Abstract

Lovecraft in New Orleans, and regretting not being able to go to Texas; on Lovecraft's trip from New York down the Shenandoah Valley to Knoxville to Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, from there to Memphis, Vicksburg, and into Natchez (with an aside on the history of Natchez), and down the Mississippi to New Orleans (with a substantial account of that city, particularly the French Quarter, with hopes to go on from there to Mobile, and perhaps Charleston, and to see Bernard Austin Dwyer; more on historical might-have-beens; more on Olson (who has been bothering Clark Ashton Smith as well) and William Lumley; on Howard's remarks on Southwestern clouds and sandstorms; the pulps being curtailed in light of the Great Depression, with Lovecraft hoping Weird Tales will carry on (and revisiting the idea of an abridged Necronomicon or Unaussprechlichen Kulten); on the racial make-up of Hawaii (following on form the comments on the Massie case); on degeneracy in New England Yankees; on "Pretty Boy" Floyd versus other gangsters of the era (leading into a discussion of dueling, and from there into a lengthy discussion of law and the frontier, and finally seeing the film Law and Order with Frank Belknap Long); on Howard's account of human unfortunates, and fate versus impartial nature; on a boyhood incident recounted in Howard's last letter, and the basic soundness of his thought on the unreliability of human senses (seguing into belief in the occult); on Wandrei's novel Dead Titans, Waken! and the Midwest (with the story of Lovecraft's grandfathers dam failure in Idaho); on the weather; sorry to hear of Howard's health troubles, and on Lovecraft's own health and writing outdoors; on quotations and copyright (and Lovecraft unfamiliar with the American Fiction Guild); on Bernard Austin Dwyer's "Brooklyn Nights," and hope to read Howard's "The Sowers of the Thunder."

Cited By

TBD

Included In

• A Means to Freedom (unabridged)
• Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft (abridged)