Lovecraft’s esteem for Howard’s correspondence was such that he
expressed the wish that “I’d like to publish all his letters with their
descriptive and historical riches.” (SL5.277,
cf. LJFM 389, LRS 82), much as August Derleth and Donald Wandrei would later do
for Lovecraft himself, noting that “They’d need editing, since they are all
replies to specific arguments of mine.” (LRBO
399)—and indeed, having both sides of the argument in A Means to Freedom makes considerably better sense than trying to
collate the much-abridged contents of the Selected
Letters of Robert E. Howard and the Selected
Letters of H. P. Lovecraft.
For all that Lovecraft praised these letters, he quoted rather
little from them—as Howard had requested they be kept private (“I don’t have to
tell you that a lot of the things of which I speak are in strict confidence.” CL2.416, cf. 3.363), telling Willis
Conover “About one of REH’s argumentative letters—he always used to ask me to
keep them confidential” (LRBO 399)
and F. Lee Baldwin “I’d show you some of his letters if he hadn’t asked me not
to let anybody see them.” (SL5.108)
Despite this injunction from Howard, Lovecraft did write “I’ll lend you some of
his encyclopaedic letters if you think you’d enjoy a sidelight on such an
unusual character.” (ES2.524) and a
notation on a letter from Howard to Lovecraft ca. December 1932 includes a
notation that shows it was “lent out” in this fashion. (CL2.489)
Much of what Lovecraft did pass on from Howard’s letters was
essentially business gossip; this part of their correspondence was common with
all the pulpsters, passing along what information they had on new pulps coming
to market or closing, potential anthologies, where they had sold stories and
sometimes for how much. The first such bit of scuttlebutt attributed directly
by Lovecraft to Howard was the failure to materialize of Strange Stories, a proposed third magazine to be put out by the Weird Tales group (MTS 268), and later on the demise of its sister publication The Magic Carpet (ES2.619-620). More followed, such as the abortive weird anthology
planned by E. Hoffmann Price and Kirk Mashburn (ES1.381, 384) and the British “Not at Night” anthologies (ES2.523).
As well, Lovecraft passed appreciations from Howard on the work
of others in Lovecraft’s circle, such as Donald Wandrei. (MTS 294, 308) On one occasion, Lovecraft even took it upon himself
to forward a request from Howard (CL2.243)
to his correspondents:
By the way—Robert E. Howard himself
wishes the gang would speak a good word for his new story in Street &
Smith’s Sports Stories. It is the
first of a series, & the fate of the later ones depends largely on its
public reception. (ES1.378)
Another memorable instance when Lovecraft acted on Howard’s
behalf is when he suggested REH as a possible source of material to fanzines
such as The Fantasy Fan and The Phantagraph (LRBO 313)—and forwarded “The Hyborian Age” to Donald Wollheim for
publication at the latter.
Here is something which Two-Gun Bob
says he wants forwarded to you for The
Phantagraph, & which I profoundly hope you’ll be able to use. This is
really great stuff—Howard has the most magnificent sense of the drama of
“history” of anyone I know. He possess a panoramic vision which takes in the
evolution & interaction of races & nations over vast periods of time,
& gives one the same large-scale excitement which (with even vaster scope)
is furnished by things like Stapledon’s “Last & First Men”. (LRBO 319)
On Howard’s fiction, Lovecraft often enough picked out Howard’s
stories in Weird Tales as notable,
but rarely engaged in any extended praise or criticism of his fiction. In 1931
on “The Moon of Skulls” Lovecraft wrote:
There was room for tremendous power in
Howard’s tale of the primal African tomb—& even as it was I got a fairly
authentic kick. But he had to work in one of his beloved fights before he could
get down to business with the spectral part. (ES1.357)
Similar sentiments of praise (with or without caveats)
included: “Wolfshead” (“Now—in ‘26—I saw that W.T. had landed a new big-timer of the CAS and EHP calibre.” SL5.277), “The Black Stone” (“I know it’s trite, but something in it gave
