the letter itself was inherently interesting, but just because it was the last one. 00:44:53:07 - 00:44:55:22 Sean And Lovecraft does not approve of sentimentality. 00:44:55:22 - 00:45:07:19 Andrew And I thought to myself, So Lovecraft would hate that I'm choosing this letter just for sentimental reasons. So I started looking at others and then that got me thinking about August Derleth. We've only covered one other letter to Derleth on this show. 00:45:07:19 - 00:45:08:19 Sean right 00:45:09:00 - 00:45:30:07 Andrew And I was thinking, you know, if this is going to be the voluminous swansong, we should talk a little bit more about Derleth, because I certainly over the years that we've worked on this show, I've I've gained a greater appreciation for what Derleth did for all of us by saving these letters and by, you know, championing Lovecraft as a writer and getting him into print. 00:45:30:16 - 00:45:50:22 Andrew You know, I it is probably true that were it not forDerleth's efforts and there's plenty to blame him for, too. I think his treatment of Barlow was shabby. And, you know, it could be argued that he did it to make a buck. And you know, there's a lot of things not to like. But the fact is, if Derleth hadn't done what he did, we might not be here today. 00:45:50:22 - 00:46:16:22 Sean Well, I must interject one point, because I. I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I feel I have often heard the sentiment that you're expressing from a variety of people. But I feel like where the hell is Derleth wandering in this conversation? And I really feel like when you talk about the preservation of the Lovecraft legacy, it really needs to be dualism and wandering. 00:46:16:23 - 00:46:34:10 Sean I agree. And I feel like, Don, I think maybe he was just the alpha personality in the two or something. But but folks end up talking about, oh, Derleth founded Arkham House and Derleth saved Lovecraft. And it really was as near as I can tell, a pretty much a partnership of the two guys who. 00:46:34:10 - 00:46:35:19 Andrew Although they ended up at each other's. 00:46:35:19 - 00:47:03:16 Sean Throats, eventually went to hell. But they did. But but that was much later. And still, you know, the fact remains absolutely without these guys, you know, and I always think of Hemmings and Condell. No, I'm thinking, uh, anyway, I often think of the the first folio of Shakespeare, which also in many ways served the same purpose because a lot of Shakespeare plays only exist because Shakespeare's friends came along his death and said, Oh, no, these plays were so good. 00:47:03:23 - 00:47:39:15 Sean They really should go into a book form, which was a relatively shocking thing in 1623. But thanks to them doing that right, you know so much and the words being recorded while they were still actually in actors brains, getting them down on paper. And here, you know that Lovecraft's legacy was so worthy of preservation. And certainly for the fact that they also went beyond just the fiction, you know, And their original concept was, let's do a book of the fiction, let's do a book of the poetry, and let's do a book of his letters, because they were pretty special. 00:47:39:15 - 00:47:42:24 Sean And of course, then they got clobbered by the volume of letters. 00:47:42:24 - 00:47:45:18 Andrew Like us, they did not know what they were getting themselves into. No. 00:47:46:05 - 00:48:02:10 Sean No, they didn't. But but yes, absolutely. Anyway, and on a wandering. Yeah. And I'm grateful to those guys for what they did because yeah, all the whole our society and yeah, all this might not exist without that key stepping stone that came after Lovecraft. 00:48:02:10 - 00:48:07:22 Andrew So that's what started me on, on the search for what the last letter that he wrote to August Derleth. 00:48:07:22 - 00:48:08:21 Sean Yeah. 00:48:08:22 - 00:48:29:19 Andrew Which this isn't. I then that letter also proved to be, you know, it was interesting mostly because it was the last one, not because of what it said. So I chose this one. It's not the last, but it's close to the end. And I found it inherently interesting because of what Lovecraft is talking about, this, you know, this struggle, too. 00:48:30:00 - 00:48:49:02 Andrew And it also hearkens back to the letter that you read of, you know, this craving for imaginative stories and stories that, you know, transcend the laws of nature and physics. Let us have our you know, anybody can write a probable story. Let me have one that's full of imagination. But at the same time, I don't believe in any of it. 00:48:49:10 - 00:48:54:00 Andrew I don't believe in the occult. I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in the afterlife. 00:48:54:01 - 00:48:56:03 Sean I do believe in the length of a martian day. 00:48:56:07 - 00:49:25:07 Andrew But I do believe that a martian day is exactly so long and no longer. And you know, this this wonderful ability to both love and praise and thrive on imagination and also insist on everything being as realistic and literally scientifically accurate as it can possibly be and how, you know in both of these letters, he is he's still talking about, you know, that dichotomy, which I love. 00:49:25:08 - 00:49:29:01 Sean The scientific materialist and the Yeah, creator and, you know, the. 00:49:29:13 - 00:49:39:03 Andrew Dreamer. He talks about the reasons why he doesn't believe in it. And this letter also introduced me to people who I should jolly well have known about before, but did not know about Hamlin Garland. 