One idea Lovecraft put forward to encourage amateur activity was the issuing of co-operative papers—papers in which a number of individuals would pool their resources, both financial and literary. He attempted to teach by example by participating in such a journal, The United Co-operative, which published three issues: December 1918, June 1919, and April 1921. Lovecraft had contributions in each issue. Winifred Jackson—with whom Lovecraft had earlier collaborated on two mediocre short stories, ‘The Green Meadow’ and ‘The Crawling Chaos’—was also one of the cooperative editors.
When Lovecraft’s term as President expired in the summer of 1918, he was appointed to his old job of Chairman of the Department of Public Criticism by the new president, Rheinhart Kleiner. For the 1919–20 term Lovecraft held no office. In the summer of 1920, however, he was elected Official Editor, serving for four of the next five years. He was now in still greater control of the editorial content of the United Amateur, and he made the most of it, opening its pages to literary matter by many of his colleagues old and new. Moreover, he wrote editorials for nearly every issue and was also in charge of writing ‘News Notes’ recounting comings and goings of various amateurs, including himself.
The rumblings of discontent from some members became more emphatic around this time. By November 1920 he was having to respond to accusations of ‘excessive centralisation of authority’ (‘Editorial’, United Amateur, November 1920). It is true that for the period 1917-22 a relatively small number of people held office in the UAPA; but it seems as if a certain apathy had set in amongst UAPA members whereby they were content to have these individuals continue holding office year in and year out. Individual papers were declining, and Lovecraft’s own Conservative, because of his other official involvements, appeared only annually in 1918 and 1919, and then ceased altogether until 1923.
But there is also evidence that Lovecraft himself, if not his colleagues, was beginning to conduct himself in a sort of fascistic way. Perhaps irritated at the slowness of the progress in literary development on the part of most members, he increasingly called for improvement by main force. In a lecture entitled ‘Amateur Journalism: Its Possible Needs and Betterment’ (delivered at an amateur convention in Boston on 5 September 1920), he proposes establishing ‘some centralised authority capable of exerting a kindly, reliable, and more or less invisible guidance in matters aesthetic and artistic’. Lovecraft anticipates the objections of ‘any idealistic and ultra-conscientious person’ who might object to the plan’s ‘possible oligarchical tendencies’ by pointing to the fact that all great periods in literature—Periclean Athens, Augustan Rome, eighteenth-century England—were led by ‘dominant coteries’. It is evident that Lovecraft has simply reached the limit of his patience with sporting pages, bad poetry, and unhelpful official criticism. It is needless to say that the plan was never adopted.
Lovecraft must, however, have been taken aback when the October 1921 Woodbee contained an attack upon him by Leo Fritter, a long-time UAPA member whom Lovecraft himself had supported for president in 1915. Fritter had cited a ‘wide-spreading dissatisfaction’ with Lovecraft’s editorial policy in the United Amateur and went on to accuse Lovecraft of trying to force the members into a mould he had arbitrarily cast according to his own ideas. Lovecraft attempted to counter that he himself had received ‘numerous and enthusiastic assurances of an opposite nature’ (‘Editorial’, United Amateur, September 1921). When Lovecraft concluded that ‘The question is one which should ultimately be decided at the polls’, he spoke better than he knew, as we shall see presently.
This period, however, saw Lovecraft evolving socially from an extreme misfit to one who, while by no means gregarious, could take his place in the society of congenial individuals. This transformation, as successive waves of friends—most of them amateurs —came to visit him or as he actually ventured forth on brief excursions, is heart-warming to see.
Two visits by amateurs occurring in 1917 are instructive by their very contrast. In mid-September 1917 W. Paul Cook, who had only recently become acquainted with Lovecraft, paid him a call in Providence. Cook tells the story piquantly:
The first time I met Howard I came very near not meeting him … I was bound from New York to Boston, and broke my trip in Providence purposely to see Lovecraft. I was traveling by train, which enabled me to announce in advance the time of my arrival and with a variation of only a few minutes. Arriving at the address on Angell street which later was to be the best known street address in Amateur journalism, I was met at the door by Howard’s mother and aunt. Howard had been up all night studying and writing, had just now gone to bed, and must under no circumstances be disturbed. If I would go to the Crown hotel, register, get a room and wait, they would telephone when, and if, Howard woke up. This was one of the occasions in my life when I have blessed the gods for giving me a sense of humor, however perverted. It was essential that I be in Boston early that evening, which allowed me about three hours in Providence, but there was a train leaving in half an hour which I could catch if I kept moving. I had a life-like picture of myself hanging around Providence until His Majesty was ready to receive me! In later years Mrs. Clark and I laughed more than once in recalling the incident. I was part way to the sidewalk and the door was almost latched when Howard appeared in dressing gown and slippers. Wasn’t that W. Paul Cook and didn’t they understand that he was to see me immediately on my arrival? I was almost forcibly ushered by the guardians of the gate and into Howard’s study.9
Cook’s account of the three hours spent with Lovecraft—they mostly talked amateur journalism, naturally enough—is unremarkable save in one detail I shall consider later. Lovecraft’s account of the meeting is recorded in a letter to Rheinhart Kleiner:
Just a week ago I enjoyed the honour of a personal call from Mr. W. Paul Cook … I was rather surprised at his appearance, for he is rather more rustic & carelessly groomed than I had expected of a man of his celebrity to be. In fact, his antique derby hat, unpressed garments, frayed cravat, yellowish collar, ill-brushed hair, & none too immaculate hands made me think of my old friend Sam Johnson … But Cook’s conversation makes up for whatever outward deficiencies he may possess.10
Before examining these accounts, let us now turn to Rheinhart Kleiner’s meeting with Lovecraft, which also occurred some time in 1917—presumably after Cook’s visit. Kleiner tells the story as follows: ‘I was greeted at the door of 598 Angell Street by his mother, who was a woman just a little below medium height, with graying hair, and eyes which seemed to be the chief point of resemblance between herself and her son. She was very cordial and even vivacious, and in another moment had ushered me into Lovecraft’s room.’11
Why the very different responses by his mother to Cook and Kleiner? I believe that the overriding factor is social snobbery. Cook’s unkempt appearance could not have sat well with either Susie or Lillian, and they were manifestly going to make it as difficult as possible for Cook to pass through their door. Lovecraft confesses in a candid moment that ‘Of amateurdom in general her [Susie’s] opinion was not high, for she had a certain aesthetic hypersensitiveness which made its crudenesses very obvious and very annoying to her’.12 Elsewhere he goes on to admit that Lillian also did not care for amateurdom—’an institution whose extreme democracy and occasional heterogeneity have at times made it necessary for me to apologise for it’.13 If these were the reasons why Lillian did not like amateurdom, then it is very clear that social considerations weighed heavily in her mind: ‘democracy and occasional heterogeneity’ can scarcely stand for anything but the fact that people of all classes and educational backgrounds were involved in the amateur movement. Kleiner, a polished and debonair Brooklynite, was cordially received because his social standing was, in Susie’s eyes, at least equal to Lovecraft’s.