An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

In 1928 HPL’s travels began unexpectedly early, as in April he was summoned to Brooklyn by Sonia, who was setting up a hat shop and requested HPL’s assistance. He took the occasion to go on an expedition by car with Frank Belknap Long up the Hudson River and (on a later trip with Long) to Stamford and Ridgefield, Conn. In May he visited James F.Morton at his museum in Paterson, N.J., and visited Wilfred B.Talman in Spring Valley (Rockland Co.), N.Y., returning via Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. Then Vrest Orton invited HPL to visit him in Brattleboro, Vt, and HPL spent two weeks there in June. Later that month he proceeded to Wilbraham, Mass., where he visited Edith Miniter; the impressions he derived from that visit were incorporated into the topography of “The Dunwich Horror” (1928). In July he headed south, passing through New York and going on to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Annapolis, Alexandria, George Washington’s residence at Mt. Vernon, and the Endless Caverns in New Market, Va. This series of travels was described in one of his finest travelogues, “Observations on Several Parts of America” (1928).

HPL’s travels of 1929 began at the very start of the year, as Samuel Loveman came to Providence and went with HPL to Boston, Salem, and Marblehead. In April HPL came to New York and then spent several weeks in Vrest Orton’s home in Yonkers. In May he headed south, visiting Washington and exhaustively exploring Richmond, Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown, Fredericksburg, and Falmouth, Va. Later he spent a few more days in Washington, returned to New York, and was driven by the Longs to West Shokan, N.Y., the residence of Bernard Austin Dwyer. HPL explored the abundant Dutch colonial remains of the nearby towns of Kingston, Hurley, and New Paltz. HPL wrote of these travels in “Travels in the Provinces of America” (1929). In August he took a trip to the Fairbanks house (1636) in Dedham, Mass., writing of the visit in an unpublished essay, “An Account of a Trip to the Fairbanks House” (1929). Later that month the Longs took HPL on a visit to New Bedford and Cape Cod. It was on this occasion that HPL, for the first and last only time, flew in an airplane (a $3 ride over Buzzard’s Bay). Late in August HPL and his aunt Annie Gamwell revisited sites in Foster.

In late April 1930 HPL headed directly from Providence to Charleston , S.C., whose colonial remains entranced him. It came to be his second favorite town, after Providence, and he wrote of it in “An Account of Charleston” (1930). In May HPL returned north through Richmond, New York City, and Kingston, N.Y., returning home in mid-June. The next month he attended the NAPA convention in Boston, and in August the Longs took him again to Cape Cod. Then, in late August, he took a cheap excursion to Quebec, whose colonial relics impelled him to write A Description of the Town of Quebeck(1930–31), his single longest literary work.

HPL’s travels of 1931 reached the widest extent they would ever achieve. In May he left for New York, spent much time in Charleston, visited Savannah, Ga., and spent two weeks in St. Augustine, Fla. He also visited Henry S.White-head in Dunedin, briefly visited Miami, and then spent several days in Key West. He returned north via St. Augustine, Charleston, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Philadelphia, and New York. The Longs took him for a weekend to the beach resort of Asbury Park, N.J., and he spent a week with Talman

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in Brooklyn. He returned home in mid-July. In October he went with W.Paul Cook to Boston, Newburyport, and Haverhill; in November to Boston, Salem, Marblehead, Newburyport (which inspired the writing of “The Shadow over Innsmouth”), and Portsmouth. He wrote no travelogue of these visits, but they are chronicled extensively in his letters.

In May 1932 HPL left Providence for New York, then went south to Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis, Tennessee, and Vicksburg and Natchez, Mississippi. He then proceeded to New Orleans, spending time with E.Hoffmann Price. HPL subsequently explored Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., and Atlanta, returning north via Fredericksburg, Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York. He was called home abruptly in early July by the illness of his aunt Lillian, who died on July 3. In late August HPL visited Cook in Boston; they went to Newburyport to see a solar eclipse, after which HPL spent several days in Quebec. HPL revisited Salem and Marblehead in October. Toward the end of the year HPL initiated a new tradition of spending New Year’s Day in New York City, visiting his many friends there; on these occasions he usually stayed with the Longs.