An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

MM At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels(rev. ed. 1985) MW Miscellaneous Writings(1995)

NAPA National Amateur Press Association

O The Outsider and Others(1939)

SHSW State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison

SL Selected Letters(1965–76; 5 vols.)

SR The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces(1959)

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TD The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories(2001) UAPA United Amateur Press Association

WT Weird Tales(magazine)

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A

“Account of Charleston, An.”

Essay (20,700 words); probably written in the fall of 1930. First published in MW.

HPL’s most exhaustive travelogue of Charleston, written in a flawless recreation of eighteenthcentury English. It supplies a comprehensive history of the city from its settlement in 1652 to 1930, followed by a discussion of Charleston architecture and a detailed walking tour. Also included are HPL’s drawings of selected Charleston dwellings and a printed map of Charleston on which HPL has traced his recommended itinerary in red pencil. HPL evidently did not distribute the essay, even among his colleagues (the AMS survives at JHL). In 1936, when H.C.Koenig wished to explore Charleston, HPL condensed and modernized the essay in a letter to Koenig (subsequently revised and published by Koenig as Charleston[1936]; rpt. Marginalia).

Ackerman, Forrest J. (b. 1916).

American agent, author, editor. Ackerman has been a science fiction fan since the late ‘20s; he corresponded sporadically with HPL from around 1931 onward. (One letter to him by HPL, dated December 24, 1935, was published in the fanzine Imagination[January 1938].) He instigated a controversy in “The Boiling Point” column ( Fantasy Fan,September 1933f.) when he criticized Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Dweller in Martian Depths” ( Wonder Stories,

March 1933); HPL and his colleagues wrote numerous responses sharply criticizing Ackerman. All responses are reprinted in The Boiling Point(Necronomicon Press, 1985). HPL poked fun at Ackerman in “The Battle That Ended the Century” (1934; with R.H.Barlow), referring to him as “the Effjay of Akkamin,” and “In the Walls of Eryx” (1936; with Kenneth Sterling), where mention is made of “wriggling akmans” and “efjehweeds.” He was later editor of Famous Monsters of Filmlandmagazine (1958–

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80), which was instrumental in maintaining fan interest in weird fiction (and specifically horror films) during an otherwise lean period for the horror genre.

Ad Criticos.

Poem in four books (46, 48, 46, and 34 lines); first published in the Argosy(January 1914 [first book] and February 1914 [second book]); last two books first published in Saturnalia and Other Poems(1984). These satirical poems attack HPL’s epistolary enemies in the Argosy’s

letter column, who had attacked him after he had criticized the romance writer Fred Jackson. The last two “books” did not appear in the Argosyas had the first two.

Akeley, Henry Wentworth.

In “The Whisperer in Darkness,” the reclusive farmer in Townshend, Vt., who notifies Albert Wilmarth (the narrator) of his encounters with the alien beings from the planet Yuggoth. Akeley’s mind is eventually stored in a mechanical apparatus by the aliens, one of whom (possibly Nyarlathotep himself), masquerading as Akeley, lures Wilmarth to Akeley’s farmhouse to destroy him. The character was inspired in part by the rustic Bert G.Akley, whom HPL met during his trip to Vermont in 1927. Henry’s son, George Goodenough Akeley, residing in San Diego, is named partly for the amateur poet Arthur Goodenough, whose rustic abode partly suggested the Akeley farmhouse. “Alchemist, The.”

Juvenile story (3,700 words); written 1908. First published in the United Amateur(November 1916); first collected in SR;corrected text in D.