This remark, made around 1921, is a sufficient indication of the degree to which the discovery of astronomy affected Lovecraft’s entire world view. I shall pursue the philosophical ramifications of his astronomical studies later; here it is worth examining how he came upon the science and what immediate literary products it engendered. In the winter of 1902 Lovecraft was attending the Slater Avenue School, but his statements lead one to believe that he stumbled upon astronomy largely of his own accord. The majority of his astronomy volumes were inherited from his maternal grandmother Robie Phillips’s collection; some of these are rather old and elementary school manuals dating to the 1870s or 1880s. These books are too old to have been used at Slater Avenue or at Hope Street High School (Lovecraft did not, in any event, take astronomy courses at Hope Street, even though they were offered), and some at least must have come from Robie’s library.
As with so many of his other early interests, Lovecraft’s family was very obliging in supply the materials necessary for his pursuit of astronomy. He acquired three successive telescopes, the last being a Bardon 3-inch from Montgomery Ward, costing $50.00. He still had this telescope in 1936. His new enthusiasm led quickly to writing—in this case, to an unprecedented quantity of writing. He does not seem to have commenced astronomical writing until the late summer of 1903, but when he did, he did so with gusto.
Among the treatises Lovecraft produced around this time is ‘The Science Library’, a nine-volume series probably written in 1903 or 1904, mostly dealing with the moon and planets. He also began issuing several different periodicals, including Astronomy and The Monthly Almanack; a good many of these were reproduced using a process called the hectograph (or hektograph). This was a sheet of gelatin in a pan rendered hard by glycerine. A master page is prepared either in written form by the use of special hectograph inks or in typed form using hectograph typewriter ribbon; artwork of all sorts could also be drawn upon it. The surface of the pan would then be moistened and the master page pressed down upon it; this page would then be removed and sheets of paper would be pressed upon the gelatin surface, which had now picked up whatever writing or art had been on the master. The surface would be good for up to fifty copies, at which time the impression would begin to fade. Different colours could also be used.1 Lovecraft must have had more than one such pan, since no more than one page could be hectographed in a day, as the inks must be given time to settle to the bottom. Although the hectograph was a relatively inexpensive reproductive process, the sheer quantity of work Lovecraft was running off must have come to no small expense— inks, carbon paper, gelatin, pans, and the like. No doubt his mother and grandfather were happy to foot the bill, given the precocity and enthusiasm Lovecraft must have exhibited.
We can now finally come to the most significant of Lovecraft’s astronomical periodicals, The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy. Even Lovecraft, with his seemingly boundless energy, must have had difficulty writing his other juvenile treatises and periodicals while the weekly deadline of the Rhode Island Journal continually impended. The journal was issued first weekly, then monthly; the following issues (a total of sixty-nine) survive:
2 August 1903–31 January 1904 (Volume I)
16 April 1905–12 November 1905 (Volume III). January 1906–April 1907.
There are also two anomalously late issues, January and February 1909. Lovecraft states that the journal ‘was printed in editions of 15 to 25 on the hectograph’.2 At the moment I wish to study only the issues of 1903–04.
An average issue would contain a number of different columns, features, and charts, along with news notes, advertisements (for works by Lovecraft, for items from his collection, and for outside merchants or friends), and fillers. They make wholly entertaining reading. A number of serials ran successively over several issues.
The issue for 1 November 1903 makes an interesting announcement: ’The Ladd Observatory Visited by a Correspondent Last Night.’ The correspondent, of course, is Lovecraft. The Ladd Observatory, situated on Doyle Avenue off Hope Street, is a charming observatory operated by Brown University; the fact that a thirteenyear-old boy who was not even attending school at the time was allowed to use this facility is a testament to the degree of expertise Lovecraft had gained in astronomy, largely on his own. He states that ‘The late Prof. Upton of Brown, a friend of the family, gave me the freedom of the college observatory, (Ladd Observatory) & I came & went there at will on my bicycle’.3 Winslow Upton (1853– 1914) was a respected astronomer whose Star Atlas (1896), and probably other volumes, Lovecraft owned. One wonders whether he was a friend of Dr Franklin Chase Clark, who had married Lovecraft’s aunt Lillian in 1902.
Incredibly, while producing The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy every Sunday, issuing other occasional weekly or monthly magazines, and writing separate treatises, Lovecraft resumed his chemical journal, The Scientific Gazette. As I have mentioned, after the first issue (4 March 1899) we have no issue until 12 May 1902; after this there are no more issues for more than a year, but by the issue of 16 August 1903 Lovecraft was ready to resume this journal as a weekly, doing so quite regularly until 31 January 1904, with sundry extra issues. Counting the issues for 1899 and 1902, there are a total of thirty-two surviving numbers. No doubt this was printed on the hectograph like the Rhode Island Journal (the very earliest issues, of 1899 and following, were printed in an ‘edition’ of ‘one copy for family circulation’4). The journal strayed from its chemical focus pretty early on in the 1903 sequence, discussing such matters as Venus’s rotation, how to construct a camera obscura, perpetual motion, telescopes (a series taken over from the Rhode Island Journal and later to return there), microscopy, and the like.
These scientific interests also manifested themselves in fictional composition. Lovecraft admits to being a ‘Verne enthusiast’ and that ‘many of my tales showed the literary influence of the immortal Jules’. He goes on to say: ‘I wrote one story about that side of the moon which is forever turned away from us—using, for fictional purposes, the Hansen theory that air and water still exist there as the result of an abnormal centre of gravity in the moon.’5 This would presumably qualify, if it survived, as Lovecraft’s first authentic tale of science fiction.
I have mentioned that Lovecraft was writing most of these scientific treatises and journals while not in school. He attended the Slater Avenue school in 1898–99, but was then withdrawn; he resumed schooling there for the 1902–03 school year, and was withdrawn again. He adds that ‘In 1903–04 I had private tutors’.6 We know of one such tutor, A. P. May, although Lovecraft did not have a very high opinion of him. There is an unwontedly sarcastic ad for this person in the 3 January 1904 issue of the Rhode Island Journal, proclaiming May as a ‘10th rate Private Tutor’ who is offering ‘Low Grade Instruction at High Rates’; the ad concludes: ‘HIRE ME. I CAN’T DO THE WORK BUT I NEED THE MONEY.’ Perhaps May was teaching Lovecraft things he already knew. In any case, it is not surprising that the flood of scientific periodicals began during the summer of 1903, when he probably had much time to himself.