Foster, Abel.
In “Two Black Bottles,” the sexton of a church in Daalbergen, N.J., who studies the occult books amassed by the church’s first pastor, Guilliam Slott. It is Foster who imprisons the soul of the current pastor, Vanderhoof, in a bottle. As in the case of Vanderhoof, his own soul is trapped in a similar bottle that, when broken, causes Foster to crumble to dust.
Foxfield.
Fictitious town in Massachusetts invented by HPL, although never cited in any story. A “Plan of Foxfield—for possible fictional use” in HPL’s handwriting survives in AHT; it indicates that Foxfield is east of Aylesbury and Dunwich and northwest of Arkham.
See Will Murray, “Where Was Foxfield?” LSNo. 33 (Fall 1995): 18–23 (the back cover prints a reconstruction of HPL’s map).
“From Beyond.”
Short story (3,030 words); written on November 16, 1920. First published in the Fantasy Fan(June 1934); rpt WT(February 1938); first collected in BWS;corrected text in D
Crawford Tillinghast is a scientist who has devised a machine that will “break down the barriers” that limit our perception of phenomena to what our five senses perceive. He shows to his friend, the narrator, “a pale, outré colour or blend of colours” that he maintains is ultraviolet, ordinarily invisible to the human eye. As the experiment continues, the narrator begins to perceive amorphous, jellylike objects drifting through what he previously thought was empty air; he even sees them “brushing past me and occasionally walking or drifting through my supposedly solid body.” Later, as the experiment becomes increasingly peculiar and as Tillinghast begins shouting madly about the creatures he controls through his machine, the narrator suddenly fires a shot from a pistol, destroying the machine. Tillinghast is found dead of apoplexy.
The story appears to be a fictionalization of some conceptions that HPL found in Hugh Elliot’s Modern Science and Materialism(1919), a book that significantly influenced his early philosophical thought (see SL1.134, 158). In particular, Elliot exhaustively discusses the limitations of our senseperceptions (specifically citing ultraviolet rays) and goes on to note that most solid matter is largely empty space. Several entries in HPL’s commonplace book written around this time (see #34–#36) appear to derive from Elliot’s book. Some of the characterization and imagery derive from HPL’s Civil War dream of early 1920 (see SL 1.100–102).
In the original draft (revised much later for its first appearance), the scientist was named Henry Annesley. Both “Crawford” and “Tillinghast” are two old and wealthy families of colonial Providence (both are mentioned in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward). The story was submitted to several pulp magazines in the 1920s, including WTand Ghost Stories,but uniformly rejected.
See S.T.Joshi, “The Sources for ‘From Beyond,’” CryptNo. 38 (Eastertide 1986): 15–19; Peter Dendle, “Patristic Demonology and Lovecraft’s ‘From Beyond,’” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts8, No. 3 (1997): 281–93.
< previous page page_94 next page > < previous page page_95 next page >
Page 95
Frome, Nils [Helmer] (1918–1962).
Swedish-born fan of weird and science fiction and late correspondent of HPL (1936–37). Residing for much of his life in Fraser Mills, Canada (a suburb of Vancouver), Frome early became interested in science fiction and solicited from HPL a contribution to his fan magazine, Supramundane Stories. HPL sent him the prose poem “Nyarlathotep” and “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction,” both of which appeared in the second and last issue of Supramundane Stories(Spring 1938). Frome appeared to exhibit an interest in fortune-telling, reincarnation, and other such things, and HPL’s letters to him forcefully argue against their validity. The letters were published (along with those to James Blish and William Miller, Jr.) in Phantastique/Science Fiction Critic(March 1938); rpt. HPL’s Uncollected Letters(Necronomicon Press, 1986).
See Sam Moskowitz, ed., Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Nils Helmer Frome(Moshassuck Press, 1989). Frye Family.
In “The Dunwich Horror,” a family (comprising Elmer and his wife Selina) dwelling on the eastern edge of Cold Spring Glen. They and their farmhouse are “erased” by Wilbur Whateley’s twin brother. Fungi from Yuggoth.
Series of thirty-five sonnets initially, dated December 27, 1929–January 4, 1930 (ms., JHL). The complete cycle of thirty-six poems was not published in its entirety until BWS;the separate appearance Fungi from Yuggoth([Washington, D.C.:] Bill Evans, June 1943) lacks the final three sonnets.
In the first three sonnets, the unnamed narrator obtains a mysterious tome—a “book that told the hidden way/Across the void and through the space-hung screens”—from an ancient bookseller and is followed home by an unseen pursuer. The remaining poems, which HPL considered suitable for publication independent of the introductory poems, are discontinuous vignettes concerning a variety of unrelated weird themes, told in the first person and (apparently) third person. The cumulative effect is that of a series of shifting dream images.
The poem was written following a burst of versifying, after a long hiatus, that occurred in late 1929, the other poems being “Recapture,” The East India Brick Row,” “The Outpost,” and “The Messenger.” HPL referred to the Fungias “pseudo-sonnets,” not out of modesty but because he recognized that most were a hybrid form combining elements of the classic Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnet forms, contrived to provide an element of surprise in the final line. He lent the poem to Elizabeth Toldridge in mid-January, writing: “There are 33 here, but I shall probably grind out a dozen or so more before I consider the sequence concluded” ( SL3.116). To date HPL had written thirty-five, leaving aside the two concluding poems in the event that he did indeed “grind out” others. He did not. His typescript of the cycle long consisted of only thirty-three poems (Clark Ashton Smith had one such copy). When R.H.Barlow prepared a new typescript (in September 1934), “Evening Star” and “Continuity” finally were included (numbered XXXIV and XXXV as when HPL first composed them). It was not until 1936, when Barlow planned an edition of the complete cycle, that Fungi from Yuggoth achieved its present form, with “Recapture” (mid-November 1929) inserted as the third to last poem and “Evening Star” and “Continuity” renumbered to accommodate it.
< previous page page_95 next page > < previous page page_96 next page >
Page 96
HPL published five of the poems in the Providence Journalin 1930. WTselected another ten, publishing them under the heading “Fungi from Yuggoth” but renumbering the poems to coincide with the shortened selection. Over the next six years, HPL gave others to amateur or fan publications, including Causerie, Driftwind, Fantasy Fan, Galleon, Interesting Items, Phantagraph, Pioneer, Science-Fantasy Correspondent, Science Fiction Barb,and Silver Fern. Poems accepted by Fantasy Magazine, Fantaisiste’s Mirror, Recluse,and Ripples from Lake Champlainnever appeared. Many poems appeared more than once in magazines during HPL’s lifetime; two appeared in books: “The Canal” in Harvest: A Sheaf of Poems fromDriftwind (1933) and “Harbour Whistles” in Threads in Tapestry(1936). Only “Expectancy” (XXVIII) was never published periodically. For the name Yuggoth, see entry on “The Whisperer in Darkness.”