00:49:39:03 - 00:49:40:06 Sean Yeah, I'd never. 00:49:40:06 - 00:50:07:21 Andrew Heard of him. Never heard of him. But like, like Edgar Rice Burroughs, he was a major literary figure in his day who has, as far as I can tell, been mostly forgotten now. But Hannibal Hamlin, Garland, named after Lincoln's vice president, born in 1860, died in 1940. He was he he wrote Western novels and like August Derleth, he wrote stories about his own life on the prairie and in the Midwest. 00:50:08:04 - 00:50:31:03 Andrew You know, he was a very dear lesbian figure. He had lots of literary friends, powerful friends. But he also became fascinated by psychic and spiritual mystic phenomena. In 1908, he wrote a book called The Shadow World about the year that this letter was written, 1936. He wrote a book called 40 Years of Psychic Research, the subtitle of which is a Narrative of Plain Fact. 00:50:31:12 - 00:50:48:17 Andrew And that's the volume. That's the Garland volume that Lovecraft refers to in this letter that that August Derleth urging Lovecraft to read Garland's 40 years of psychic research. And that's what kicks off this long discussion about why Lovecraft doesn't believe in psychics or any of. 00:50:48:21 - 00:50:52:23 Sean It's because Garland moved off to Hollywood. You know, that's where all the Kooks and the flakes write. 00:50:52:23 - 00:50:58:00 Andrew In 1929, Garland moved to Hollywood and and just became a nutcase. 00:50:58:00 - 00:51:06:05 Sean And after his death, his memorial service was held right here in Glendale, California, where we are recording this episode. Yeah, How about that? Yeah. 00:51:06:15 - 00:51:12:03 Andrew He starts by saying, you know, thanks for the coherent copy of Prince Zaleski. Had you ever heard of Prince Zaleski? 00:51:12:11 - 00:51:13:17 Sean I was not familiar with that one. 00:51:13:17 - 00:51:21:07 Andrew It's a it's a book by Matthew Phipps. SHIEL who's a who's another writer who does end up in in love. 00:51:21:08 - 00:51:22:13 Sean Supernatural, supernatural. 00:51:22:17 - 00:51:49:02 Andrew Literature, House of Sounds and other things. But Prince Zaleski, which was written in like 1895, is about a very Charlie Tower esque kind of character. He's an exiled Russian nobleman who lives in a castle in Wales smoking cannabis and opium and and living with his fabulous library of medieval books and occult artifacts. And he is prevailed upon by a friend to help him solve three occult mysteries. 00:51:49:08 - 00:51:53:13 Andrew So Prince Zaleski becomes this, you know, freelance occult investigator. 00:51:53:18 - 00:51:56:05 Sean Nice. He's a a COC Character. 00:51:56:05 - 00:52:02:16 Andrew He's absolutely a Call of Cthulhu character, exiled Russian nobleman turned psychic investigator. 00:52:03:00 - 00:52:14:16 Sean Whom we know. Someone with a castle in Wales. This sounds eerily familiar to somebody else in our lives. But anyway. Yeah, no, that was was delightful to see Mr. Show up here in there as well. 00:52:14:21 - 00:52:38:10 Andrew Lovecraft actually prepared to write his letters by making notes since, you know, synopses. And this is what I'm going to talk about in this letter. And it's it's hard to imagine you could just spontaneously bust out your objections to psychic phenomena into six main categories unless you thought about it in advance. And it just goes to show you, you know, how how seriously Lovecraft took writing letters. 00:52:38:13 - 00:52:57:09 Sean Sure. Well, and he was one you know, he he liked a sound argument and wanted to win it. So, you know, that was was part of it I think is doing his his preparation to say, well, okay, I'm going to make an assertion. Yeah. Then here's the assertion and here's how I back that up with with facts that will make the assertion irrefutable. 00:52:57:09 - 00:52:57:17 Sean Yeah. 00:52:58:00 - 00:53:12:21 Andrew And, you know, one of the reasons why this letter appealed to me is, of course, it reminds me of the very tiring arguments that we are still having to this day with the flat earthers and the anti-vaxxers and the moon landing hoaxers and. 00:53:12:21 - 00:53:15:03 Sean All the way to me. 00:53:15:03 - 00:53:15:11 Andrew Yes. 00:53:15:15 - 00:53:22:21 Sean Are you saying there is no proof? Yeah. People are saying yeah, that the moon. I've heard of Apollo guys. 00:53:22:21 - 00:53:35:11 Andrew Now some people are saying, Yeah, but you know, it's, it's clearly a baked in part of human nature that even Lovecraft acknowledges, you know, we want to believe in the occult. Sure. We want it to be true. 00:53:35:11 - 00:53:37:19 Sean Fox Mulder's poster on in his office. 00:53:37:19 - 00:54:04:04 Andrew Yeah, but and so we will willingly overlook mountains of evidence to the contrary in order to continue believing the thing we want to believe. And Lovecraft can't bring himself to do it, even though he he recognizes in himself. I wish I could believe in all this stuff, but. But I can't and I don't. Yeah, he mentions, you know, I shall read the Garland volume with the keenest interest when I get the chance. 