An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,a tavern companion of Ezra Weeden who assists his friend in collecting information regarding Joseph Curwen and participates in the 1771 raid on his farmhouse that results in his apparent death.

Smith, Preserved.

In “The Shunned House,” a man who is hired by Mercy Dexter to be a servant at the house. He complains that something “sucked his breath” at night and departs abruptly.

“Some Causes of Self-immolation.”

Essay (4,290 words); written on December 13, 1931. First published in Marginalia;rpt. MW This curious essay on psychology, written as by “L.Theobald, Jun., N.G., A.S.S.,” begins with a potted history of theories of human behavior from the Greeks through Descartes and Hobbes to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and modern psychologists and philosophers. It identifies eleven “instincts” (nutrition, flight, repulsion, etc.) and their corresponding emotions (hunger, fear, disgust, etc.). (The list is taken from William McDougall’s Introduction to Social Psychology[1908].) HPL then adds one of his own, symmetry. Various motives for human behavior are then discussed. That HPL may have written the essay as a parody of psychological obscurantism is indicated by its subtitle (“Motives for Voluntary Self-Subjugation to Unpleasant Conditions by Human Beings”) and by the fact that L.Theobald, Jun. is cited as “Professor of Satanism of Applied Irreverence in Philistine University, Chorazin, Nebraska; Mencken Lecturer on Theology in Holy Roller College, Hoke’s Four Corners, Tennessee.”

“Some Dutch Footprints in New England.”

Essay (1,420 words); probably written in July 1933. First published in De Halve Maen(October 18, 1933); rpt. MW

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Written at the behest of Wilfred B.Talman, editor of De Halve Maen( The Half Moon,published by the Holland Society of New York), the essay somewhat routinely discusses traces of Dutch architecture and folkways in Rhode Island. In his memoir in The Normal Lovecraft(1973), Talman admits that he engaged in a lengthy debate over stylistic niceties in the essay as a kind of revenge for what Talman felt was HPL’s heavy-handed revision of “Two Black Bottles” (1926).

“Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction.”

Essay (2,360 words); originally written in July 1934 for publication in one of W.L.Crawford’s magazines. First published in the Californian(Winter 1935); rpt. MW

Incorporating passages from “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction,” the essay laments the generally low quality of pulp science fiction but looks to such writers as H.G.Wells and Olaf Stapledon to raise the aesthetic level of the field. HPL urges writers to regard with great seriousness the colossal emotional impact of being off the earth and in general recommends an approach that eschews conventional characters and settings, the taking for granted of marvels, and a slipshod style. HPL’s tenets surely were unknown by the next generation of “Golden Age” science fiction writers, but their work appears to embody many of his principles.

“Some Repetitions on the Times.”

Essay (6,270 words); written on February 22, 1933. First published in LS(Spring 1986); rpt. MW. An essay fervently urging the new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (two weeks prior to his inauguration), to take immediate and radical action to relieve economic hardship caused by the depression, specifically by adoption of old age pensions, unemployment insurance, and an artificial reducing of working hours so that all able-bodied persons can find work. In the political realm, the franchise should be restricted to those who can pass certain examinations (stressing knowledge of “civics”) so that capable leaders can be elected to deal with the immensely complex political and economic issues created by a technological society.

This is one of HPL’s strongest later essays; it is curious, therefore, that he made no effort to secure its publication, even in an amateur paper, or even to type it to circulate among his colleagues. Many of the central points of the essay are, however, found in HPL’s later letters.

Sophonisba.

In “Medusa’s Coil,” a servant—a “very old Zulu woman”; a “witch-woman”—in the household of Denis de Russy and Marceline Bedard. She recognizes the strange heritage of Marceline and worships her as a goddess.

Sorcier, Charles Le.

In “The Alchemist,” the son of Michel Mauvais and an alchemist who exacts vengeance on the Comtes de C———for six hundred years for the killing of his father at the hands of Henri, Comte de C———, in the thirteenth century.

Sprague, Tom.