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tional Amateur Some Current Motives and Practices(1936) is a forceful defense of NAP A President Hyman Bradofsky against other members’ vicious attacks upon him. HPL’s first autobiographical article, “The Brief Autobiography of an Inconsequential Scribbler” ( Silver Clarion,April 1919), focuses on his amateur activity. Other important essays are “The Dignity of Journalism” ( Dowdell’s Bearcat, July 1915), “For What Does the United Stand?” ( United Amateur,May 1920), “What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other” (1921; Boys’ Herald,August 1937), “Lucubrations Lovecraftian” ( United Cooperative,April 1921), and “A Matter of Uniteds” ( Bacon’s Essays,Summer 1927). HPL attended only two national amateur conventions, both for NAPA, in July 1921 (when he read his humorous speech “Within the Gates” [in MW] and first met his future wife, Sonia H.Greene), and in July 1930. Both were held in Boston. He attended regional amateur gatherings in Boston in 1920–21 and in Brooklyn (Blue Pencil Club) in 1924–25. In amateurdom HPL met many of his closest and most enduring friends and colleagues, including Frank Belknap Long, Maurice W.Moe, Rheinhart Kleiner, James F.Morton, Alfred Galpin, Samuel Loveman, and Wilfred B.Talman.
On the whole, amateur journalism appealed to HPL because it echoed his stated literary goal of writing as nonremunerative “self-expression,” because it provided him with a forum where his literary and critical skills could be exhibited and because it supplied him with a network of friends with whom he could correspond on various topics and thereby hone his philosophical, aesthetic, and literary views. HPL is still regarded a giant in the amateur world, and articles on him continue to appear in The Fossil,the organ of amateur alumni.
“Americanism.”
Essay (1,120 words); probably written in the summer of 1919. First published in the United Amateur (July 1919); rpt. MW
Americanism is “expanded Anglo-Saxonism”; therefore, the “melting-pot” idea is dangerous and pernicious. America should build upon the values fostered by the English colonists. “Amissa Minerva.”
Poem (92 lines); probably written in early 1919. First published in Toledo Amateur(May 1919). A pungent satire lampooning the freakishness of modern poetry, mentioning several poets by name (Amy Lowell, Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, etc.).
See Steven J.Mariconda, “On Lovecraft’s ‘Amissa Minerva,’” Etchings and OdysseysNo. 9 [1986]: 97– 103.
“Ancient Track, The.”
Poem (44 lines); written on November 26, 1929. First published in WT(March 1930). Brooding poem in which the narrator comes upon a milestone (“Two miles to Dunwich”) on a lonely road and subsequently encounters nameless horrors. This is the only other mention of Dunwich in HPL’s fiction and poetry aside from “The Dunwich Horror” (1928).
See Donald R.Burleson, “On Lovecraft’s ‘The Ancient Track,’” LSNo. 28 (Spring 1993): 17–20.
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Andrews, Marshall.
In “The Disinterment,” a disreputable physician who claims to have concocted a bizarre scheme to treat his friend’s case of leprosy by first simulating the man’s death and then giving him a new identity. In fact, he drugs the man and transplants the man’s head on to the body of an African American. Andrews is later killed by his friend.
Angell, George Gammell.
In “The Call of Cthulhu,” Angell is a professor of Semitic languages at Brown University. In 1908, at a meeting of the American Archaeological Society, Angell first learns of the Cthulhu Cult when he is approached by inspector John R.Legrasse with a sculpture of a strange idol. Seventeen years later, when the artist Henry Anthony Wilcox shows him a bizarre bas-relief that he has just fashioned from something he dreamt of, Angell embarks anew on research into the strange cult—an act that ultimately results in his untimely death.
Angell’s last name is derived from Angell Street, one of the leading thoroughfares in Providence (itself named for Thomas Angell, a companion of Roger Williams and one of the original settlers of the city). The middle name is an echo of HPL’s aunt, Annie E.Phillips Gamwell (in Providence speech, “Gamwell” and “GamwcGammell” would be pronounced in an approximately similar manner). Anger, William Frederick (b. 1921).
Correspondent of HPL (1934–36). With Louis C.Smith, Anger planned an index to WTand an edition of HPL’s Fungi from Yuggoth(both unfinished). He was the author (with Smith) of “An Interview with E.Hoffman [sic]Price” ( Fantasy Fan,December 1934).
Arkham.
Fictitious city in Massachusetts invented by HPL. The city is first cited in “The Picture in the House” (1920); other tales that feature Arkham are “Herbert West—Reanimator” (1921–22), “The Unnamable” (1923), “The Colour out of Space” (1927), “The Dunwich Horror” (1928), “The Shadow over Innsmouth” (1931), “The Dreams in the Witch House” (1932), “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” (1932–33), “The Thing on the Doorstep” (1933), and “The Shadow out of Time” (1934–35). It is the home of Miskatonic University (first cited in “Herbert West—Reanimator”); there is also an Arkham Historical Society (in “The Shadow over Innsmouth”) and an Arkham Sanitarium (in “The Thing on the Doorstep”). It had a newspaper in the 1880s, the Arkham Gazette(in “The Colour out of Space”); a more recent paper, presumably dating to the 1920s, is the Arkham Advertiser(in “The Dunwich Horror” and other stories). In At the Mountains of Madness,one of the expeditionary ships to Antarctica is named Arkham. HPL drew a map of the city on at least three occasions; one is reproduced as “Map of the Principal Parts of Arkham, Massachusetts” ( Acolyte,Fall 1942), another in Marginalia(facing p. 279), and another (from a letter to Robert Bloch, [April 1936]) as the frontispiece to Letters to Robert Bloch(Necronomicon Press, 1993).
Will Murray has conjectured that Arkham was at first situated in central Massachusetts and that its name and possibly its location were derived from the tiny hamlet Oakham. Research by Robert D.Marten makes this theory extremely unlikely. Marten maintains that Arkham was always located on the North Shore and
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(as HPL repeatedly declares) was a fictional analogue of Salem. HPL definitively states: “My mental picture of Arkham is of a town something like Salem in atmosphere & style of houses, but more hilly (Salem is flat except for Gallows Hill, which is outside the town proper) & with a college (which Salem hasn’t). The street layout is nothing like Salem’s. As to the location of Arkham—I fancy I place the town & the imaginary Miskatonic somewhere north of Salem—perhaps near Manchester. My idea of the place is slightly in from the sea, but with a deep water channel making it a port” (HPL to F.Lee Baldwin, April 29, 1934; ms., JHL). Marten conjectures that the name Arkham was based upon Arkwright, a town in R.I. now consolidated into the community of Fiskville. HPL remarked that “The Dunwich Horror” “belongs to the Arkham cycle” ( SL2.246), but the significance of this phrase is unclear. Possibly he was referring to the fact that several of his recent tales had involved not merely a pseudomythological backdrop but also an imaginary New England topography.