There are four other surviving juvenile poetical works. “Ovid’s Metamorphoses” is a fairly literal verse translation of the first 88 lines of Ovid’s poem (HPL’s version takes 116 lines) and shows that HPL had learned Latin well enough by this time to perform the task. It probably dates to around 1900, as it is listed in a catalogue of works found at the back of Poemata Minora, Volume 2(September 1902). “H.Lovecraft’s Attempted Journey betwixt Providence & Fall River on the N.Y.N.H.H.&H.R.R.” (1901) is a comic poem that speaks of HPL’s first ride on a trolley car through Providence and adjoining suburbs. “C.S.A.: 1861–1865” (1902) is a work supporting the South (Confederate States of America) during the Civil War. HPL notes (letter to Rheinhart Kleiner, November 16, 1916; AHT) that he placed it on the desk of Abbie E.Hathaway (principal of the Slater Avenue School), whose father was a Union soldier. Poemata Minora, Volume 2consists of five short poems: “Ode to Selene or Diana,” “To the Old Pagan Religion,” “On the Ruin of Rome,” “To Pan,” and “On the Vanity of Human Ambition.” The text is profusely illustrated by HPL’s drawings. HPL published three of the poems (under pseudonyms) in the Tryout,April 1919: the first as “To Selene,” the second as “The Last Pagan Speaks,” and the fourth as “Pan.” Poemata Minoraas a whole was first published in Juvenilia: 1897–1905 . There is no indication of the contents of Volume 1, which apparently dates to 1901. We know of several other nonextant poetical works: “The Iliad” and “The Aeneid” (presumably paraphrases of the ancient epics), “The Hermit,” and “The
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Argonauts” (presumably a retelling of the voyage of the Argoas recounted by Apollonius Rhodius and other writers).
One last surviving poem is “De Triumpho Naturae: The Triumph of Ignorance over Northern Ignorance” (July 1905). This viciously racist work is based upon (and dedicated to) William Benjamin Smith, author of the tract The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn(1905), which asserted, among other things, that freed African Americans will eventually die out because of their inherent biological inferiority and their physiological and psychological weaknesses. HPL’s poem is a poetical encapsulation of the idea.
All extant works are included in AT
Juvenile Works: Science.
Aside from The Scientific Gazette, The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy,and Astronomy/The Monthly Almanack,HPL wrote numerous other periodicals and treatises on chemistry, astronomy, and other subjects prior to 1908.
Of chemical treatises, four survive: Chemistry, Chemistry, Magic & Electricity(presumably Chemistry II), Chemistry III,and Chemistry IV . In a catalogue of his works at the back of Poemata Minora, Volume 2(1902), HPL noted a series of chemistry books in six volumes; these are presumably the first four. There are also two separate treatises, The Art of Fusion Melting Pudling & Castingand A Good Anaesthetic.Nonextant treatises include: Iron Working; Acids; Explosives;and Static Electricity Of astronomical treatises, there is one issue of The Planet(1, No. 1, August 29, 1903); My Opinion as to the lunar canals(dated 1903); Annals of the Providence Observatory, Vol. 1: Observations of a General Character During 1903(1904); and Providence Observatory: Forecast for Providence & Vicinity Next 24h(a forecast for April 4–5, 1904). There are three surviving volumes of a series of monographs under the general title “The Science Library”: 1. Naked Eye Selenography;2. The Telescope;5. On Saturn and His Ring.The six missing volumes are: 3. Life of Galileo;4. Life ofHerschel (revised);6. Selections from Author’s “Astronomy”;7. The Moon, Part I;8. The Moon, Part II;9. On Optics.
Several early treatises (nonextant) testify to HPL’s devotion to geography, specifically his fascination with Antarctica: Antarctic Atlas, Voyages of Capt. Ross, R.N.,and Wilkes’s Explorations. The last treatise was extant as late as 1936, as HPL sent it to C.L.Moore, who returned it to HPL after seeing it (see SL5.237).
Of miscellaneous treatises there is extant one issue of The Railroad Review(1, No. 1, December 1901). Nonextant are such works as Mythology for the Young(possibly a condensation of Bulfinch’s Age of Fable,which HPL read around the age of five), Egyptian Myths,and two historical treatises: Early Rhode Islandand An Historical Account of Last Year’s War with SPAIN(1899). In 1905 HPL produced one of his most substantial juvenile works: A Manual of Roman Antiquities . In the Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy(July 30, 1905) HPL gives an outline of the work, stating that it will also contain “biographies of certain great Romans”; but a notice in the Rhode Island Journalof August 13, 1905, states that the volume is ready but that the biographies could not be included. The work does not survive.
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Also nonextant is A Brief Course in Astronomy—Descriptive, Practical, and Observational; for Beginners and General Readers(1906), of which HPL states: “it got as far as the typed and handillustrated stage (circa one hundred and fifty pages)” ( SL5.141). One part of the work appears to be extant in AHT, under the title Celestial Objects for All. Its preface declares that “The greater part of this work is also printed in ‘A Brief Course in Astronomy’ by the same author.”
HPL’s juvenile scientific work culminates in A Brief Course in Inorganic Chemistry(1910), written during his “recluse” phase of 1908–13, when he was taking correspondence courses in chemistry. HPL only describes it as a “bulky manuscript” ( SL1.75), and we know nothing more about it.
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K
Kalem Club.
Informal band of friends in New York City, of which HPL was the central figure. According to Rheinhart Kleiner, the club existed in a rudimentary form prior to HPL’s advent to New York in March 1924, its original members including Rheinhart Kleiner, Everett McNeil, and perhaps James F.Morton. When HPL arrived, he introduced several more members, notably Frank Belknap Long, George Kirk, and Arthur Leeds. The club initially met on Thursday nights, but later shifted to Wednesdays because Long attended night classes at New York University. Still later there were separate “McNeil” and “Leeds” meetings because of a dispute between these two members over a small loan that the former had made to the latter; many members did not go to the McNeil meetings (held at Everett McNeil’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen) because they found McNeil tiresome. HPL always attended both meetings. The club was not named until February 1925; Kirk provides an account of the event: “Because all of the last names of the permanent members of our club begin with K, L or M, we plan to call it the KALEM KLYBB” (George Kirk to Lucile Dvorak, February 1925; quoted in Hart, “Walkers in the City” [see under George Kirk]). HPL, however, never refers to it under this name in his correspondence, making mention only of “the gang” or “The Boys.” The club achieved its heyday in 1925, especially with HPL largely unemployed and living by himself. HPL took pride in being a solicitous host for the meetings held at his apartment, purchasing an aluminum pail for 49¢ to fetch coffee from the neighboring delicatessen; he would serve it and various desserts on his best china. In late 1925 Wilfred B. Talman and Vrest Orton were enrolled as members, but it was decided that the name would not be changed; these two were very sporadic participants in any event. By the spring of 1928, however (two years after HPL’s departure from New York), HPL notes that the club had “almost dissolved” (HPL to Lillian D. Clark, April 29–30, 1928; ms., JHL), leading one to suspect that he had been the driving force behind it.