00:54:04:04 - 00:54:14:00 Andrew Just as I've read similar books by Chevrolet, Flamamarion, Young, Sterling and others in the past. And I had heard of Shiv Roy and Flammarion before, but I had never heard of you. I'm still huge. 00:54:14:00 - 00:54:15:10 Sean Still, he's quite a guy. He's quite. 00:54:15:10 - 00:54:22:02 Andrew A guy, and introduced me to yet another new word, which I jolly well should have known before but had never heard, which is new mythology. 00:54:22:02 - 00:54:26:05 Sean The same thing I was like, new mythology is a word that we should all cherish. 00:54:26:05 - 00:54:36:02 Andrew That was young. Sterling's book was called The Theory of New Mythology, and it was written in 1850. Well, it was written in the earlier 1800s and came out in English in 1851. 00:54:36:08 - 00:54:46:06 Sean And like like your Russian count, he had a pretty spectacular life. Yeah, he was a schoolmaster then, a tailor then and a cultist and finally an eye surgeon. Yeah. 00:54:46:06 - 00:54:50:08 Andrew He was a highly regarded expert, ocular surgeon. I was like. 00:54:50:08 - 00:54:56:15 Sean People are doing cataract surgery in the mid 19th century. I did not realize that he had lots of. Apparently he was your guy for it. Yeah. 00:54:57:15 - 00:55:10:01 Andrew And in in the original German, the word new mythology is gangster kunda, which is also a great word, which is this spirit law. Nice guy. Still, one day we got to use going somewhere. 00:55:10:02 - 00:55:14:13 Sean All right, It's enough for me. If only I were working on a dark adventure script. Yeah. 00:55:14:13 - 00:55:20:10 Andrew So if only you knew. Is the study of spirits? Yeah. 00:55:20:10 - 00:55:24:09 Sean In particularly oriented towards the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And, you know. Yeah, your. 00:55:24:09 - 00:55:45:12 Andrew Feeling is super religious. Super religious? Yeah. He was a friend of Gerta, and a profound believer in the second coming of Christ in the millennium and all that stuff. He took it very literally. He goes on to congratulate Derleth for he's got another another after another story coming out in Scribner's, which was a, you know, high literary magazine. 00:55:45:12 - 00:55:58:11 Andrew Yeah. And that was a story called The Old Lady Has Her Day. It came out in the July 1936 issue, and I found it online and I'll put it on our website. It's it's a very it's a, you know, a homespun Wisconsin story. 00:55:58:11 - 00:55:59:13 Sean And not not weird. 00:55:59:19 - 00:56:21:19 Andrew Not weird. A very normal grandma who tricks a wealthy banker into not getting the farm. He foreclosed on it, but it's full of you know, it's full of vernacular. And I'm tempted to say stereotyped characters and manners of speech. But since it was written in 1936, for all I know, Derleth invented all that, and it's been stereotyped since then. 00:56:21:19 - 00:56:50:05 Andrew But it wasn't stereotypical at the time. Maybe, But it feels very much like, you know, right out of Mayberry or something. Roger And he talks about congratulation on the editorship of the Wisconsin Anthology that was a book called Poetry Out of Wisconsin. A nd this guy Harrison, he says Harrison's anthologies are sometimes regarded more or less as rackets. And I found a mention of this guy Harrison in The New Yorker from 1937, and they say he's the lowest vanity publisher in the film. 00:56:50:07 - 00:57:03:21 Andrew This guy Harrison charged poets 225 bucks to be included in the anthologies, and he produced like one anthology of poetry for every state in the Union, apparently. So he totally had a racket going where he would. 00:57:03:21 - 00:57:05:07 Sean Do vanity poetry scale. 00:57:05:07 - 00:57:09:21 Andrew He would he would get he would charge poets for the privilege of being in. 00:57:09:24 - 00:57:13:21 Sean I've written this really nice poem about Wisconsin. Yeah. And now I got a pay. 00:57:13:21 - 00:57:25:18 Andrew To play, and now you got to pay to have it in hardcover. So yeah, this it does seem to have been a bit of a racket, but still journalists was editing the racket. Well, so journalists came out on top in that sense. 00:57:25:18 - 00:57:32:18 Sean Sure. And congratulations go out to Jacobean BLOCK for good. Yes. Weird Tales publications and it's. 00:57:33:17 - 00:57:55:20 Andrew He talks about They shall rise which was Derleth story that appeared in April and it's it's a sort of Herbert Westin reanimated corpses kind of story but then he talks about yeah the march that appeared in April the March April the march Weird tales that he praises Jacob in BLOCK four was the same issue that had the black habbot of perfume in it. 00:57:55:20 - 00:57:58:19 Andrew Oh, that we talked about last time with Chad and Chris. 00:57:58:19 - 00:58:00:06 Sean With Clark Atwood Smith story. 