A Dreamer & A Visionary; H.P. Lovecraft in His Time

But after December, the issue of Lovecraft’s return was evidently dropped, perhaps because all parties concerned were waiting to see about the possibility of his securing employment at Morton’s museum in Paterson. Three more months passed with no prospect of work for Lovecraft except a temporary job as envelopeaddresser; and so, on 27 March, he finally received the invitation to come home.

What, or who, was behind the invitation? Was it merely Lillian’s decision? Did Annie add her vote? Were there others involved? There is conflicting evidence on the point. Frank Long told Winfield Townley Scott that he had written to Annie ‘urging that arrangements be set in motion to restore [Lovecraft] to Providence’;⁶ but in his 1975 memoir Long noted that his mother wrote a letter to the aunts.

⁷ So who wrote the letter, Long or his mother? The latter theory is not at all improbable: during Lillian’s month or so in New York during December 1924 and January 1925, she and Lovecraft visited the Longs frequently; and it seems that a bond was established between these two elderly women whose son and nephew, respectively, were such close friends. Still, Long’s earlier mentions that he wrote the letter may perhaps be more reliable; or perhaps both Long and his mother did so.

After making the preliminary invitation, Lillian had evidently suggested Boston or Cambridge as a more likely place for Lovecraft to find literary work. Lovecraft grudgingly admitted the apparent good sense of this idea, but then, in words both poignant and a little sad, made a plea for residing in Providence:

To all intents & purposes I am more naturally isolated from mankind than Nathaniel Hawthorne himself, who dwelt alone in the midst of crowds, & whom Salem knew only after he died. Therefore, it may be taken as axiomatic that the people of a place matter absolutely nothing to me except as components of the general landscape & scenery … My life lies not among people

but among scenes—my local affections are not personal, but topographical & architectural … I am always an outsider—to all scenes & all people—but outsiders have their sentimental preferences in visual environment. I will be dogmatic only to the extent of saying that it is New England I

must have—in some form or other. Providence is part of me—I am Providence … Providence is my home, & there I shall end my days if I can do so with any semblance of peace, dignity, or appropriateness … Providence would always be at the back of my head as a goal to be worked toward—an ultimate Paradise to be regain’d at last.⁸

Lillian shortly afterward decided that her nephew should come back to Providence. She found a place for the two of them at 10 Barnes Street, north of the Brown University campus, and asked Lovecraft whether she should take it. He responded with another near-hysterical letter: ‘Whoopee!! Bang!! ‘Rah!! For God’s sake jump at that room without a second’s delay!! I can’t believe it—too good to be true! … Somebody wake me up before the dream becomes so poignant I can’t bear to be waked up!!!’⁹

I have quoted these letters at such length—and several of them go on for pages in this vein—to display how close to the end of his tether Lovecraft must have been. He had tried for two years to put the best face on things—had tried to convince Lillian, and perhaps himself, that his coming to New York was not a mistake—but when the prospect of going home was held out, he leaped at it with an alacrity that betrays his desperation.

The big question, of course, was where Sonia fitted in—or, perhaps, whether she fitted in. Although Sonia would return from the Midwest to help Lovecraft pack and accompany him home to get him ensconced in his new quarters, there was certainly no thought at this juncture of her actually living in Providence or working there. And yet, such a course was clearly considered at some point—at least by Sonia, and perhaps by Lovecraft as well. In her memoir she remarks: ‘He wanted more than anything else to go back to Providence but he also wanted me to come along, and this I could not do because there was no situation open there for me; that is, one fitting my ability and my need.’ Perhaps the most dramatic passage in her entire memoir relates to this critical period:

When he no longer could tolerate Brooklyn, I, myself, suggested that he return to Providence. Said he, ‘If we could but both return to live in Providence, the blessed city where I was born and reared, I am sure, there I could be happy.’ I agreed, ‘I’d love nothing better than to live in Providence if I could do my work there but Providence has no particular niche that I could fill.’ He returned to Providence himself. I came much later.