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

I wish I knew more about Bernard Austin Dwyer (1897–1943), but as he published relatively little and was more an appreciator than a creator, he remains a nebulous figure. He lived nearly the whole of his life in and around the tiny village of West Shokan, in upstate New York, near the towns of Hurley, New Paltz, and Kingston. Although attracted to weird fiction and the author of a short poem published in Weird Tales (‘Ol’ Black Sarah’ in the October 1928 issue), his chief interest was weird art; and in this capacity he naturally became fast friends with Clark Ashton Smith. One gains the impression that Dwyer was a kind of mute, inglorious Milton. He came in touch with Lovecraft through Weird Tales

in the early part of 1927. In the summer of 1927 Lovecraft both played host to a succession of visitors to Providence and undertook several journeys of his own—something that would become a habit every spring and summer, as he roamed increasingly widely in quest of antiquarian oases. First on the agenda was his new friend Donald Wandrei, who undertook a trip from St Paul, Minnesota, to Providence entirely by hitchhiking. One would like to think that such an expedition was a little safer then than it would be now, and perhaps it was; Wandrei seemed to have no difficulty getting rides, even though on occasion he had to spend nights under the open sky, sometimes in the rain.

Arriving on 20 June in Chicago, where he confirmed all Lovecraft’s impressions of the place, Wandrei went to the Weird Tales office and met Farnsworth Wright. Lovecraft himself had spoken to Wright about Wandrei’s work early in the year, and perhaps as a result Wandrei’s ‘The Red Brain’—rejected a year earlier—was accepted in March. Wandrei felt the need to return the favour, so he spoke to Wright about ‘The Call of Cthulhu’. Accordingly, Wright asked Lovecraft to resubmit the tale and accepted it for $165.00; it appeared in the February 1928 issue. This did not, of course, prevent Wright from rejecting ‘The Strange High House in the Mist’ and ‘The Silver Key’ later in the summer; but in both cases he asked to see them again, and ultimately accepted them for $70.00 and $55.00, respectively.

On 12 July Wandrei arrived in Providence, staying till the 29th. On the 16th Lovecraft and Wandrei set out for Boston; but the excursion was somewhat of a disappointment. Lovecraft was especially keen on showing Wandrei the sinister, decaying North End where ‘Pickman’s Model’ was set, but was mortified to find that ‘the actual alley & house of the tale [had been] utterly demolished; a whole crooked line of buildings having been torn down’.¹³

This remark is of interest in indicating that Lovecraft had an actual house in mind for Pickman’s North End studio.

On Tuesday, 19 July, Frank Long and his parents drove up from New York City, while simultaneously James F. Morton came down from Green Acre, Maine, where he had been visiting. On the 21st the entire crew went to Newport. The Longs left on the 22nd, whereupon Morton dragged Lovecraft and Wandrei to the rock quarry on which Lovecraft still held the mortgage, and for which he was still receiving his pittance of a payment ($37.08) every six months. The owner, Mariano de Magistris, set his men to hunting up specimens, while his son drove them home in his car. ‘That’s what I call real Latin courtesy!’ Lovecraft remarked in a rare show of tolerance for non-Aryans.¹⁴

On Saturday the 23rd occurred an historic pilgrimage—to Julia A. Maxfield’s in Warren, where Lovecraft, Morton, and Wandrei staged an ice-cream-eating contest. Maxfield’s advertised twentyeight flavours of ice cream, and the contestants sampled them all. Wandrei could not quite keep up with the others, but he at least managed to dip his spoon into the remaining flavours so that he could say he had tasted them all.

That afternoon a contingent from Athol, Massachusetts, arrived —W. Paul Cook and his protégé, H. Warner Munn (1903–81). Lovecraft had no doubt heard something of Munn before. Munn’s ‘The Werewolf of Ponkert’ (Weird Tales, July 1925) was apparently inspired by a comment in Lovecraft’s letter to Edwin Baird published in the March 1924 issue. He contributed extensively to the pulps and over his long career wrote many supernatural and adventure novels; but perhaps his most distinguished works were historical novels written late in his career, notably Merlin’s Ring

(1974) and The Lost Legion (1980). Lovecraft took to Munn readily, finding him ‘a splendid young chap—blond and burly’;¹⁵ he would visit him frequently when passing through Athol.