< previous page page_167 next page > < previous page page_168 next page >
Page 168
“Messenger, The.”
Poem (sonnet); written at 3:07 A.M., November 30, 1929. First published in the Providence Journal (December 3, 1929), in B.K.Hart’s column “The Sideshow”; rpt. WT(July 1938).
Hart had read “The Call of Cthulhu” and expressed mock outrage at the fact that HPL had set the tale in part in a boarding-house at 7 Thomas Street in Providence, where Hart himself had once lived. He threatened (in a “Sideshow” column of November 30, 1929) to send a “large and abiding ghost” to HPL’s residence at 3 A.M. HPL accordingly wrote the poem shortly after the designated time of the ghost’s arrival. Winfield Townley Scott (“A Parenthesis on Lovecraft as Poet” [1945]; rpt. FDOC) believed the poem to be “perhaps as wholly satisfactory as any poem [HPL] ever wrote.” See Donald R.Burleson, “On Lovecraft’s ‘The Messenger,’” CryptNo. 57 (St. John’s Eve 1988): 15–18. Mevana.
In “Winged Death,” an African from Uganda who, when he develops an unusual illness after being bitten by an insect, is brought to Dr. Thomas Slauenwite to be healed. Slauenwite cures him with antitoxin, whereupon Mevana leads Slauenwite to the lake where he was bitten so that the latter can capture the insects that caused the strange malady.
Miller, Wesley P.
In “In the Walls of Eryx,” the superintendent of Group A of the Venus Crystal Company. He writes the report about the discovery of the body of Kenton J.Stanfield in the invisible maze. Miniter, Edith [May Dowe] (1869–1934).
Novelist, poet, and amateur journalist residing in central Massachusetts. She was the daughter of amateur writer Jennie E.T.Dowe (about whom HPL wrote an elegy, “In Memoriam: J.E.T.D.,” Tryout, March 1919). She was the editor of The Muffin Man(April 1921), which contained a parody of HPL, “Falco Ossifracus: By Mr. Goodguile”; also of Aftermath(a paper issued after amateur conventions). She published one novel professionally, Our Natupski Neighbors(Henry Holt, 1916)—about Polish immigrants in Massachusetts—and short stories for professional magazines. HPL claimed that Miniter turned down the job of revising Bram Stoker’s Draculafor publication. Miniter first met HPL at an amateur convention held at her home at 20 Webster Street in Allston (a suburb of Boston) in July 1920, and again at amateur conventions in Allston on March 10, 1921, and in Maiden (another suburb of Boston) on April 12, 1923. She invited HPL to spend two weeks with her and her cousin Evanore Beebe in Wilbraham, Mass., at which time she told HPL about the local legendry (including the story of whippoorwills used in “The Dunwich Horror”). See HPL’s memoir, “Mrs. Miniter— Estimates and Recollections” (1934; first published in the Californian,Spring 1938). HPL also wrote an elegy, “Edith Miniter” ( Tryout,August 1934). In 1934–35 HPL was assembling material for a memorial volume on Miniter to be published by W.Paul Cook, but it never materialized; but he ended up with many of her papers and manuscripts (now at JHL). One, a letter written in 1853 by her great-uncle George Washington Tupper, a forty-niner, inspired the minor character named Tupper in “The Shadow out of Time” (1934–35). Much of Miniter’s work in the
< previous page page_168 next page > < previous page page_169 next page >
Page 169
amateur press has now been collected in Going Home and Other Amateur Writings(Moshassuck Press, 1995) and The Coast of Bohemia and Other Writings(Moshassuck Press, 2000) Mladdna.
In “‘Till A’ the Seas,’” an old woman who, in the distant future, is (along with a young man named Ull) the last surviving member of the human race. When she dies, Ull is left alone. Moe, Maurice W[inter] (1882–1940).
Teacher, amateur journalist, and longtime friend and correspondent of HPL. Moe taught English at Appleton High School (Appleton, Wis.) and later at West Division High School in Milwaukee. He came in touch with HPL no later than the end of 1914 and maintained a substantial correspondence from that time until HPL’s death; it was at Moe’s suggestion, in the summer of 1916, that he, HPL, Rheinhart Kleiner, and Ira A.Cole begin a round-robin correspondence cycle, the Kleicomolo. Later, in 1919–21, Moe, HPL, and Alfred Galpin formed the Gallomo correspondence group. For a time Moe made copies of all the correspondents’ contributions, but these copies do not appear to survive. A devout theist, Moe argued repeatedly with HPL on religion, but their discussions—at times heated but never acrimonious—appear not to have altered either individual’s viewpoints significantly. In one of these argumentative letters (May 15, 1918; SL1.60–66) HPL recounted a dream that later served as the basis for “Polaris” (1918). Moe contributed frequently to the amateur press (and also to scholarly journals on education: see “Amateur Journalism and the English Teacher,” English Journal, February 1915) but never edited a paper of his own. He did, however, establish the Appleton High School Press Club for his students; they issued a paper, The Pippin. HPL wrote two poems commemorating two issues of the paper (those for December 1918 and May 1919), although neither poem was published at the time. Through this press club HPL became acquainted, in late 1917, with Alfred Galpin, then a student at Appleton High School. In 1917 HPL also wrote a brief poem, “To M.W. M.” (in “News Notes,” United Amateur,July 1917); HPL’s play Alfredo(1918) includes Moe as a character under the guise of Cardinal Maurizio; still later HPL wrote the poem “On the Return of Maurice Winter Moe, Esq., to the Pedagogical Profession” ( Wolverine,June 1921), commemorating Moe’s move to Milwaukee. HPL’s “The Unnamable” (1923) features, in Joel Manton, a character clearly based upon Moe. HPL met Moe for the first time on August 10, 1923, when Moe came to Providence; they later went by bus to Boston, where they met Moe’s wife and two small boys, Donald and Robert. The next day HPL took Moe, Albert A.Sandusky, and Edward H.Cole on a walking trip to Marblehead, but after trudging for hours the latter three protested and refused to go any further; HPL, still spry, grudgingly relented.
For the next thirteen years their relations consisted solely of correspondence. HPL got into the habit of typing long letters to Moe recounting his various travels (the essays “Observations on Several Parts of America” [1928] and “Travels in the Provinces of America” [1929] are two such items), which Moe was to read and then pass on to other colleagues. In 1927 or 1928 HPL wrote a satirical biography of Ibid, which Moe thought of submitting to the American Mercury;
< previous page page_169 next page > < previous page page_170 next page >
Page 170
but it was later decided that the piece was too specialized for a general readership, so it remained unpublished until it appeared in the O-Wash-Ta-Nong(January 1938). By this time HPL was assisting Moe extensively in the revision of his treatise on the appreciation of poetry, Doorways to Poetry,of which HPL thought very highly. One result of the work was HPL’s “Sonnet Study” (1929?), consisting of one Petrarchan and one Shakespearean sonnet. HPL also wrote several dozen sonnets, including Fungi from Yuggoth,and other poems after a long hiatus. Doorwayswas never published, and the manuscript does not seem to survive. A small pamphlet, Imagery Aids(Wauwatosa, Wis.: Kenyon Press, 1931), may be all that is left of this treatise. In late 1934 Moe asked HPL to contribute an article of his choice for an amateur magazine being produced by his students; HPL wrote an essay on traces of Roman architecture in America and sent it to Moe. It never appeared in the magazine, and HPL later believed it to be lost; but a transcript survives in AHT. HPL wrote the essay “Heritage or Modernism: Common Sense in Art Forms” ( Californian,Summer 1935) as an introduction to the Roman architecture piece.