HPL’s travels of 1929 began at the very start of the year, as Samuel Loveman came to Providence and went with HPL to Boston, Salem, and Marblehead. In April HPL came to New York and then spent several weeks in Vrest Orton’s home in Yonkers. In May he headed south, visiting Washington and exhaustively exploring Richmond, Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown, Fredericksburg, and Falmouth, Va. Later he spent a few more days in Washington, returned to New York, and was driven by the Longs to West Shokan, N.Y., the residence of Bernard Austin Dwyer. HPL explored the abundant Dutch colonial remains of the nearby towns of Kingston, Hurley, and New Paltz. HPL wrote of these travels in “Travels in the Provinces of America” (1929). In August he took a trip to the Fairbanks house (1636) in Dedham, Mass., writing of the visit in an unpublished essay, “An Account of a Trip to the Fairbanks House” (1929). Later that month the Longs took HPL on a visit to New Bedford and Cape Cod. It was on this occasion that HPL, for the first and last only time, flew in an airplane (a $3 ride over Buzzard’s Bay). Late in August HPL and his aunt Annie Gamwell revisited sites in Foster.
In late April 1930 HPL headed directly from Providence to Charleston , S.C., whose colonial remains entranced him. It came to be his second favorite town, after Providence, and he wrote of it in “An Account of Charleston” (1930). In May HPL returned north through Richmond, New York City, and Kingston, N.Y., returning home in mid-June. The next month he attended the NAPA convention in Boston, and in August the Longs took him again to Cape Cod. Then, in late August, he took a cheap excursion to Quebec, whose colonial relics impelled him to write A Description of the Town of Quebeck(1930–31), his single longest literary work.
HPL’s travels of 1931 reached the widest extent they would ever achieve. In May he left for New York, spent much time in Charleston, visited Savannah, Ga., and spent two weeks in St. Augustine, Fla. He also visited Henry S.White-head in Dunedin, briefly visited Miami, and then spent several days in Key West. He returned north via St. Augustine, Charleston, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Philadelphia, and New York. The Longs took him for a weekend to the beach resort of Asbury Park, N.J., and he spent a week with Talman
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in Brooklyn. He returned home in mid-July. In October he went with W.Paul Cook to Boston, Newburyport, and Haverhill; in November to Boston, Salem, Marblehead, Newburyport (which inspired the writing of “The Shadow over Innsmouth”), and Portsmouth. He wrote no travelogue of these visits, but they are chronicled extensively in his letters.
In May 1932 HPL left Providence for New York, then went south to Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis, Tennessee, and Vicksburg and Natchez, Mississippi. He then proceeded to New Orleans, spending time with E.Hoffmann Price. HPL subsequently explored Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., and Atlanta, returning north via Fredericksburg, Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York. He was called home abruptly in early July by the illness of his aunt Lillian, who died on July 3. In late August HPL visited Cook in Boston; they went to Newburyport to see a solar eclipse, after which HPL spent several days in Quebec. HPL revisited Salem and Marblehead in October. Toward the end of the year HPL initiated a new tradition of spending New Year’s Day in New York City, visiting his many friends there; on these occasions he usually stayed with the Longs.
HPL visited Hartford, Conn., in March 1933, seeing his ex-wife Sonia for the last time. Following his move to 66 College Street in May, HPL visited sites in Narragansett County, R.I., in a car driven by E.Hoffmann Price. The Longs came through Providence in late July and took HPL to Cape Cod, and he later visited Newport in the company of James F.Morton. HPL’s third trip to Quebec occurred in September; he also spent one day in Montreal. He again visited New York for New Year’s celebrations.
In mid-March 1934 HPL’s young friend R.H.Barlow invited HPL for an extended stay at his home in De Land, Fla. HPL accepted the offer, heading south the next month, spending time in New York and Charleston, and reaching De Land on May 2. He stayed until mid-June, after which he visited St. Augustine, Charleston, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York; the Longs then took him to Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, N.J. In August HPL went with Cook and Edward H.Cole to Boston, Salem, and Marblehead. Later that month HPL visited Nantucket for the first time, being enchanted by the antiquities there and writing of his visit in “The Unknown City in the Ocean” ( Perspective Review,Winter 1934). HPL again spent New Year’s in New York City. HPL returned to Boston and Marblehead with Cole in May 1935. The next month HPL returned to Barlow’s Florida home, staying from June 9 to August 18. HPL then visited St. Augustine, Charleston, Richmond, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, reaching home on September 14. It would prove the last of HPL’s extensive summer travels, although he did visit various sites (including Cape Cod) with Cole in September, and New Haven, Conn., and Boston (with Samuel Loveman) in October. The end of the year saw HPL’s last New Year’s visit to New York City.
Most of 1936 was full of illness (both for HPL and for his aunt Annie), poverty, and grueling revision work, so HPL did little traveling. In July HPL managed to get to Newport; and when Maurice W.Moe and his son Robert visited later that month, they took HPL to Pawtuxet and other sites in Rhode Island. HPL visited an area called Squantum Woods, on the east shore of Narragansett
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Bay, in October, and later that month visited the Neutaconkanut woods three miles northwest of his home; but thereafter he became too ill to travel.
HPL’s travel writings—whether in letters or in formal travelogues—are some of his most engaging documents. Aside from the meticulousness with which he records the history and topography of his chosen sites, the thrill he experienced at visiting antiquarian havens from Quebec to Key West is infectiously transmitted to the reader. It is possible, with HPL’s travelogues of Charleston, Quebec, and other locales in hand, to follow his footsteps exactly. On one occasion HPL wrote out a detailed itinerary from memory of the antiquarian sites in Newport for his aunt Annie (letter dated September 1927; ms., JHL). The impressions HPL derived from his travels enter extensively into his fiction from as early as “The Festival” to such important tales as “The Silver Key,” “The Colour out of Space,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Whisperer in Darkness,” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth”; these tales (as well as those set in his native Providence—“The Shunned House,” “The Call of Cthulhu,” The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,and “The Haunter of the Dark”) establish HPL as a significant New England regionalist as well as a master of the horror tale.