00:58:00:06 - 00:58:10:14 Andrew And it also contained a cone, the part four of a CONAN story, and it contained the graveyard rats by Henry Kutner, which was recently adapted as one of Guillermo del Toro's. 00:58:10:20 - 00:58:11:04 Sean Cabinet 00:58:11:18 - 00:58:21:17 Andrew Curiosities story. So this this issue of Weird Tales did have some heavy duty material in it, not including the black habbot which we all agreed was. 00:58:21:17 - 00:58:33:18 Sean Maybe heavy duty, a light, light duty. But I also thought it was funny that love got barbs that farmers with. Right. For calling for some spicy sex. Yeah. Two matches covers, huh? Yeah. 00:58:33:18 - 00:58:35:08 Andrew Well, the covers was by. 00:58:35:16 - 00:58:36:05 Sean Margaret. 00:58:36:05 - 00:58:45:03 Andrew Brundage, so she had done her first cover for Weird Tales. This was in 32. Yeah, but she did 39 covers in a row. 00:58:45:03 - 00:58:45:16 Sean Wow. 00:58:45:17 - 00:58:55:06 Andrew Starting in June of 1933, huh? And going until August of 1936. So, you know, this letter was written. Yeah, close to the end of that. 00:58:55:06 - 00:58:56:07 Sean So five years. 00:58:56:07 - 00:59:01:02 Andrew Were so Lovecraft had not seen anything other than a Margaret Brundage cover for years. 00:59:02:03 - 00:59:10:08 Sean And you say, Man, if you want a sexy lady on a weird Tales cover, Margaret Brundage is your go to person. So Lucy was great. 00:59:10:08 - 00:59:21:15 Andrew But if you're H.P. Lovecraft, it's like maybe there'll be room for a weird story in the next issue because all the other authors fairy tales realized that if they wrote sexy scenes in their stories. 00:59:21:18 - 00:59:22:15 Sean They might get a cover. 00:59:22:15 - 00:59:33:17 Andrew They might get a cover. And if they got a cover, they would get more money. So all the other weird Tales authors were deliberately writing to attract Margaret Brundage, his talents. And of course, this is a trend. 00:59:33:18 - 00:59:35:07 Sean Not an art H.P. Lovecraft. 00:59:35:07 - 00:59:36:00 Andrew Could not abide. 00:59:36:18 - 00:59:40:08 Sean Certainly not. What next? Putting pilgrims love on the cover. 00:59:40:08 - 00:59:41:19 Andrew Exactly. Oh, my outrage. 00:59:42:24 - 00:59:54:16 Sean And then talking about the unusual coincidences he makes as he makes a reference here to Garrett P service rightly astronomer that he referred to in previously. His letter for. 00:59:54:16 - 01:00:04:22 Andrew His for his efforts at interplanetary fiction. But service was first and foremost an astronomer and a guy who wrote popular astronomy books, which Lovecraft was devoted to. 01:00:04:22 - 01:00:22:24 Sean Yeah, it's almost like a dream come true. A service sort of was what Lovecraft wished he was, which Lovecraft wished he was an astronomer. And, you know, to be able to, again, live simultaneously in the world of being a scientific materialist and being an imaginative dreamer of fiction and tales. 01:00:22:24 - 01:00:57:17 Andrew And that's one of the things, you know, that both of these letters made me reflect on about popularizers of science. You know, people today like Neil deGrasse Tyson and other people like that, you know who Lovecraft recognized that this craving for, the fantastic and the occult and the wonderful and the miraculous is part of human nature. And even though he couldn't bring himself to go for it, he realized that that's what the vast majority of people would prefer. 01:00:57:18 - 01:01:26:17 Andrew Yeah. And it's like if only the people like Garrett Garrett Service wrote, you know, fantastical tales of other planets that were totally imaginative but also grounded in science. And it's like if only the Neil deGrasse Tyson of the world could could do a good enough job of making people appreciate the wonders that are real the wonders, you know, that the real world is absolutely wonderful. 01:01:26:22 - 01:01:50:03 Andrew Yeah, but most people would prefer to overlook it because it's hard to understand and yeah, and so they'll go for the easy, cheap. Q And on theory, instead of, you know, looking at the amazing facts of real life and if, if only there was a way that popularizers of science could, could have the cake and eat, it could well. 01:01:50:03 - 01:02:12:01 Sean I think the challenge lies in that it gets back to the point you made earlier about I want to believe. Yeah. And the things that people want to believe and they may want to believe that their political opponents are evil devil worshipers, but they what they don't want to believe is how quirks work or you know what I mean? 01:02:12:01 - 01:02:37:16 Sean How how some of the things, particularly high level physics, is built on high level mathematics. And it's like, you know, I know I hit point and I know exactly where it is if I'm reading Stephen Hawking or, you know, more advanced Neil deGrasse Tyson stuff. As soon as I hit the event horizon, then my a circuit breaker blows in my mind and I can never get on the other side of what the event actually in it started. 01:02:37:17 - 01:02:52:15 Sean I start to get in trouble around the time that space is curved because then they always show you the diagram of like it looks like a bowling ball sitting on a blanket, kind of sagging, which I go, Oh, that makes perfect sense in two dimensional space, right? But how does that happen in three? Yeah. Poof. There it goes. 01:02:52:15 - 01:02:57:07 Sean The circuit breaker. And suddenly there's a quirk in my my. There's a neutron. 