The principal immediate benefit of the Argosy experience was, of course, his discovery of—or, rather, by—the world of amateur journalism. Edward F. Daas, then Official Editor of the United Amateur Press Association, noticed the poetic battle between Lovecraft and Russell and invited both to join the organization. Both did so, Lovecraft officially enrolling on 6 April 1914. In a few years he would be transformed both as a writer and as a human being.
CHAPTER SIX
A Renewed Will to Live (1914–17)
The world of amateur journalism which Lovecraft entered in April 1914 with wide-eyed curiosity was a peculiar if rather fascinating institution. The papers produced by the members exhibited the widest possible range in content, format, style, and quality; in general they were quite inferior to the ‘little magazines’ of their day but considerably superior (both in typography and in actual literary content) to the science fiction and fantasy ‘fanzines’ of a later period, although few were so focused on a single topic as the fanzines were. Amateur journalism as a formal institution began around 1866, with a short-lived society being formed by the publisher Charles Scribner and others around 1869. This society collapsed in 1874, but in 1876 the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) definitively took form; it continues to exist today. In 1895 the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA) was formed by William H. Greenfield (at that time only fourteen years old) and others who (as Lovecraft believed) wished for an organization more devoted to serious intellectual endeavour; it was this branch that Lovecraft joined. There still exists an alumni association of amateur journalists, The Fossils, who continue to issue a paper, The Fossil, on an irregular basis.
It is a sad fact that no one aside from Lovecraft himself has ever emerged from amateurdom to general literary recognition. This is not to say that others do not deserve to do so: the poetry of Samuel Loveman and Rheinhart Kleiner, the fiction of Edith Miniter (much of it professionally published), and the critical work of Ernest A. Edkins, James F. Morton, and Edward H. Cole need fear no comparison with their analogues in the standard literature of the day. It is, unfortunately, unlikely that much of this work will ever be revived or even taken note of except in connection with Lovecraft himself.
It was not required that amateur journalists produce their own journals. Indeed, no more than a fraction of the members ever did so, and some of these papers were extremely irregular. In most cases members would send contributions directly to editors of existing amateur journals or to two ‘Manuscript Bureaus’, one for the eastern part of the country, one for the western part; the managers of these bureaus would then dole out the manuscripts to journals in need of material. Individuals with printing apparatus were greatly in demand; indeed, NAPA was originally an organization not for disinterested littérateurs to excel in the art of self-expression but for youthful printers to practise the art of typography.
The literature produced by members varied widely in both content and quality: poetry, essays, fiction, reviews, news items, polemics, and every other form of writing that can fit into a small compass. If it is generally true that most of this material is the work of tyros—’amateurs’ in the pejorative sense—then it means only that amateur journalism was performing a sound if humble function as a proving-ground for writers. Some amateurs did in fact go on to publish professionally. And yet, Lovecraft was all too correct when, late in life, he summed up the general qualitative level of amateur work: ‘God, what crap!’1
Each association held an annual convention—NAPA in early July, UAPA in late July—at which the officers for the next official year were elected. The chief offices were President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Official Editor. Other offices—including the Department of Public Criticism—were filled by appointments by the President. With this elaborate hierarchy, it was no surprise that some members became only interested in attaining eminence in the organization by holding office, and that intensely bitter, personal, and vituperative election campaigns were held to ensure the victory of a given individual or faction. All this becomes particularly absurd when we realize how few individuals were involved in amateurdom at any given time. The November 1918 United Amateur lists only 247 active members; the November 1917 National Amateur lists 227 (many individuals belonged to both associations).
Amateur journalism was exactly the right thing for Lovecraft at this critical juncture in his life. For the next ten years he devoted himself with unflagging energy to the amateur cause, and for the rest of his life he maintained some contact with it. For someone so unworldly, so sequestered, and so diffident about his own abilities, the tiny world of amateur journalism was a place where he could shine. Lovecraft realised the beneficial effects of amateurdom when he wrote in 1921:
Amateur Journalism has provided me with the very world in which I live. Of a nervous and reserved temperament, and cursed with an aspiration which far exceeds my endowments, I am a typical misfit in the larger world of endeavour, and singularly unable to derive enjoyment from ordinary miscellaneous activities. In 1914, when the kindly hand of amateurdom was first extended to me, I was as close to the state of vegetation as any animal well can be … With the advent of the United I obtained a renewed will to live; a renewed sense of existence as other than a superfluous weight; and found a sphere in which I could feel that my efforts were not wholly futile. For the first time I could imagine that my clumsy gropings after art were a little more than faint cries lost in the unlistening void. (‘What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other’)
To this analysis there is really very little to add, although a modicum of detail is necessary to flesh out the picture and to pinpoint exactly how this transformation occurred. As for what Lovecraft did for amateurdom, that too is a long story, and one worth studying carefully.
In 1914, when Lovecraft entered amateur journalism, he found two schisms that were creating much bad blood and using up valuable energy. The first was, of course, the split between the National and United Amateur Press Associations, which had occurred when the latter was founded in 1895. Some members did indeed belong to both associations; Lovecraft, although labelling himself repeatedly and ostentatiously a loyal ‘United man’, joined the National himself as early as 1917, and would later serve as interim president.
The other split was one within the United itself. Lovecraft addresses this matter in two essays, ‘The Pseudo-United’ (United Amateur, May 1920) and ‘A Matter of Uniteds’ (Bacon’s Essays, summer 1927). In 1912 occurred a hotly contested election at the UAPA convention in La Grande, Oregon; the result was that both of the two candidates for president, Helene E. Hoffman and Harry Shepherd, declared themselves the winner. In his various remarks Lovecraft never makes it clear that it was the Hoffman faction that refused to accept the verdict of the UAPA directors (who confirmed the election of Shepherd) and withdrew. Indeed, if all one knows of the controversy comes from Lovecraft, one would think it was the Shepherd group that was the rebel organization; but in fact the amateur world to this day regards the Hoffman group as the rebels and the discontents, even though many acknowledge their literary and numerical superiority.