Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Photo by Lucius B. Truesdell, Florida, 1934.
1. Ecce Homo
In a letter from 1920, he describes himself as follows:
“(…) I should describe mine own nature as tripartite, my interests consisting of three parallel and dissociated groups– A) Love of the strange and the fantastic. B) Love of the abstract truth and scientific logick. C) Love of the ancient and the permanent. Sundry combinations of these three strains will probably account for all my odd tastes and eccentricities.”
These characteristics he described emerge in the first eight or nine years of his life. By combining these three aspects of his person, more than anything else, a central and fundamental concept for the whole Lovecraftian work comes to the surface: Time. He considered it «some especial enemy of mine», an enemy that has always been trying to defeat, confuse, and subvert. Therefore, his great passion for the Ancient will push him, in many of his stories, to move back in time. In other words, his writing recaptures a past we thought was lost.
From the earliest years of age, little Lovecraft shows that he is a child prodigy, starting to read already at the age of four. Among his most significant readings, we find Grimm’s Fairy Tales and One Thousand and One Nights, from which he will draw inspiration for future stories of crypts, tombs, caves, and deserted cities. The main influences of the early years were Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Milton’s Paradise Lost, both volumes illustrated by the late and great Gustave Doré. John Milton influenced the first phase of his literary production — specifically the poem — purely eighteenth-centurish.
The first significant event in Lovecraft’s childhood was the death of his maternal grandmother Robie, which took place in 1896. Mourning affected all family members deeply, inevitably affecting little Howard. This event had had a strong impact on his psyche, to the point of creating repeated nightmares. In fact, as an adult, in a letter of 1916 addressed to his friend Rheinhart Kleiner, Lovecraft describes how the mourning clothing of his mother and his aunts had greatly disturbed him:
“(…) I began to have nightmares of the most hideous description, people with things which I called «night-gaunts» — a compound word of my own coinage. I used to draw them after waking (perhaps the idea of these figures came from an edition deluxe of Paradise Lost with illustrations by Doré, which I discovered one day in the east parlor). In dreams they were wont to whirl me through space at a sickening rate of speed, the while fretting and impelling me with their detestable tridents. It is fully fifteen years — aye, more — since I have seen a “night-gaunt”, but even now, when half asleep and drifting vaguely along over a sea of childhood thoughts, I feel a thrill of fear … and instinctively struggle to keep awake. That was my own prayer back in ’96 — each night — to keep awake and ward off the night-gaunts!”
If it is true that it takes very little for many people to be impressed, think how much it is enough to scare a child of only six years. In this way, perhaps by fate or pure chance, Lovecraft’s fantastic and dreamlike world began: through nightmares. We often forget the importance of life’s first years for everyone. Any type of experience that an infant has, be it good or bad, soon becomes a characteristic of his person. Without psychoanalyzing Lovecraft, it is certainly important to understand how crucial the first years of life are in a person’s development process. With the recurrence of these countless nightmares, the Phillips family seriously worried about his physical and mental health. It will be a characterizing moment in the writer’s life, an emblem of his moodiness, leading him several times into situations of neurotic-depressive breakdowns.
Lovecraft is certainly an eclectic figure. As we saw earlier, he was interested in literature early. Specifically, he is passionate about poetry and eighteenth-century prose. It is possible to trace a period that covers the first thirty years of his life in which absolute classicism is in force. Unfortunately, this will lead him, especially regarding the originality of his poetic writing, to fall victim to old stylistic features. If his views on prose style were conservative and old-fashioned, they were even more so in poetry. Lovecraft knew this well; he was fully aware of the little merit that his poetry had except academic, metric, and rhythmic correctness. “Now I am perfectly aware that (…) the beauties of poetry lie (…) in the real richness of images, delicacy of imagination, and keenness of perception, which are independent of outward form or superficial brilliancy.” So he wrote in a 1914 letter addressed to his friend Maurice W. Moe. The main problem when looking at his early compositions was pure mimesis. He says, “I was, alas, a chronic and inveterate mimic”, thus letting himself be carried away by his old tendencies rather than by his purely poetic feelings, devoid of any model. In this early period of his, some particularly significant readings are Hawthorne’s A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, Thomas Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
At only six, he began to compose his first poetic works. The poem of Ulysses, or the Odyssey: written for young people, is a case in point. A remarkable capacity for synthesis, simplicity, and grammatical cleanliness emerges from these early works. Furthermore, how he presents his first work suggests his intention in wanting to pursue a career as a professional writer (look at the use of the preface, the copyright information, and the layout of the title page). However, it is good to note that his strong classicist spirit is not limited only to writing. As mentioned above, the relics that grandfather Whipple brought home from his long travels first teased him (paintings, sculptures, Roman coins). Add an innate aversion to religion — especially Christianity — mix them, and as a result, you’ll get his persona.
