Lovecraft, having by 1927 already published nearly a score of tales in Weird Tales, and finding that amateur work was at a virtual end with the demise of the UAPA, now began gathering colleagues specifically devoted to weird fiction. The last decade of his life would see him become a friend, correspondent, and mentor of more than a dozen writers who would follow in his footsteps and become well known in the fields of weird, mystery, and science fiction.
August Derleth (1909–71) wrote to Lovecraft through Weird Tales, and the latter replied in August 1926. From that time on, the two men kept up a very steady correspondence—usually once a week—for the next ten and a half years. Derleth had just finished high school in Sauk City, Wisconsin, and in the fall of 1926 would begin attendance at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. As a fiction writer he would reveal astounding range and precocity. Although his first story in Weird Tales dates to his eighteenth year, his weird tales—whether written by himself or in collaboration with the young Mark Schorer—would be in many ways the least interesting aspect of his work; they are conventional, relatively unoriginal, and largely undistinguished, and he readily admitted to Lovecraft that they were written merely to supply cash for his more serious work. That serious work—for which Derleth would eventually gain considerable renown, and which today remains the most significant branch of his output—is a series of regional sagas drawing upon his native Wisconsin and written in a poignant, Proustian, reminiscent vein whose simple elegance allows for evocative character portrayal. The first of these works to be published was Place of Hawks (1935), although Derleth was working as early as 1929 on a novel he initially titled The Early Years, which was finally published in 1941 as Evening in Spring. Those who fail to read these two works, along with their many successors in Derleth’s long and fertile career, will have no conception why Lovecraft, as early as 1930, wrote with such enthusiasm about his younger colleague and disciple.
Donald Wandrei (1908–87) got in touch with Lovecraft through Clark Ashton Smith in late 1926, shortly after he had entered the University of Minnesota. Smith was the first writer to whom Wandrei was devoted, and in many ways he remained Wandrei’s model in both fiction and poetry. Wandrei was initially attracted to poetry, but he was also experimenting with prose fiction. Some of this early work is quite striking, especially ‘The Red Brain’ (Weird Tales, October 1927). It, along with several other works such as the celebrated ‘Colossus’ (Astounding Stories, January 1934), reveals a staggeringly cosmic imagination second only to Lovecraft’s in intensity. Like Derleth, who spent nearly the whole of his life in and around Sauk City, Wisconsin, Wandrei lived almost his entire life in his family home in St Paul, Minnesota, save for various periods in New York in the 1920s and 1930s; but unlike the cheerful Derleth, Wandrei had a brooding and misanthropic streak that often intrigued Lovecraft and may perhaps have helped to shape his own later philosophical views.
I wish I knew more about Bernard Austin Dwyer (1897–1943), but as he published relatively little and was more an appreciator than a creator, he remains a nebulous figure. He lived nearly the whole of his life in and around the tiny village of West Shokan, in upstate New York, near the towns of Hurley, New Paltz, and Kingston. Although attracted to weird fiction and the author of a short poem published in Weird Tales (‘Ol’ Black Sarah’ in the October 1928 issue), his chief interest was weird art; and in this capacity he naturally became fast friends with Clark Ashton Smith. One gains the impression that Dwyer was a kind of mute, inglorious Milton. He came in touch with Lovecraft through Weird Tales in the early part of 1927. In the summer of 1927 Lovecraft both played host to a succession of visitors to Providence and undertook several journeys of his own—something that would become a habit every spring and summer, as he roamed increasingly widely in quest of antiquarian oases. First on the agenda was his new friend Donald Wandrei, who undertook a trip from St Paul, Minnesota, to Providence entirely by hitchhiking. One would like to think that such an expedition was a little safer then than it would be now, and perhaps it was; Wandrei seemed to have no difficulty getting rides, even though on occasion he had to spend nights under the open sky, sometimes in the rain.
Arriving on 20 June in Chicago, where he confirmed all Lovecraft’s impressions of the place, Wandrei went to the Weird Tales office and met Farnsworth Wright. Lovecraft himself had spoken to Wright about Wandrei’s work early in the year, and perhaps as a result Wandrei’s ‘The Red Brain’—rejected a year earlier—was accepted in March. Wandrei felt the need to return the favour, so he spoke to Wright about ‘The Call of Cthulhu’. Accordingly, Wright asked Lovecraft to resubmit the tale and accepted it for $165.00; it appeared in the February 1928 issue. This did not, of course, prevent Wright from rejecting ‘The Strange High House in the Mist’ and ‘The Silver Key’ later in the summer; but in both cases he asked to see them again, and ultimately accepted them for $70.00 and $55.00, respectively.
On 12 July Wandrei arrived in Providence, staying till the 29th. On the 16th Lovecraft and Wandrei set out for Boston; but the excursion was somewhat of a disappointment. Lovecraft was especially keen on showing Wandrei the sinister, decaying North End where ‘Pickman’s Model’ was set, but was mortified to find that ‘the actual alley & house of the tale [had been] utterly demolished; a whole crooked line of buildings having been torn down’.13 This remark is of interest in indicating that Lovecraft had an actual house in mind for Pickman’s North End studio.
On Tuesday, 19 July, Frank Long and his parents drove up from New York City, while simultaneously James F. Morton came down from Green Acre, Maine, where he had been visiting. On the 21st the entire crew went to Newport. The Longs left on the 22nd, whereupon Morton dragged Lovecraft and Wandrei to the rock quarry on which Lovecraft still held the mortgage, and for which he was still receiving his pittance of a payment ($37.08) every six months. The owner, Mariano de Magistris, set his men to hunting up specimens, while his son drove them home in his car. ‘That’s what I call real Latin courtesy!’ Lovecraft remarked in a rare show of tolerance for non-Aryans.14
On Saturday the 23rd occurred an historic pilgrimage—to Julia A. Maxfield’s in Warren, where Lovecraft, Morton, and Wandrei staged an ice-cream-eating contest. Maxfield’s advertised twentyeight flavours of ice cream, and the contestants sampled them all. Wandrei could not quite keep up with the others, but he at least managed to dip his spoon into the remaining flavours so that he could say he had tasted them all.
That afternoon a contingent from Athol, Massachusetts, arrived —W. Paul Cook and his protégé, H. Warner Munn (1903–81). Lovecraft had no doubt heard something of Munn before. Munn’s ‘The Werewolf of Ponkert’ (Weird Tales, July 1925) was apparently inspired by a comment in Lovecraft’s letter to Edwin Baird published in the March 1924 issue. He contributed extensively to the pulps and over his long career wrote many supernatural and adventure novels; but perhaps his most distinguished works were historical novels written late in his career, notably Merlin’s Ring (1974) and The Lost Legion (1980). Lovecraft took to Munn readily, finding him ‘a splendid young chap—blond and burly’;15 he would visit him frequently when passing through Athol.