An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

“Edward Softly” was used for the poems “Damon and Delia, a Pastoral” ( Tryout,August 1918), “To Delia, Avoiding Damon” ( Tryout,September 1918), “Ode to Selene or Diana” ( Tryout,April 1919; as “To Selene”), “Tryout’s Lament for the Vanished Spider” ( Tryout,January 1920), “The Dream” ( Tryout,September 1920), “Christmas” ( Tryout,November 1920), and “Chloris and Damon” ( Tryout, June 1923). The name is probably meant to augment the satirical intent of the several poems here that spoof romantic love poetry. See also “Ward Phillips” above.

“Lewis Theobald, Jun.,” HPL’s most frequently used pseudonym, was used for the two stories cowritten with Winifred Virginia Jackson, “The Crawling Chaos” ( United Co-operative,April 1921) and “The Green Meadow” ( Vagrant,[Spring 1927]), the essays “The Convention” ( Tryout,July 1930 [as by “Theobald”]) “Some Causes of Self-immolation,” and the poems “Unda; or, The Bride of the Sea” ( Providence Amateur,February 1916; as “The Bride of the Sea”), “Ye Ballade of Patrick von Flynn” ( Conservative,April 1916), “Inspiration” ( Conservative,October 1916), “Brotherhood” ( Tryout, December 1916), “The Rutted Road” ( Tryout,January 1917), “The Nymph’s Reply to the Modern Business Man” ( Tryout,February 1917), “Pacifist War Song” ( Tryout,March 1917) “Sonnet on Myself ( Tryout,July 1918), “Damon—a Monody” ( United Amateur,May 1919 [as “Theobaldus Senectissimus”]), “Monody on the Late King Alcohol” ( Tryout,August 1919), “To Mistress Sophia Simple, Queen of the Cinema” ( United Amateur,November 1919), “To Phillis” ( Tryout,January 1920), “Cindy: Scrub-Lady in a State Street Skyscraper” ( Tryout,June 1920), “The Poet’s Rash Excuse” ( Tryout,July 1920), “Ex-Poet’s Reply” ( Epgephi,September 1920), “To Alfred Galpin, Esq.” ( Tryout,December 1920), “On the Return of Maurice Winter Moe, Esq., to the Pedagogical Profession” ( Wolverine,June 1921), “To Mr. Galpin, upon His 20th Birthday” ( Tryout,December 1921), “On a Poet’s Ninety-first Birthday” ( Tryout,March 1922), “To Rheinhart Kleiner, Esq., upon His Town Fables and Elegies” ( Tryout,April 1923), “To Damon” ( Tryout,August 1923), “To Endymion” ( Tryout,September 1923), “To J.E.Hoag, Esq.: On His Ninety-second Birthday” ( Tryout,November 1923), and “The Wood” ( Tryout,January 1929). A brief biography of Theobald ap

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peared in “News Notes” ( United Amateur,March 1918); it is unsigned, but is presumably by the Official Editor of the UAPA at the time, Verna McGeoch. The name is derived from Lewis Theobald (1688–1744), the Shakespearean scholar whom Alexander Pope made the “hero” of the first version of his satirical poem, The Dunciad(1728). (See R.Boerem, “The First Lewis Theobald,” in Discovering H.P.Lovecraft,ed. Darrell Schweitzer [1987].) HPL’s use of the name cannot be entirely systematized, but it appears that he used it most frequently for poems written to friends (Alfred Galpin, Rheinhart Kleiner, Maurice W.Moe, Jonathan E.Hoag, Frank Belknap Long), or other personal poems. HPL pronounced it in the eighteenth-century manner, as a dissyllable (TIB-uld), and frequently referred to himself in correspondence as “Grandpa Theobald.”

For “Albert Frederick Willie,” used for the poem “Nathicana” ( Vagrant,[Spring 1927]), see the entry on Alfred Galpin.

For “Zoilus” see “The Vivisector.”

“Augustus T.Swift” was formerly thought to be a pseudonym of HPL’s for two letters (one of which contains lavish praise of the pulp writer Francis Stevens) published in the Argosy(November 15, 1919, and May 22, 1920); but recent research has ascertained that Swift was a real individual living in Providence. See S.T.Joshi, ed., H.P.Lovecraft in the Argosy(Necronomicon Press, 1994). Some have mistaken “Perrin Holmes Lowrey” to be a pseudonym of HPL’s because of the initials of his name, but he is an actual person—an amateur journalist of HPL’s day. HPL’s sonnet “St. Toad’s” appeared in WT(Canadian; September 1945) as by “J.H.Brownlow,” but this is not a pseudonymn. See Willametta Keffer, “Howard P(seudonym) Lovecraft: The Many Names of HPL,” FossilNo. 158 (July 1958): 82–84; George T.Wetzel, “The Pseudonymous Lovecraft,” Xenophile3, No. 4 (November 1976): 3–5, 73; S.T. Joshi, “The Rationale of Lovecraft’s Pseudonyms,” CryptNo. 80 (Eastertide 1992): 15–24, 29.

“Psychopompos: A Tale in Rhyme.”