See Studies in Weird FictionNo. 3 (Fall 1988) (special Wandrei issue, with articles by Dennis Rickard, S.T.Joshi, Marc A.Michaud, Steve Behrends, and T.E.D.Klein); Richard L.Tierney, “Introduction” to Wandrei’s Colossus(1989); D.H.Olson, “Afterword: Of Donald Wandrei, August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft,” in Wandrei’s Don’t Dream(1997).
Wandrei, Howard [Elmer] (1909–1956),
artist and late associate of HPL (1933–37). Howard, Donald Wandrei’s younger brother, had a turbulent youth, being arrested for burglary at the age of eighteen and spending three years in a reformatory. By this time, however, he had developed into a brilliant and distinctive pictorial artist, chiefly in pen-and-ink work. He illustrated Donald’s book of poetry, Dark Odyssey(1931), and then did some illustrations for the weird and science fiction pulps. He also took to writing, publishing numerous detective, horror, and science fiction tales in the pulp magazines. HPL met Wandrei for the first time in New York on December 27, 1933, and they corresponded sporadically thereafter. HPL had a high regard for Wandrei’s artwork (“he certainly has a vastly greater talent than anyone else in the gang. I was astonished at [the paintings’] sheer genius & maturity”: HPL to Annie E.P.Gamwell, [December 28, 1933; ms., JHL]); later, when he read some of Wandrei’s stories, he was also impressed (“I’m hang’d if I don’t think the kid is, all apart
< previous page page_290 next page > < previous page page_291 next page >
Page 291
from his pictorial genius, getting to be a better writerthan big bwuvver!”: HPL to R.H.Barlow, April 20, 1935; ms., JHL). Wandrei’s weird tales have now been collected in Time Burial(Fedogan & Bremer, 1995); some of his detective tales are contained in The Last Pin(Fedogan & Bremer, 1996) and The Eerie Mr. Murphy(Fedogan & Bremer, 2001). Other volumes are forthcoming. Ward, Charles Dexter (1902–1928).
In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,the great-great-great-grandson of Joseph Curwen. Ward’s discovery of a colonial portrait of Curwen (who is an exact double of Ward) spurs his search, beginning in 1919, for more information about a man so despised and feared that nearly all information about him had disappeared from the public record. Ward’s quest takes him to Europe to investigate Curwen’s correspondents overseas. He unearths Curwen’s papers and is able to resurrect Curwen from his “essential Saltes.” But Curwen kills Ward and attempts unsuccessfully to adopt his identity. Ward is not quite an autobiographical character, but his celebrated homecoming from Europe parallels HPL’s own joyous return to Providence shortly before the novel was written. Ward, Theodore Rowland.
In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,the father of Charles Dexter Ward. Although initially encouraging his son in the latter’s discovery of various papers relating to his long-lost ancestor, Joseph Curwen, Ward is increasingly disturbed by his son’s strange behavior and asks the family doctor, Marinus Willett, to see if anything can be done to restore his son’s mental health. (Ward’s wife—never named—is still more disturbed, and on Willett’s advice she is sent for a rest in Atlantic City.) Ward accompanies Willett on an exploration of the abandoned Pawtuxet bungalow of Curwen and Ward, but the noxious odors emerging from an underground chamber cause him to faint, so that Willett is forced to conduct the investigation alone.
Warren, Harley.
In “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” the South Carolina mystic (so identified only in “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”) whose studies take him and Carter to an ancient cemetery (apparently in Florida, although this is never explicitly stated in the story). When Warren ventures underground, leaving Carter behind, he dies mysteriously, his death being announced from below ground by the hideous voice of an unknown entity. In the dream that inspired the story, it was HPL’s friend Samuel Loveman who went underground, leaving HPL behind.
“Waste Paper: A Poem of Profound Insignificance.”
Poem (134 lines); probably written in late 1922 or early 1923. First publication unknown; rpt. Books at Brown26 (1978): 48–52.
A devastating parody of T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land,which, when it appeared in the Dial(November 1922), was billed a “poem of profound significance.” It is a pendant to HPL’s condemnation of Eliot’s poem in the editorial “Rudis Indigestaque Moles” ( Conservative,March 1923), in which he declares The Waste Landto be “a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general.” HPL’s poem (the only one of
< previous page page_291 next page > < previous page page_292 next page >
Page 292
his poems aside from “Plaster-All” [1922] written in free verse) is similarly composed of quotations (from Pope’s Odyssey,popular songs, etc.), self-referential allusions (“We called ourselves the Blackstone Military Band”), puns (including the pungent conclusion: “Nobody home/In the shantih,” parodying Eliot’s concluding “Shantih shantih shantih”), and the like. The epigraph is HPL’s Greek translation of his nihilistic utterance, “All is laughter, all is dust, all is nothing” (rendered into Latin as the epigraph to the “Aletheia Phrikodes” section of “The Poe-et’s Nightmare”). HPL claimed ( SL 4.159) the poem was published in “the newspaper” (probably the [Providence] Evening Bulletin), but exhaustive searches in this and other Providence papers have yielded nothing.
See Barton L. St. Armand and John H.Stanley, “H.P.Lovecraft’s Waste Paper:A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Draft,” Books at Brown26 (1978): 31–47.
Webb, William Channing.
In “The Call of Cthulhu,” Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. In 1860, he encounters the Cthulhu Cult in Greenland.
Weeden, Ezra.
In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,the second mate of the Enterprisewho had hoped to marry Eliza Tillinghast, but who is pushed aside by the wealthy and influential Joseph Curwen. The envious Weeden undertakes an investigation of Curwen’s mysterious affairs, enlisting support for a raid on Curwen’s bungalow in Pawtuxet in 1771. A descendant, Hazard Weeden, of 598 Angell Street (HPL’s own residence from 1904 to 1924), expresses shock when unidentified persons desecrate the grave of his ancestor in the North Burial Ground.