01:02:57:09 - 01:02:58:22 Andrew There's a big foot on the hillside. 01:02:58:22 - 01:03:34:04 Sean Above my house because I want there to be one that would be so cool, you know? And that's the horrible collision between the things we want to believe and the things that I think the root of of the things we want to believe are things that make us feel better, which is why people believe good theories about their political opponents or they believe, you know, goofy about religion, where, you know, you want your those who have passed on to still be around you and living on comfortably strumming loops in the clouds and, you know, whatever they do, because that feels much better than the other. 01:03:34:09 - 01:03:51:22 Andrew The other fatal flaw of science, of course, is that you can never say you actually know anything for sure, because that's just the nature of science to say until I find out something better, right? This is what I know. But with with these other things, you can say, I know what you were. I know the earth is flat because I. 01:03:51:22 - 01:03:53:19 Sean Know Bigfoot's up on that. Yeah, Yeah. 01:03:53:22 - 01:04:19:08 Andrew But as you were saying about, you know, we all wish that our dearly departed loved ones we could, you know, talk to or see playing the lute in the clouds. And Lovecraft didn't believe in the afterlife. But then again, here we are nearly 100 years later, and he's as alive as he could be. You know, he still has a daily influence on you and me and a zillion other people. 01:04:19:20 - 01:04:28:15 Andrew You know, he his what he created endures and I suspect will not only continue enduring but continue growing. Yeah. 01:04:29:04 - 01:04:46:02 Sean That's I think, to me, one of the fascinating things, you know, you and I have been at this for for, you know, 40 some years now, and it's only growing. It's still picking up steam, you know, And you see it in your email inbox. We pick up new members every day. And the society, where do they come from? 01:04:46:02 - 01:04:46:14 Sean I don't know. 01:04:46:14 - 01:04:57:01 Andrew But they're astonishing. Only so many of them appear never to have heard of us before. And it's like we assume everyone who likes Lovecraft knows we exist, but they don't know they don't. 01:04:57:01 - 01:05:22:10 Sean We got to still get to work on marketing. So but yeah, it is. You know, we had a customer in the shop earlier today and, you know, we're talking about just the cruel irony of Lovecraft having died believing that he was a failure, believing that no one was ever going to read his fiction and believing that his artistic endeavors were, you know, pretty much a waste of time. 01:05:22:10 - 01:05:30:14 Sean And, you know, now there are you know, we've got hundreds of books of Lovecraft, hundreds of books on Lovecraft about Lovecraft. You know, he's in there. 01:05:30:21 - 01:05:46:03 Andrew I was you know, there is a Robert Howard Society, there is a Edgar Rice Burroughs society. But Lovecraft's the guy who's in the Library of America, Lovecraft is the guy who has surpassed them in in some very real and measurable ways. 01:05:46:03 - 01:06:10:20 Sean Sure. And of all the guys from that pulp era, you know, the that golden age of Pops, he's the dude, you know, Ron Howard's nearby. Yes. And there are some other guys who are very you successful but of that world he he really is the guy who was transcendent. So if you'll indulge me, I have a question or two for you now that we're near the finish line. 01:06:12:02 - 01:06:36:21 Sean I just because I've been thinking about these these sorts of things myself in doing voluminous I don't know about you, but I feel like I've learned a lot. It's been a very educational what has surprised you the most or or maybe even maybe not necessarily. What surprised you the most, but what interesting surprises have you found? A along the way? 01:06:36:22 - 01:06:42:16 Sean Because you and I both went into this project already being very well steeped in thinking. 01:06:42:16 - 01:06:43:17 Andrew We knew a lot about Love. 01:06:43:19 - 01:06:54:07 Sean Field, but clearly there was more to learn. So I just interested in what some of the takeaways of this journey for you personally might be. 01:06:55:00 - 01:06:57:10 Andrew You've surprised me by asking that question. 01:06:57:10 - 01:07:01:24 Sean Yeah, I almost I almost told you I was going to ask you this earlier and then I actually thought it might be. Yeah. 01:07:02:07 - 01:07:06:03 Andrew Hilarious to hear me sit in silence for 20 seconds. 01:07:06:03 - 01:07:08:14 Sean Now. Nothing pleases me like Andrew stammering. 01:07:09:24 - 01:07:44:04 Andrew I would, I guess I would say, you know, the years that we've been doing this podcast have coincided with increasing awareness is not the right word to use, but, you know, certainly not diminishing arguments about social justice and racism and cancel culture and stuff like that. And Lovecraft has been in that mix, you know, in the years that we've been doing this show, you know, the Lovecraft Country TV show was aired and there were controversies at Necronomicon in Providence. 