The vindictive scoundrel in “In the Vault” whose corpse was mutilated by George Birch in order to make it fit a coffin originally intended for a shorter man and who exacts vengeance on Birch even in death.
Sawyer, Earl.
In “The Dunwich Horror,” a neighbor of the Whateleys who, when selling cattle to that family, detects a horrible stench in their abandoned toolhouse. Later he tends Wilbur Whateley’s cattle while Wilbur is visiting the
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library of Miskatonic University, and still later he is among the party that exterminates Wilbur’s twin brother. His “common-law wife” is Mamie Bishop. His relationship to Sally Sawyer, housekeeper of Seth Bishop’s farm, and her son Chauncey is unspecified.
Schmidt,———.
In “The Temple,” a seaman on the German submarine U-29 who becomes violently insane and is executed by the commander, Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein.
Schwartz, Julius (b. 1915),
American agent and editor. As editor of Fantasy Magazine,Schwartz commissioned HPL (along with C.L.Moore, A.Merritt, Robert E.Howard, and Frank Belknap Long) to write the weird version of “The Challenge from Beyond” for the September 1935 issue (also a science fiction version with other writers). He later became an agent. At a party in New York, probably in the fall of 1935, HPL agreed to let Schwartz market his material; Schwartz sold At the Mountains of Madnessto Astoundingfor $350 (less 10% commission). In late 1936 he contemplated marketing HPL’s tales in England, but if he did so he was unsuccessful. He became an important figure in the comic industry in the 1950s. Schwartz has now published his memoirs, Man of Two Worlds(2000).
See Will Murray, “Julius Schwartz on Lovecraft” (interview), CryptNo. 76 (Hallowmas 1990): 14–18. Scientific Gazette, The.
Juvenile periodical written by HPL, 1899–1909. Copies at JHL.
The hectographed paper was HPL’s first venture in scientific writing, initially inspired by his interest in chemistry beginning in 1898 but later expanding to cover a wider range of scientific topics. Thirtytwo issues survive: 1, No. 1 (March 4, 1899); New Issue 1, No. 1 (May 12, 1902); 3, No. 1 (August 16, 1903); 3, No. 2 (August 23, 1903); 3, No. 3 (August 30, 1903); 3, No. 4 (September 6, 1903); 3, No. 5 (September 13, 1903); 3, No. 6 (September 30, 1903); 3, Odd Number 1 (September 22, 1903); 3, Odd Number 2 (September 23, 1903); 3, No. 10 [sic] (September 27, 1903); 3, No. 11 [sic] (October 4, 1903); 3, No. 11 [sic] odd (October 8, 1903); 3, No. 9 (October 11, 1903); 3, No. 10 (October 18, 1903); 3, No. 4 odd (October 20, 1903); 3, No. 11 (October 25, 1903); 3, No. 12 (November 1, 1903); 3, No. 13 (November 8, 1903); 3, No. 14 (November 15, 1903); 3, No. 15 (November 22, 1903); 3, No. 16 (November 29, 1903); 3, No. 17 (December 6, 1903); 3, No. 18 (December 13, 1903); 3, No. 19 (December 20, 1903); 3, No. 20 (December 27, 1903); 3, No. 21 (January 3, 1904); 3, No. 22 (January 10, 1904); 3, No. 23 (January 17, 1904); 3, No. 24 (January 24, 1904); 3, No. 25 (January 31, 1904); 10, No. 11 (January 1909).
The first issue consists of two sentences: “There was a great explosion in the Providence Laboratory this afternoon. While experimenting some potassium blew up causing great damage to everyone.” HPL notes that at this time the magazine was a daily but that it “soon degenerated into a weekly” ( SL1.37). We are clearly missing any subsequent issues of Volume 1 and all issues of Volume 2. There may not have been very many of these, as HPL notes in the issue of May 12, 1902: “The Scientific Gazette, so long discontinued, has been re
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sumed.” The price is now raised from 1¢ to 2¢. HPL states ( Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy,July 30, 1905) that the paper was revived in May 1904 as a monthly, but no issues survive; the September 16, 1905, issue of the Rhode Island Journal of Astronomyannounces that the Scientific Gazetteis now discontinued. In the September 1906 issue of the Rhode Island JournalHPL states that his boyhood friend Arthur Fredlund had taken over as editor of the Scientific Gazette,but no issues produced under Fredlund’s editorship are extant. HPL’s fleeting revival of his juvenile paper when he was eighteen years old (and some months after he withdrew from high school without a diploma because of a nervous breakdown) is a poignant indication of the sense of hopelessness he felt at this setback to his intellectual and emotional maturation.
Searight, Richard F[ranklyn] (1902–1975).
Pulp writer from Michigan and correspondent of HPL. With Norman E.Hammerstrom, Searight wrote “The Brain in the Jar” ( WT,November 1924), but it was not until the 1930s that he decided to resume the writing of weird and science fiction. At the suggestion of WT editor Farnsworth Wright, whom he visited in the summer of 1933, Searight wrote to HPL asking about the possibility of revising some of his tales. HPL declined, feeling that the “occasional shortcomings” of Searight’s tales “are matters of subject-matter rather than of technique” (letter to Searight, August 31, 1933), but he continued to advise Searight in literary matters. In early 1934 Searight wrote “The Sealed Casket” ( WT,March 1935), for which he created the Eltdown Shards, which HPL cited in “The Shadow out of Time” and “The Challenge from Beyond.” HPL had no hand in revising the tale, and he altered only one word of the epigraph (purporting to be from the Eltdown Shards) that was intended to preface the story but was not published in the WTversion. (HPL quoted the epigraph in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith [c. March 1935; SL5.112], leading some to believe that he wrote it.) Searight published a few pieces in Wonder Storiesand other pulps but never succeeded in making a full-time career of writing. His historical novel Wild Empire,written in the late 1930s and early 1940s, was published in 1994. Necronomicon Press has issued two collections of his tales: The Brain in the Jar and Others(1992) and The Sealed Casket and Others(1996). HPL’s Letters to Richard F.Searight also appeared in 1992 from Necronomicon Press. All three volumes have sensitive and informative introductions by Searight’s son, Franklyn Searight (b. 1935).
Sechrist, Edward Lloyd (1873–1953),
beekeeper, amateur journalist residing in Washington, D.C., and occasional correspondent of HPL. Sechrist, a member of the UAPA, visited HPL in Providence in early 1924 (see SL1.292) then visited HPL in New York on November 3, 1924. He accompanied HPL during much of the latter’s trip to Washington on April 11, 1925, and met HPL again in Washington on May 6, 1929. HPL noted (letter to Lillian D.Clark, [May 6, 1929]; ms., JHL) that his poem “The Outpost” (1929) made use of the tales about Zimbabwe told to him by Sechrist, who had actually been to the ruins of the African city. Two late letters published in SL(April 15, 1936, and February 14, 1937) mistakenly addressed to “Arthur F.Sechrist” (HPL’s salutation is to “Ar-Eph-Ess” or RFS) are in fact to Richard F.Searight.
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