000-0580
000-0580
FROM H. P. Lovecraft
TO Robert E. Howard
7-Nov-1932

Abstract

On Howard's last letter; on the physical versus the mental and aesthetic (with a segue on asceticism); on Howard's fitness as a writer and poet (with praise for "The Cairn on the Headland" and "The Worms of the Earth", and a segue on the O. Henry Memorial Prize and O'Brien Best Short Story annuals, the latter of which included Howard's "Children of the Night," Frank Belknap Long's "Black Druid", Francis Flagg's "The Picture", Long's "A Visitor from Egypt", Clark Ashton Smith's "A Rendezvous in Averoigne", Henry S. Whitehead's "Passing of a God" and others); thanks again for the rattlesnake rattles; more on New Orleans, and on sea food (which Lovecraft detests, seguing into food he does like, such as ice cream, chocolate, coffee, sausage, pie, etc.) and eating modestly; on Quebec (including the availability of alcohol); interest in the old folk ballads Howard had included in his last letter; more on politics and economics, particularly Howard's comments on slavery; on the cultural capacity of civilization (seguing into philosophy of life and Lovecraft's ideal modern government - mostly fascist - and the inadequacy of democracy in place of a meritocracy); on the Ferguson government in Texas; lengthy discussion of police behavior in Texas based on Howard's last letter and the Gladewater Journal (seguing back into the law-and-order discussion, and the differences between East and West, and seguing briefly to discuss the Ku Klux Klan and Vigilantes, and pacifists like Mahatma Gandhi); on the success of "Ma" Ferguson being elected; more on barbarism versus civilization (with mention of John Wesley Harden and Cole Oglesby); on dueling (in particular, an account of a duel in New Orleans Howard recounted in a previous letter, and an account of a duel in Lovecraft's own family lore); on Native Americans; on Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State (with asides on Zionist Jewish claims to Palestine, and Mahatma Gandhi's struggle for Indian independence); on French versus English literature (mentioning Gautier, Baudelaire, Zola, Dumas, Balzac, Rabelais, etc., and seguing to Russian literature with mention of Dostoievsky, Turgeniev, and Tolstoy, then to Scandinavian with Ibsen, Strindberg, Lagerlof, Hamsun, and Georg Brandes, etc.) - and sharing Howard's dislike for The Vicar of Wakefield; on Lovecraft's extreme sensitiveness to cold weather; apologies for differing opinions; on the failure of Strange Tales (with Clark Ashton Smith the biggest loser), but Weird Tales and Magic Carpet Magazine carrying on. Post script on the acceptance of second publication rights for "The Music of Erich Zann" in the London Evening Standard, and Derleth's "Five Points" to make O'Brien's 1933 Best Short Stories.

Cited By

Included In

Preceded By 032-0072 Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard Followed By 033-0205
Preceded By 032-0072 A Means to Freedom Followed By 033-0205
Preceded By 000-0579 Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft Followed By 000-0581
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License