An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

of 1936; shortly thereafter they collaborated on “The Night Ocean” ( Californian,Winter 1936), although the recently discovered typescript of the story shows that the bulk of the tale is Barlow’s. In the mid-1930s he brimmed with ideas for literary projects: an edition of Henry S.Whitehead’s letters, to be entitled Caneviniana;a collection of C.L.Moore’s tales; a volume of Clark Ashton Smith’s poetry, Incantations;and booklets of HPL’s Fungi from Yuggothand collected poetry. Although some of these projects were begun, none was completed; but in conjunction with Fungi from Yuggoth(which Barlow partially typeset), the sonnetcycle finally achieved its canonical form in the summer of 1936, with the addition of “Recapture” at Barlow’s suggestion. Barlow published two issues of an amateur magazine, The Dragon Fly(October 15, 1935, May 15, 1936), although neither contained work by HPL. For Christmas 1935 Barlow published HPL’s The Cats of Ultharin an edition of forty-two copies. Barlow aided significantly in the preservation of HPL’s manuscripts by typing texts in exchange for autograph manuscripts. HPL named him his literary executor in “Instructions in Case of Decease” (1936); Annie E.P.Gamwell formalized the relationship in a document drawn up on March 26, 1937. Barlow came to Providence to sort through HPL’s papers, taking some away (in accordance with the “Instructions”) and donating others to the John Hay Library of Brown University. He assisted August Derleth and Donald Wandrei in preparing O, but they ostracized him from the field, particularly Wandrei, who believed Barlow had stolen HPL’s papers. (HPL perhaps was more patient than Wandrei and Derleth with Barlow’s persistent requests for their manuscripts.) Barlow edited HPL’s

Notes & Commonplace Book(1938), contributed to the Acolyte,and lent assistance to the first bibliography of HPL, by Francis T.Laney and William H.Evans (1943). He also edited two outstanding issues of the mimeographed fanzine Leaves(Summer 1937, 1938), containing rare works by HPL, A.Merritt, and other weird writers. He moved to Mexico around 1943, where he taught at several colleges, later becoming a professor of anthropology at Mexico City College and a distinguished anthropologist of Indian culture and poet ( Poems for a Competition[1942], A View from a Hill [1947]). He wrote a poignant memoir of HPL, “The Wind That Is in the Grass” (in Marginalia;rpt. LR). He committed suicide on January 1, 1951, in Mexico City, when threatened with exposure of his homosexuality. See On Lovecraft and Life

(containing his journal of HPL’s 1934 visit and his 1940s autobiography), ed. S.T.Joshi (Necronomicon Press, 1992).

See Lawrence Hart, “A Note on Robert Barlow,” Poetry78 (May 1951): 115–16; George T.Smisor, “R.H.Barlow and Tlalocan,” Tlalocan3, No. 2 (1952): 97–102; Clare Mooser, “A Study of Robert Barlow: The T.E.Lawrence of Mexico,” Mexico Quarterly Review3, No. 2 (1968): 5–12; George T.Wetzel, “Lovecraft’s Literary Executor,” Fantasy Commentator4, No. 1 (Winter 1978–79): 34–43; Kenneth W.Faig, Jr., “R.H.Barlow,” Journal of the H.P.Lovecraft SocietyNo. 2 (1979): [7–36]; Kenneth W.Faig, Jr., “Robert H.Barlow as H.P. Lovecraft’s Literary Executor: An Appreciation,”

Crypt No. 60 (Hallowmas 1988): 52–62; S.T.Joshi, “R.H.Barlow and the Recognition of Lovecraft,” Crypt No. 60 (Hallowmas 1988): 45–51, 32; S.T.Joshi, “Introduction” to Barlow’s On Lovecraft and Life (Necronomicon Press, 1992); Steven J.Jordan, “H.P.Lovecraft in Florida,” LSNo. 42 (Summer 2001): 34–48.

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Page 17

Barry, Denys.

In “The Moon-Bog,” an American who buys and restores his ancestral castle in Kilderry, Ireland. When he attempts to drain the nearby bog, the spirits that dwell there exact their vengeance on him. Like Barry, HPL always hoped (unrealistically) to buy back his ancestral home.

Barzai the Wise.

In “The Other Gods,” the learned scholar who “knew so much of the gods…that he was deemed half a god himself.” He attempts to scale Mt. Ngranek to glimpse the elusive gods of earth, thinking his great knowledge of them will protect him from their wrath. He thinks he finds them, but instead he encounters “the other gods,” and, for his hubris, he is swept into the sky.

Bates, Harry [Hiram Gilmore], III (1900–1981),