Essay (500 words); probably written in the summer of 1919. First published in the Conservative(July 1919); rpt. MW. A warning not to listen to “long-haired anarchists” who preach social upheaval and a condemnation of the “almost sub-human Russian rabble” who caused the Russian revolution in 1917. Bolton.
Actual town in east-central Massachusetts, cited by HPL in “Herbert West—Reanimator” (1921–22), “The Rats in the Walls” (1923), and “The Colour out of Space” (1927). The earlier story cites a Bolton Worsted Mills, but that mention is puzzling because in HPL’s day Bolton was a tiny agricultural hamlet with no industries of significance. This led Robert D.Marten (see entry on “Arkham”) to conjecture that HPL coined the name Bolton, unaware of the real town of that name. Its location appears to be near Arkham (Salem), as the real
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Bolton is not. HPL mentioned passing through Bolton in October 1934, so he may have known of it earlier.
Bonner, Marion F. (1883–1952).
Neighbor and correspondent of HPL (1936–37). Several of HPL’s letters to her (the originals of which at JHL contain hand-colored illustrations of letterhead for HPL’s imaginary feline fraternity, the Kappa Alpha Tau) are included in SL5. See her article, “Miscellaneous Impressions of H.P.L.” (1945; in LR). “Book, The”
(title supplied by R.H.Barlow). Story fragment (1,200 words); probably written c. October 1933. First published in Leaves(1938); first collected in Marginalia;corrected text in D. The unnamed firstperson narrator, whose “memories are very confused,” tells of coming upon a “worm-riddled book” in an obscure bookstall near the river. Recognizing it, in spite of the absence of its opening pages, as a rare and forbidden work, he wishes to purchase it; but the old man tending the bookstall merely “leered and tittered,” refusing payment for it. The narrator hurries through the narrow streets to his home, sensing vague and disturbing presences around him. As he reaches home and begins examining the book in his attic study, he hears a faint scratching at the window—evidently a creature he had summoned by uttering an incantation in the book. After that time his perceptions are seriously affected: “Mixed with the present scene was always a little of the past and a little of the future….” Further bizarre events occur as the narrator continues to chant the formulae in the book. At this point the fragment ends.
R.H.Barlow dated the fragment to 1934, but in a letter of October 1933 HPL writes: “I am at a sort of standstill in writing—disgusted at much of my older work, & uncertain as to avenues of improvement. In recent weeks I have done a tremendous amount of experimenting in different styles & perspectives, but have destroyed most[emphasis added] of the results” ( SL4.289). The fragment appears to be an attempt to recast Fungi from Yuggothin prose. The existing text narrates the events outlined in the first three poems of the sonnet-cycle (which indeed present a connected narrative); the fact that the text terminates at this point may suggest that HPL had no idea how to write the rest of the cycle as a coherent story.
See S.T.Joshi, “On The Book,’” Nyctalops3, No. 4 (April 1983): 9–13; rpt. CryptNo. 53 (Candlemas 1988): 3–7; Michael Cisco, “The Book of ‘The Book,’” LS No. 42 (Summer 2001): 5–21. Bor, Dam.
In “Collapsing Cosmoses,” an operator of a “cosmoscope” who sees a dangerous enemy approaching the planet from outer space.
Borellus.
Author of an unnamed work cited as an epigraph to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward(1927). HPL found the name and the passage in his copy of Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana(1702). Borellus is the seventeenth-century alchemist Pierre Borel (c. 1620–1689), not (as Roger Bryant conjectured) the Italian scientist Giovanni Borelli (1608–1679).
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See Roger Bryant, “The Alchemist and the Scientist: Borellus and the Lovecraftian Imagination,” Nyctalops2, No. 3 (January–February 1975): 26–29, 43; Barton L. St. Armand, “The Source for Lovecraft’s Knowledge of Borellus in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” Nyctalops2, No. 6 (May 1977): 16–17.
“Bouts Rimés.”
Two poems: “Beyond Zimbabwe” (8 lines) and “The White Elephant” (8 lines); cowritten with R.H.Barlow on May 23, 1934. First published in Saturnalia and Other Poems(1984). Barlow selected the end rhymes, then HPL composed the text.
Bowen, Hannah.
In “The Shunned House,” a woman who is hired by William Harris to be a servant at the house but who dies a few months later.
Boyle, Dr. E.M.
In “The Shadow out of Time,” an Australian (possibly a psychologist) who brings Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee’s papers relating to his bizarre “dreams” to the attention of Robert B.F.Mackenzie, and who then accompanies Peaslee and Mackenzie on an expedition to the Great Sandy Desert. Bradofsky, Hyman (b. 1906).
Correspondent of HPL (1934–37). He was president of the NAPA in 1935–36 and came under vicious attack by other members (in part, perhaps, because he was Jewish); HPL defended him in the essay “Some Current Motives and Practices” (1936), which R.H.Barlow mimeographed and distributed. As editor of the amateur journal The Californian(1933f.), he offered unprecedented space for lengthy contributions of fiction, essays, and poetry. The Summer 1937 memorial issue is devoted to HPL, containing fine memoirs (including Bradofsky’s own poignant brief recollection in the column, “Amateur Affairs”) and hitherto unpublished writings by HPL.