me a kick for all that.” ES2.440),
“The Horror from the Mound” (“excellent” ES2.471,
OFF 29), “People of the Dark” (“has
its points, but is strained in many places” ES2.475),
“Gods of the North” (“interesting” UL 13),
“Worms of the Earth” (SL4.180), “The
Scarlet Citadel” and “The Tower of the Elephant” (“reach a level of really
tremendous power” LA8.32), “Pool of
the Black One” (“a few good touches [...] though other parts cater obviously to
herd taste” LRBO 79-80), “Old
Garfield’s Heart” (“the only items worth reading” OFF 91), “The Valley of the Worm” (“fair” LRBO 97), “Shadows in the Moonlight” (“excellent”, LRBO 102; ES2.629; “Two-Gun Bob’s Conan tale gains distinction from those
moon-waked eidola & that pre-human rune in the mouth of a parrot.” OFF 129), “The Haunter of the Ring” (“a
resurrected minor effort” ES2.641),
“The Garden of Fear” (“does well” LRBO
108), “Devil in Iron” (“notable” OFF 163),
“Jewels of Gwahlur” (“[...] isn’t at all bad. It repeats certain Howardian
formulae, yet has a certain authentic magic & sense of brooding elder
mystery.” OFF 232), “Shadows of
Zamboula” (“his usual sanguinary & spirited self” ES2.717; “Two-Gun displays his customary vitality” LRBO 322 “good yarn” LA8.41), “Queen of the Black Coast” (“a
certain touch of genuine poetic vision” LRBO
119), “Dig Me No Grave” (“liked it despite a certain stiffness &
immaturity” LHK 29; “a powerful (even
if a bit hackneyed) tale” LJFM 400),
and “The Fire of Asshurbanipal” (“his description of the ancient ruins holding
a very striking quality” LJFM 399). Perhaps the most damning criticism of
Howard’s work that Lovecraft ever offered was “REH does tend to run themes into
the ground—but for all that he rings the bell now & then.” (ES2.477)
One of Lovecraft’s favorite tales was “Black Canaan,” which
unbeknownst to his correspondents had its origins in an anecdote that Howard
had related to Lovecraft in the course of their letters (AMTF 1.109-110; CL2.134,
157), and which Lovecraft had urged Howard to turn into a story (AMTF 1.128-129, 144). Of the result,
Lovecraft wrote:
His “Black Canaan” is likewise
magnificent in a more realistic way—reflecting a genuine regional background
& giving a clutchingly powerful picture of the horror that stalks through
the moss-hung, shadow-cursed, serpent-ridden swamps of the far south. (LHK 20, cf. LA8.42; LE 23; LRBO 171, 279; LRS 83; MTS 378; UL 16)
Contrast his Black Canaan with the pallid synthetic pap comprising the rest of
the current issue of W.T. (SL5.271)
Weird
Tales’ best story in the last three issues. (LA8.42; LE 23; UL 16)
Others of Howard’s tales merited only a passing mention
regarding the contents of that month’s Weird
Tales, including “Rogues in the House” (LRBO
97) and the posthumously published “Black Hound of Death” (LRBO 364, LRS 86, OFF 370). Serials
Lovecraft refrained from passing judgment on until they were complete, so he
could read them all at once. (LHK 22;
LRBO 256-257; OFF 187; SL5.214-215; SR 45,) So Lovecraft wrote of “People of
the Black Circle”: “I must admit that Two-Gun is tending to go stale a bit...a
conclusion brought home to me by his serial.” (LRBO 122); while claiming “The Hour of the Dragon” “a great piece
of work” (LRS 83) and “[…] really
splendid. Yuggoth, how that bird can surround primal megalithic cities with an
aura of aeon-old fear and necromancy!” (LHK
20; LRBO 171) and “a sustainedly
potent performance” (LRBO 279).
Howard’s final serial, “Red Nails,” Lovecraft found “only average” (OFF 367) and “seemed not much above the
routine level, though of course superior to most pulp junk.” (ES2.752)
Technical criticisms from Lovecraft largely echoed—sometimes
literally—those of his peers, quoting Clark Ashton Smith on Howard’s
“monotonous manslaughter” (LRBO 28,
171, 381), and with E. Hoffmann Price arguing on Howard’s nomenclature:
The only flaw in this stuff is REH’s
incurable tendency to devise names too closely resembling actual names of
ancient history—names which, for us, have a very different set of associations.
