In “The Dreams in the Witch House,” a Catholic priest at St. Stanislaus’ Church in Arkham who gives a crucifix to one of Walter Gilman’s friends, Joe Mazurewicz, who then gives it to Gilman to protect him from Keziah Mason. Iwanicki had first been cited in the so-called “discarded draft” of “The Shadow over Innsmouth” (written in late 1931, a few months before “The Dreams in the Witch House”), but was excised from the final draft. See MW65.
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J
Jack.
The narrator of “The Man of Stone,” who accompanies Ben Hayden on a trip to see the celebrated sculptures of Arthur Wheeler.
Jackson, Henry.
In “The Man of Stone,” a man who is treated for tuberculosis near Lake Placid, N.Y., where he hears of the tale that constitutes the narrative of the story and which he passes on to his friend, Ben Hayden, who then goes to investigate the story.
Jackson, Winifred Virginia (1876–1959).
Amateur poet living in the Boston area and friend of HPL. HPL was extensively involved with Jackson in amateur journalism during the period 1918–21. He wrote a brief biographical sketch of her, “Winifred Virginia Jordan: Associate Editor” ( Silver Clarion,April 1919; as by “El Imparcial”), followed by a lengthy critical analysis, “Winifred Virginia Jackson: A ‘Different’ Poetess” ( United Amateur, March 1921); he published several of her poems in his amateur journal, The Conservative;he contributed a poem on Jonathan E.Hoag to her amateur journal, Eurus(February 1918); he served as Official Critic for another journal edited by Jackson, The Bonnet,for whose only known issue (June 1919) he contributed a poem (“Helene Hoffman Cole: 1893–1919: The Club’s Tribute”) and an unsigned editorial (“Trimmings”); he joined her in editing The United Co-operative,three issues of which were published (December 1918, June 1919, April 1921). On a more personal level, he wrote a poem to her (“On Receiving a Portraiture of Mrs. Berkeley, ye Poetess”) on Christmas Day 1920, after receiving her photograph; the title refers to the pseudonym (Elizabeth Berkeley) under which she widely appeared in the amateur press. The poem was evidently not published at the time. By this time HPL had collaborated with her on a story, “The Green Meadow,” based upon a dream by Jackson; later, probably in 1921, they collaborated on “The Crawling Chaos”; both were published as by “Elizabeth Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jun.”
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Their relations may have been somewhat more personal. According to research by George T.Wetzel and R.Alain Everts, HPL and Jackson were widely regarded in amateur circles as being romantically involved. Evidence for this assertion is somewhat indirect, the strongest coming from HPL’s wife Sonia, who purportedly stated, “I stole HPL away from Winifred Jackson.” There is also a photograph of HPL and Jackson at the seaside (probably in Massachusetts). But since HPL stated to Sonia in the summer of 1922 that he had not been kissed since he was a boy, the “romance” must have been somewhat lacking in passion. Also, Wetzel and Everts claim that Jackson married an African American, Horace Jackson, in 1915 (hence her appearance in earlier amateur journals as Winifred Virginia Jordan); she had divorced him by early 1919 and then carried on a longtime affair with the African American poet and critic William Stanley Braithwaite (1878–1962). If HPL had known of either involvement, he presumably—given his severe prejudice against African Americans—would have ceased all relations with Jackson. HPL met Jackson on several occasions, but always at amateur gatherings in the company of others: July 4–5 and September 5, 1920, in Allston, Mass., and (probably) at the NAPA convention in early July 1921 (the same convention at which he first met Sonia). There is no evidence that HPL met or corresponded with her after July 1921. Jackson’s poem “Insomnia” ( Conservative,October 1916) may have influenced the opening quatrains of HPL’s “Psychopompos” (1917–18). That issue contained “The Unknown,” as by “Elizabeth Berkeley”; the poem is actually by HPL. He later stated that this poem and another (“The Peace Advocate,” Tryout,July 1917) had appeared under Jackson’s pseudonym “in an effort to mystify the [amateur] public by having widely dissimilar work from the same nominal hand” (HPL to the Gallomo, September 12, 1921; AHT). Jackson published only two books of poetry, Backroads: Maine Narratives, with Lyrics(1927) and Selected Poems(1944).
See George T.Wetzel and R.Alain Everts, Winifred Virginia Jackson—Lovecraft’s Lost Romance (Strange Co., 1976).
Jacobi, Carl (1908–1997).
Minnesota author of over 100 stories in pulp magazines including WT, Terror Tales, Amazing Stories, Short Stories, Galaxy, Fantastic Universe, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Thrilling Adventures,and Thrilling Mystery. HPL enjoyed Jacobi’s “Mive” (originally a prize-winning story in Fall 1928 issue of Minnesota Quarterly,the student magazine of the University of Minnesota) in WT(January 1932) and wrote to Jacobi about it (see SL4.24–25). Two stories show Lovecraftian influence: “The Tomb from Beyond” ( Wonder Stories,November 1933) and “The Aquarium” (in August Derleth’s Dark Mind, Dark Heart[1962]). Jacobi published three collections with Arkham House: Revelations in Black(1947), Portraits in Moonlight(1964), Disclosures in Scarlet(1972); a final collection of tales, Smoke of the Snake,appeared in 1994.
See R.Dixon Smith, Lost in the Rentharpian Hills: Spanning the Decades with Carl Jacobi(1985). James, M[ontague] R[hodes] (1862–1936).
British author of four celebrated volumes of ghost stories— Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary(1904), More Ghost
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Stories of an Antiquary(1911), A Thin Ghost and Others(1919), and A Warning to the Curious (1925)—all of which HPL owned and spoke of enthusiastically in “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” (James also wrote a children’s fantasy, The Five Jars[1922], which HPL read but did not own.) HPL came upon James at the New York Public Library in December 1925, when he began research for his essay. At that time he ranked James as one of the four “modern masters” (along with Machen, Blackwood, and Dunsany), but in later years he complained that James had no sense of the “cosmic,” and by 1932 he referred to him as “the earthiest member of the ‘big four’” ( SL4.15). Nevertheless, James’s structural complexity may have influenced HPL, especially in his longer tales. Richard Ward has made a good case for the influence of James’s “Count Magnus” upon HPL’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.James’s ghost stories were collected in the much-reprinted volume, The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R.James(1931). In his own day, James was better known as an authority on medieval manuscripts and a Biblical scholar. His edition of the Apocryphal New Testament(1924) long remained standard.