01:07:44:04 - 01:08:37:18 Andrew And, you know, so I think we've all been compelled to, you know, take a harder look at Lovecraft in relation to racism and racialism, to use a word that that Star Joshi has deployed in order to, I think, make a distinction between just racism. There's not a better way to say it. Racialism is a not quite the same thing as racism. And this, you know, for us as an organization, how do we reconcile, you know, being the leaders of the parade for a guy whose views we do find in in many ways, You know, so one of the things it's it's caused me to reflect on more is how how can we as an organization and as you know, you and me as 01:08:37:18 - 01:09:14:15 Andrew just individuals, continue to beat the drum at the head of the parade For a guy whose views we find objectionable in many, some of whose views we find very objectionable, and doing this show has certainly given me not only the opportunity but, you know, the obligation to investigate these things more and to read what other better thinkers than I am have already thought and written on this subject and and, you know, articulate like Lovecraft himself has said in numerous letters, you know, it's good to be forced to defend your opinion. 01:09:14:15 - 01:09:41:20 Andrew It's good to get into discussions of things, whether you find them comfortable or not. Because if you if you never articulate your opinion, you don't know what your opinion is and. It's gotten me, too. It's gotten me to write more letters and it's gotten me to think more about, you know, not just Lovecraft's fiction, but you know, his views and how his views are still held by a distressingly large number of people. 01:09:42:01 - 01:09:52:13 Andrew And you know what, if anything we can do about it, doing the show has also certainly opened my eyes to his vast. 01:09:52:13 - 01:09:53:06 Sean Breadth of Learning and. You know, the the contemporary references that he drops off with these two letters alone. You know, if you followed up every reference in these letters, you'd be reading thousands pages of fiction and history and science. You know, it's every letter is a college level course in in culture if you want it to be. And I've been very glad to you know, we haven't I wish I had time enough to fully prepare for every one of these episodes back when we were doing them, you know, once a week. 01:10:27:10 - 01:10:47:09 Andrew It was crazy enough even doing them once a month. It's still you know, there's never enough time to prepare to sit down at this and actually talk about the stuff that's in the letter because it's so rich. How about you? What what have the 82 episodes of the show surprised you with or made you think about more? 01:10:47:16 - 01:11:22:04 Sean Yeah, I'm right there with you in that it's awkward. It's an awkward burden to be a Lovecraft fan, and it's even worse when you're the head of the world's largest organization of love craft fans try and reconcile and deeply reconcile liking the works of somebody who's beliefs you often find odious and offensive. And that's. Boy, that's. Yeah, that's not easy to do. 01:11:22:04 - 01:11:55:05 Sean I think one of the takeaways I came away with is most of the things I thought about Lovecraft were all true, but they're all more. Hmm. In that it did turn out you know I really under value underrated. What a racist the intensity of it. You know I knew it was there. But some of the things he's expressed have kind of blown my mind in the correspondence because it doesn't show up. 01:11:55:09 - 01:12:20:02 Sean You know, you get very gentle echoes of it in the fiction. But but hearing some of the personal communication really blew my mind but but also you know yeah he's what a what an intellect the guy is. And it's very clear that, you know, his elevated prose style has elevated vocabulary is not just an affectation, it's who the guy is. 01:12:20:02 - 01:12:54:04 Sean Yeah, he's he's smarter I gave him credit for before seeing how he communicates with his friends. He's more generous of spirit and kind and nurturing to, you know, younger writers. And again, I knew that element was there, but there's more of it. It's like so many of his quality is really end up being magnified when you look closely at these personal communications because they're different than the public communications. 01:12:54:15 - 01:12:59:11 Sean The notion of him as a shut in, you know, yeah, it is both true. 01:12:59:19 - 01:13:01:01 Andrew And completely, completely. 01:13:01:01 - 01:13:20:03 Sean False. Yeah, it's an interesting dichotomy because both are true and it's a guy who's always bitching about the weather if it's cold because he really doesn't like the cold and he really does like it when it's hot and he really does shut himself in his room and he really does have a stack of books he's reading all the time and a stack of letters he's writing all the time. 01:13:20:22 - 01:13:41:15 Sean And All that's true. And yet this is a guy who can't wait to get out of the house, who doesn't mind going on a 15 mile walk, who is excited at the notion of traveling to to Florida or Quebec or to, you know, Charleston or Savannah. He he wants to go these places. He's got a real, you know, kind of wanderlust. 01:13:41:15 - 01:13:46:12 Sean And then he doesn't want to be shot in the house. I think that's just where he's comfortable. 