In many cases he does this designedly—on the theory that the familiar names
descend from the fabulous realms he describes—but such a design is invalidated
by the fact that we clearly know the etymology of many of the historic terms,
hence cannot accept the pedigree he suggests. Price & I have both argued
with Two-Gun on this point, but we make no headway whatsoever. The only thing
to do is to accept the nomenclature as he gives it, wink at the weak spots,
& be damned thankful that we can get such vivid artificial legendry. (LRBO 319)
Likewise, the antiquarian Lovecraft disliked Howard’s
“occasional use of jarringly modern phrases (mixed with archaic devices!)” in
his historical and prehistoric fiction. (LRS
19)
One of the most immediate and frequent references to Howard in
Lovecraft’s letters isn’t to the man himself, but his contributions to the shared
artificial mythology that developed with Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth,
Frank Belknap Long, and others, to which Lovecraft told Derleth:
I like
to have others use my Azathoths & Nyarlathoteps—& in return I shall
use Klarkash-Ton’s Tsathoggua, your monk Clithanus, & Howard’s Bran. (ES1.353, cf.336)
 |
| Illustration by Gary Gianni |
Despite Lovecraft’s early affection for the Pictish king Bran
Mak Morn, Howard’s most singular addition to this Mythos was the the Black Book
of von Junzt. Lovecraft was scrupulous in assigning the origin of von Junzt and
his tome to Howard, much as he did with Clark Ashton Smith and the Book of Eibon. (LRBO 29, 380, 391; LRS 40;
SL5.16, 285-286; UL 37) The Black Book also occasioned Lovecraft’s direct
intervention on two occasions. The first involved the German translation of the
tome’s name, which appeared in “The Dreams in the Witch House” and other tales,
as Lovecraft related in a letter to Richard F. Searight:
Robert E. Howard
invented the mythical von Junzt opus, but did not give it a German name—since
he is as ignorant as I of German. I thought it would be more convincing to have
one, so passed the question to Derleth—who responded with Unaussprechlichen Kulten. Not long afterward Price, recalling his
scraps of West Point German, began to question the correctness of this phrase
for the exact shade of meaning intended, & offered Unnenbarren as a substitute. Wright—who prides himself on a
smattering of German—became convinced that Sultan Malik was right, &
refused to use the Derleth version …. forgetting that Sauk CIty was settled by
Germans of great cultivation, among whom the language was kept alive in its
best form as a heritage, so that little Augie knows what he’s talking about.
These matters stood deadlocked until, one day, the ex-illustrator Senf happened
in at 840 N. Michigan to talk over old times. He was born & educated in
Germany, & obviously has the right dope. The subject was brought up, &
C. C. unhesitatingly voted for Derleth… thus settling the matter, & atoning
for all the third-rate “art” he perpetrated in the dear dead days gone by! So
it is certain that the monstrous compilation of Herr von Junzt (with its
cryptic borrowings from the Eltdown Shards) was issued in Düsseldorf under the
title Unaussprechlichen Kulten! (LRS
40)
The whole of the exchange on Unaussprechlichen versus Unnennbarren
was carried out through letters, involving a rather complicated exchange
between Lovecraft, Farnsworth Wright, August Derleth, and E. Hoffmann Price. (ES2.448, 628, 630-2, 635, 642) The
second involved the name of Howard’s author—REH himself having left it simply
as “von Junzt,” both Robert Bloch and Lovecraft sought to fill in the gap:
[Y]ou give Howard’s von Junzt the
praenomen of Conrad, whereas at least
one printed allusion (which I put in a story I ghost-wrote for a
revision-client!) establishes it as Friedrich.
Howard himself, amusingly enough, did not give von Junzt a first name so far as
I know. (LRBO 56)
Lovecraft vastly preferred Howard’s weird fiction to his other
pulp work—on passing off his copy of Howard’s early sports story “College
Socks” to August Derleth, Lovecraft says only “despite my admiration for the
author’s vivid letters on Texas history & tradition I have no burning urge
to retain this especial narrative.” (ES1.384)
This is not to say that Lovecraft didn’t appreciate Howard’s other talents,
writing to J. Vernon Shea “For prize fight stuff I’d apply to Bob Howard.” (SL4.192), and to Wilfred B. Talman (then
editor of The Texaco Star):
Howard is the chap who can give you the
colour—the sweep of the oil camps across the primal Texas plains, and the
pageantry and social developments connected with them. He does not welcome the
coming of the derricks and the slimy black ooze, but he is acutely sensitive to
their place in the long drama of the Lone Star country. (SL3.173)
Similar to his feelings regarding E. Hoffmann Price,
Lovecraft—ever the auteur—both
regretted the Texan’s concessions to popular taste and admired his ability to
do it.