“When about seven or eight I was a genuine pagan, so intoxicated with the beauty of Greece that I acquired a halfsincere belief in the old gods and Nature-spirits. I have in literal truth built altars to Pan, Apollo, Diana, and Athena, and have watch for dryads and satyrs in the woods and fields at dusk. Once I firmly thought I beheld some of these sylvan creatures dancing under autumnal oaks; a kind of ‘religious experience’ as true in its way as the subjective ecstasies of any Christian. If a Christian tell me he has felt the reality of his Jesus or Jahveh, I can reply that I have seen the hoofed Pan and the sisters of the Hesperian Phaëthusa.”
To cap these first interests, he discovered theatre in the winter of 1896. The first show Lovecraft saw was Sunshine of Paradise Alley, a work by a minor American author. However, it was not until the following year, in 1897, that he discovered Shakespeare at the Providence Opera House where he saw The Cimbelino. Nonetheless, his interest in Theater will continue sporadically for the next 15–20 years.
2. A Stranger in This Century
Curiosity is an attitude inherent in human nature. We might even say that this sets us apart as human beings. This term derives from the Latin word «cura», which means «careful care». It is correct to define it as an attitude — some would say a primal instinct — more than a behavior. Who are we? Where do we come from? These are some of the universal questions that Man has always asked. The interest in what lies at the origin has prompted many scholars to research, in the most disparate scientific fields, the mysteries that lie behind human existence. As a meticulous researcher, Lovecraft immediately became interested in his past and genealogy. Here’s a short summary of his biography.
From his father’s side, he discovered very little. The Lovecraft emigrated from England during the nineteenth century. The lineage is verified up to Joseph Lovecraft (1775–1850), Howard’s great-grandfather. The paternal side brings with it strong religiosity and fervent traditionalist spirits. It is good to note that he had no family relationship in England despite his heartfelt English ancestry. Paternal grandparents, George Lovecraft (1815–1895) and Helen Allgood (1820–1881), married in 1839 had five children, two of whom died in infancy. In order of age, Emma Jane (1847–1925), Winfield Scott (1853–1898), and Mary Louise (1855–1916). Winfield married Sarah Susan (1857–1921), born Phillips, who gave birth on August 20, 1890, to Howard Phillips Lovecraft in Providence, Rhode Island.
As a declared atheist, Lovecraft found his paternal lineage “(…) lousy with clergymen but short on straight thinkers.” This situation soon led him to distance himself from the paternal stock he felt no affinity for. Here’s how he talks about it in a 1936 letter:
“No philosophers — no artists — no writers — not a cursed soul I could possibly talk to without getting a pain in the neck.”
From his mother’s side, there is much more to say. It will be the maternal lineage that marks little Howard the most. The Phillips were a typical conservative American family. Michael Phillips (1630?-1686?) of Newport, Rhode Island, is today’s oldest known descendant. Asaph Phillips (1764–1829), Michael’s great-grandson, settled in Foster — a county town of Providence — in 1788, in the center-west of the state near the border with Connecticut. Asaph married Esther Whipple (1767–1842), with whom he had eight children. The sixth, Jeremiah Phillips (1800–1848), Lovecraft’s maternal great-grandfather, married Roby Rathbun (1797–1848). Both died prematurely in 1848, leaving four children orphan, including grandpa Whipple. Will be him, Whipple Van Buren Phillips (1833–1904), Howard’s maternal grandfather, to take on the role of real father. He was a notable entrepreneur and an excellent businessman, known especially for his ambitious Owyhee Land and Irrigation Company located in Owyhee County — in south-west Idaho. This company aimed at containing, by means of a dam, the Snake River and at the same time to irrigate the nearby farms and greenhouses.
Whipple married his first cousin Robie Alzada Place (1827–1896) and settled in Foster. They had five children, including Sarah Susan, the mother of our Lovecraft. Entrepreneurial work had allowed Whipple to travel; we particularly remember the trips to Rome and Paris, the latter for the Universal Exposition of 1878. Whipple used to bring home objects of various kinds from his trips, always to whet the imagination of his nephew. They were often paintings, Roman coins, and copies of Greek sculptures. In 1870 the good deals had allowed settling the family in Providence while sell Foster’s farm. A few years later, in 1876, they moved permanently to 276 Broadway St., west of the county.
Little is known about Lovecraft’s mother. Sarah Susan Phillips was born on October 17th, 1857, on the family farm in Foster. To get a clearer idea of the type of person she was, we can rely on the only testimony of Clara Hess (dated approximately 1890), a family friend. Her words seem to anticipate future mental illnesses and physicists who hit her. Sarah Susan Phillips passed away on May 24th, 1921, at 64. She died at the Butler Hospital for the insane, where she had been confined for more than two years. The same psychiatric hospital where her husband had been imprisoned.