01:13:46:12 - 01:13:48:08 Andrew And yet he loves Providence. 01:13:48:08 - 01:14:11:16 Sean He loves he he loves his town like. I love I think no place I've ever lived, you know? And I and I, you know, I've, you know, felt good about where I grew up. I love where, you know, I like where live. But I wouldn't write write poetry about, you know, I don't have that sort of profound connection or that that sort of sense that if I wasn't there, I wouldn't be whole. 01:14:11:16 - 01:14:33:22 Sean You know, you think of those letters when he came back from New York to Providence and yeah, you know, the the intensity of that gush of I can breathe again because I'm where I belong. Yeah. And you know, the love for architecture. I've ribbed him a lot, you know, about it going through it because I don't get it personally. 01:14:33:22 - 01:15:10:15 Sean And I knew he liked Georgian architecture, but I don't think I really appreciated how much a fan light flowed in his boat, you know, And that's just who he is, you know, And we all the things we like. And clearly, you know, some of these things are just the nature of this really kind of odd, unusual man. And, you know, a creative visionary, because there is something in the fiction that I don't really know what it is. 01:15:10:15 - 01:15:26:07 Sean I've never quite been able to figure it out. But for, you know, for you, for me, for, you know, most people who would join the society, if you're weird enough to be listening to this show. Right. You know, for a lot of people, it happens when they're around 13 or 14 and they read one of these. 01:15:26:07 - 01:15:32:01 Andrew Which is when it happened for Lovecraft reading Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was the target audience for that fiction. 01:15:32:05 - 01:15:50:16 Sean We had a kid from Thailand in the store this morning and which, by the way, that doesn't happen very often, but she and she was 13 or 14 and had just started reading Lovecraft adapted, you know, given her to check this out and the hook was set and she wanted read more and you know, where do I go next? 01:15:50:16 - 01:16:08:05 Sean And oh, there's radio plays, Oh, there's movies, there's, you know, I want more. Yeah. And there is some something in there that is. And again, it's not for everybody. And lots of people read it and you know, me and my thing and but there, you know, there is something that tends to hook people. 01:16:08:05 - 01:16:19:13 Andrew So When we started doing this show, I was worried that reading these letters would I didn't know whether reading these letters would make me like Lovecraft more or less. I seem to recall. 01:16:19:13 - 01:16:20:08 Sean Yeah. 01:16:21:03 - 01:16:28:22 Andrew Would you say now that we are putting it to bed for a while, You like it? More or less. Hmm. 01:16:28:22 - 01:17:03:00 Sean I think. Yeah, that's a hard question. I guess I would say how much I like him is perhaps not changed. How offensive I find some of his opinions are way more than you know. He said things in some of the letters that have gone me, you know, I'm sorry. Yeah. They're they're really hard to reconcile for me. You know, I don't know if that's made me like him less, but I certainly can go. 01:17:03:11 - 01:17:31:00 Sean Wow, You were your worldview was, you know, evolved in such a way that you could cling on to and believe some stuff that's so deeply without merit. And it gets back to this notion of the the the man of science. I guess that's one of the things that's really frustrating about it to to me is that. 01:17:31:23 - 01:17:32:23 Andrew He should have known better. 01:17:32:23 - 01:18:04:10 Sean He should have known better. He could have known better. And it so when you you know, you've studied his whole life and look at the whole journey and it so feels like such a simple scapegoating, you know, and just blaming the other and blaming the not like me for for problems that are much bigger and more complicated. It is still with the Great Depression, but it's not the horrid Italian immigrants across town that are causing the Great Depression. 01:18:04:10 - 01:18:39:09 Sean You know, their guess what to do. They're just like you just trying to get by. Yeah, you know, But for him, it's like if people weren't of his ancestral stock, they just never had the same value as human beings. And and don't know how a man of of hurt from I guess by clinging to really dodgy anthropologist I guess that's how you justify it because if you don't do that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 01:18:39:09 - 01:18:42:00 Sean But how about you? Do you, do you like him more? Do you like him less? 01:18:42:08 - 01:19:13:08 Andrew I don't like him less like you. I'm not sure that I necessarily like him more. I certainly have come to respect and admire him in many ways. You know, like you, I have found some of his opinions just jaw droppingly appalling. But at the same time, I admire the fact that he remained true to himself, that he never sacrificed his ambitions and his principles just in order to make a buck. 01:19:13:08 - 01:19:13:17 Andrew Yeah. 01:19:14:04 - 01:19:15:17 Sean You know, Edgar Rice Burroughs like. 01:19:15:17 - 01:19:40:05 Andrew No Edgar Rice Burroughs thing for him? No, he you know, he stuck to those guns even when it meant eating cold beans from a can that had been on the shelf for four years or whatever. That's what he did, rather than rather, write a story with a scene that he knew Margaret Brundage would illustrate and get him a cover, he wouldn't do it. 01:19:40:14 - 01:19:45:15 Andrew So, you know, there are as much I can lament some stuff. 