Price is quite an expert in striking a
compromise betwixt his own taste & the rabble’s grotesque cravings—&
Robert E. Howard is no slouch at the same game. (LRS 19)
The really lucky guy is the one whose natural mode of expression
happens—through pure chance—to coincide with some form of writing in popular
demand. Robert E. Howard is the best example of this I can think of at the
moment—his stories sell, but they have a zest & naturalness which at once
distinguish them from the listless, synthetic pap of ….. all the rest of the
hacks …. (SL5.31-32)
It is useless to point out that a few
tremendously vigorous authors like Two-Gun Bob do somehow find a way to
circumvent commercialism in part, & get a few good stories published in
spite of Mammon-standards. Even in this case a cruel waste of energy & ability—which might have gone into aesthetic
creation—is involved, & the net output of the author is just so much less
excellent than it would have been in in the absence of commercial pressures. (SL5.328)
 |
| Picture from E. Hoffmann Price's "Book of the Dead" |
Perhaps not without a hint of irritation or jealousy at how
readily Wright accepted these popular efforts while rejecting some of his best
work, Lovecraft once wrote of Farnsworth Wright: “No doubt he turned down my
Mts. of Madness because it wasn’t like one of Two-Gun’s African ruins stories!”
(OFF 230)
Correspondingly, Lovecraft noted the increasing adventure
aspect of his Weird Tales offerings,
and the associated decrease of any weird element. For example in 1934 regarding
“A Witch Shall Be Born” he wrote: “Two-Gun Bob hits a very fast stride in his
adventure story—which is weird only by courtesy & by the laborious dragging
in of a monster.” (ES2.671, cf. LRS 41) This sentiment that “REH is
surely turning from weirdness to sheer adventure these days.” (ES2.708) was most fully expressed to
Natalie H. Wooley:
Two-Gun-Bob is a definite recruit for
adventure fiction. He keeps up a thin allegiance to weirdness, but it is in the
slashing & mangling & escaping that his real zest lies. At that, he is
miles ahead of all the hack pulpists—Kline, Quinn & (alas, alas!) the
post-1932 Price—since he obviously enters enthusiastically into all his
sanguinary upheavals. His own personality & ideas stick out all over his
stories. (LRS 58)
One of the most amusing incidents related in Lovecraft’s
letters regarding this tendency of Howard’s came in his reports on “The
Challenge From Beyond.” A round robin instituted by Julius Schwartz, editor of Fantasy Magazine, the story included
separate segments from C. L. Moore, A. Merrit, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E.
Howard, and Frank Belknap Long, in that order. (LRS 64-65; OFF 299; SL5.199-200) Lovecraft’s section
included many typical aspects of his fiction, including an educated, bloodless
protagonist—while Howard’s section typical of his own unique brand of fiction:
It amused me to see how quickly Two-Gun
converted the scholarly & inoffensive George Campbell into a raging Conan
or King Kull! (LRBO 163, cf. LRS 70; MTS 372; OFF 305)
Even so, Lovecraft’s regard for Howard was not limited to weird
fiction, and he noted of Howard: “His best
work would probably have been regional and historical, and I was greatly
pleased by his recent tendency to employ his own south-western background in
fiction.” (SL5.278), referring
implicitly to Howard’s success with the Breckinridge Elkins and Pike Bearfield
stories. It was typical of Lovecraft that he thought Howard’s real talent and
fame laid not in pulp-fiction, but “serious” regional writing, one commenting
to August Derleth: “He really has tremendous brilliancy, & if his
attainments could be disciplined he’d do for West Texas what you’re doing for
Sac Prairie.” (ES2.524)
How much of REH’s non-weird fiction—his orientales of El Borak,
the fighting fiction of Sailor Steve Costigan, Dennis Dorgan, and Kid Allison,
etc.—that Lovecraft actually read is debatable, though he was certainly aware
of some of them from his letters with Howard. Given Lovecraft’s main interest
in weird fiction and that being the principle shared interest with those he
corresponded with, likely he simply didn’t feel the need or desire to bring up
Howard’s non-weird stories very much.
(To be Continued . . .)
Works Cited
AMTF A
Means to Freedom: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (2
vols.)
CL Collected
Letters of Robert E. Howard (3 vols. + Index and Addenda)
ES Essential
Solitude: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth (2 vols.)
LA Lovecraft
Annual (9 vols.)
LAG Letters
to Alfred Galpin
LE H.
P. Lovecraft in “The Eyrie”
LET Letters
to Elizabeth Toldridge and Anne Tillery Renshaw
LJFM Letters
to James F. Morton
LHK Letters
to Henry Kuttner
LRBO Letters
to Robert Bloch and Others
LRS Letters
to Richard F. Searight
MTS Mysteries
of Time and Spirit: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei
OFF O
Fortunate Floridian: H. P. Lovecraft’s Letters to R. H. Barlow
SL Selected
Letters of H. P. Lovecraft (5 vols.)
SLCAS Selected
Letters of Clark Ashton Smith
SR Sable
Revery
UL H.
P. Lovecraft: Uncollected Letters
WD Fritz
Leiber and H. P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark
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