“She was very pretty and attractive, with a beautiful and unusually white complexion –got, it is said, by eating arsenic, although whether there was any truth to this story I do not know. She was an intensely nervous person.”
Additional news about Lovecraft’s father. On October 26th, 1853, Winfield Scott Lovecraft was born in Rochester, New York. His name came from General Winfield Scott, an important political-military figure who had visited the town of Rochester in October of the previous year. He had a private military education. From 1871 to 1873, he worked as a blacksmith for the James Cunningham & Son carriage factory. It is not known to us how Lovecraft’s parents met. As already mentioned above, there are no hallmarks of intellectual or artistic figures in the paternal lineage.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20th, 1890, at 194 Angell Street, located on the eastern side of Providence, in the Phillips house. After his birth, around 1892, the family moved to Auburndale, Massachusetts — now part of Newton, in the west corner of the Boston metropolitan area. The Guineys, including Louise, became a literary prodigy, an important family friend that had some value for the young Lovecraft. At the age of 23, she published her first collection of poems entitled Songs at the starts in 1884. Lovecraft’s memories of her father are vague. In 1893, when he was only three years old, Winfield was struck by an illness that forced him to internment at the Butler Hospital for the insane in Providence until his untimely death in 1898. The psychiatric hospital, opened in 1847, is located at the northern culmination of Blackstone Boulevard. The hospital’s medical records state that:
“For a year past he has shown obscure symptoms of mental disease –doing and saying strange things at times; has, also, grown pale and thin in flesh. He continued his business, however, until Apr. 21, when he broke down completely while stopping in Chicago. He rushed from his room shouting that
a chambermaid had insulted him, and that certain men were outraging his wife in the room above. He was extremely noisy and violent for two days, but was finally quieted by free use of the bromides, which made his removal here possible. We can get no history of specific disease.”
According to the death certificate, the cause of the death of Lovecraft’s father is general paralysis. In 1898 this term was synonymous with paralytic dementia, called Bayle’s disease (now known as neuro-syphilis). In Winfield’s case, this manifests itself in the third stage. Neuro-syphilis, which causes mental illness, affected his central nervous system. In 1898 the relationship between general paralysis and syphilis was unknown. Specifically, the third stage of this type of disease is particularly violent. Symptoms are dementia, paranoia, delusions of various kinds, hallucinations, and depression. How he had it contracted remains a mystery. Presumed through extramarital intercourse, possibly from a prostitute or partner who is not his wife. It is singular that his cousin, Joshua Elliot Lovecraft (1845–1898), also died of general paralysis a few months after Winfield. Winfield’s five years of hospitalization, from 1893 to 1898, had driven her wife to exhaustion until, in 1919, she entered the psychiatric hospital too. Surely she knew the real reason for her husband’s illness which, inevitably, had hit her strongly. Once Winfield died, the financial difficulties she and little Howard faced became too heavy until she gave her a nervous breakdown, from which she never recovered. Some speculate that Lovecraft’s parents separated once the real reason for Winfield’s illness was known. It is certainly true that Sarah Susan returned with her baby to Providence shortly after her husband’s illness appeared. Lovecraft was only two years and eight months old when they left his father at the hospital psychiatric, seven and a half years when he died. It’s possible that he was purposely kept in the dark about his father’s specific conditions by the entire Phillips family. There are no documents today that testify to any visit of Lovecraft to his father during his hospitalization. This situation inevitably led Howard to bond more closely with his maternal lineage. In particular, the two aunts, Lillian and Annie, and the grandparents, Robie and Whipple. These were the years in which the mother’s psychiatric problems began. Even little Lovecraft noticed it and, in adulthood, will describe it as a situation of complete pain. Certainly, it is questionable whether this pain could be resentment, hatred, or shame towards the husband himself.
3. Useful Bibliography
- BIRKHEAD, Edith: The tale of terror: a study of the Gothic Romance,
London, Constable & Company Ltd, 1921. - CHAPLIN, Sue: Gothic Literature, London, York Press, 2011.
- JOSHI, S.T.: I am Providence: the life and times of H.P. Lovecraft, New
York, Hippocampus Press, 2 vol., 2013. - JOSHI, S.T.: The Weird Tale, Maryland (USA), Wildside Press, 1990.
- LOVECRAFT, H.P.: Necronomicon: the best weird tales, curated by Stephen
Jones and Les Edwards, London, Gollancz, 2008. - LOVECRAFT, H.P.: Eldritch Tales: a miscellany of the macabre, curated by Stephen Jones and Les Edwards, London, Gollancz, 2011.
- LOVECRAFT, H.P.: Selected Letters, Sauk City, Arkham House, 5 vol.,
1965–2006. - PRICE, Robert M.: H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, Washington
(USA), Starmont House, 1990.