01:19:45:23 - 01:19:47:08 Sean Yeah, he's a person of conviction. 01:19:47:17 - 01:19:56:24 Andrew And he's, you know, he's a complicated human being and a really smart one. And I'm certainly glad I've gotten to know him better over the course of doing the show. 01:19:56:24 - 01:20:29:07 Sean Yeah, it's kind of very empowering to have a deeper, more nuanced understanding of it. Yeah. And I, you know, I often see all kinds of stuff, you know, posted online by B and online is an interesting space because some people are some people are very well informed and very well researched. And, you know, no, you know more than I do about, you know, lots of things and lots of people, you know, are ill informed and don't know much and come roaring out with regressive opinions that aren't actually based in facts. 01:20:29:07 - 01:20:48:17 Sean And it's nice to have an ever deeper pool of facts. So at least if I make an assertion, I know why I'm making that assertion. It's not a feeling I get from the story, but it's, Oh, I remember when he wrote that thing that James F Martin, he talked about X, Y, or Z. Oh, I remember, you know, of Clarke, actually. 01:20:49:14 - 01:21:14:03 Sean So so that relative to the job that you and I do, yeah. It, it is empowering and useful and, and it's, it's been fun. You know this is also not a show for the casual Lovecraft fan you know so the people who are actually listening to this you know probably also find a lot of the things we're talking about here interesting I think because they're similarly steeped and. 01:21:14:03 - 01:21:22:23 Andrew I know for a fact any number of them know more about Lovecraft than you or I do. Yeah. You know, and I apologize to those people who must think I'm a blithering idiot. 01:21:23:22 - 01:21:37:21 Sean Me too. Me too. The blue, the brothers, the Leather Brothers. Well, should we. Should we say farewell and let these people get on their way? Yes. All right. Well, our thanks to go out today. I want to start with Howard Phillips Lovecraft. 01:21:38:01 - 01:21:43:17 Andrew Yes. Amen, Brother Howard. Philip Lovecraft. 01:21:43:17 - 01:21:46:13 Sean Oh, we're keeping that. Oh, we're not keeping that. 01:21:46:15 - 01:22:01:14 Andrew Oh, yes. Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Thank you. And also Edgar Rice Burroughs and August Derleth and the editors of the All Story weekly and Satrap foreign a basis and absolutely. 01:22:02:10 - 01:22:11:09 Sean You know, time and time again if you've listened to Derek Hussey over at Hippocampus Press, ST Joshi, Donovan Loucks. 01:22:11:19 - 01:22:13:05 Andrew I'd like to thank Bobby Deary. 01:22:13:08 - 01:22:14:18 Sean Yeah, Bobby's great, great one. 01:22:14:18 - 01:22:32:13 Andrew Of these letters, Lovecraft says. I just got a new snapshot of Robert E Howard in which he's grown a drooping mustache, and I had never seen a picture of Lovecraft of Robert de Howard with a mustache. And I wrote to and I looked online, couldn't find one. So I wrote to Bobby because he's you know, he's a Howard expert and a Lovecraft expert. 01:22:32:17 - 01:22:52:10 Andrew And within seconds he said, Oh, yeah, here it is. So I'll put that picture on the web page for the site because it's the it is apparently the only photo ever taken Robert de Howard with a mustache. So thanks, Bobby, and thanks, Donovan, and thanks, Dan Pratt. And thanks to all the people who have stepped in and saved us from our shameful ignorance. 01:22:53:13 - 01:23:13:14 Sean I think this Steve, you guys, for listening to this. This has been an interesting experiment to even see if there was an audience for this and it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without knowing that people in like 65 countries or something have listened to this show and everything's cool everywhere, crazy. So wow. So if you enjoyed today's episode, we'd still be glad to hear from you. 01:23:13:14 - 01:23:18:18 Sean Our Email will still work, so drop us a line over at voluminous@hplhs.org 01:23:18:21 - 01:23:31:22 Andrew And although we're not going to produce more episodes for the foreseeable future, all 82 will still be available at the voluminous web site. So tell your friends. Post a review or a rating. Send them a good old fashioned letter. 01:23:32:15 - 01:23:35:10 Sean I'm your obedient servant Sean Branney. 01:23:35:10 - 01:23:38:13 Andrew And I'm cordially and respectfully yours. Andrew Leman. 01:23:38:22 - 01:23:42:16 Sean For years now you've been listening to voluminous the letters of H.P.Lovecraft 01:23:42:16 - 01:23:49:24 Andrew brought to you by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Come check out all we have to offer. And there's a lot of it there. 01:23:50:00 - 01:23:50:08 Sean Sure. 01:23:50:13 - 01:25:16:23 Andrew At HPLHS.org