An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

1923. Lawson in fact regarded HPL as the “editor” of the column. The column for November 1921 was written by Alfred Galpin and is a review of the previous issues of the Wolverine;included is a lengthy discussion of HPL’s “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family.” The first column discusses a variety of amateur journals; the second focuses on Galpin’s Philosopher (December 1920), and HPL characteristically disparages his own contributions to that paper, “Polaris” and “The House”; the columns for March 1922 and Spring 1923 are friendly analyses of the poetry of Lillian Middleton and Rheinhart Kleiner, respectively. The pseudonym “Zoilus” used in all the columns refers to the fourth-century B.C.E. Greek critic who severely criticized the Homeric poems, so that his name came to refer to any unduly censorious critic; but the articles themselves are on the whole genial and complimentary.

“Volunteer, The.”

Poem (48 lines in 6 stanzas); written in mid- to late January 1918. First published in the [Providence] Evening News(February 1, 1918); rpt. National Enquirer(February 7, 1918); rpt. Tryout(April 1918); rpt. Appleton[Wis.] Post(date unknown); St. Petersburg[Fla.] Evening Independent(date unknown); Trench and Camp(military paper at San Antonio, Tex.) (date unknown). The most reprinted poem in HPL’s lifetime; a response to “Only a Volunteer” by Sgt. Hayes P.Miller ( National Enquirer,January 17, 1918), which had suggested that all the sympathy and recognition went to American conscript soldiers rather than to volunteers. The last three appearances were cited in a note in the United Amateur(May 1918) and have not been located; the appearance in the Appleton Postwas presumably arranged by Maurice W.Moe, that in the St. Petersburg Evening Independentprobably by John Russell.

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W

Waite, Asenath.

In “The Thing on the Doorstep,” the domineering woman who, at the age of twenty-three, marries the thirty-eight-year-old Edward Derby. Derby’s father does not approve of her because of the crowd to which she belongs, but he is unable to prevent their marriage. Asenath—whose family comes from Innsmouth—exchanges personalities with Derby, at first only intermittently. Derby kills her to thwart her attempt to effect a permanent exchange, but her will is so strong that she still manages to accomplish the exchange even after her death. But the personality that overtakes Derby is actually not Asenath at all, but her father Ephraim, who as his own death was approaching overtook his own weak-willed daughter’s body.

There are very few female characters in HPL’s fiction. None is as fully developed as Asenath, but even she is revealed to be no woman at all, but actually her father Ephraim. Derby’s resistance to Asenath’s strong will may evoke his own feelings to some of the dominating females in his own life, most notably his mother and his wife. The names Asenath and Ephraim are perhaps meant to parody a passage in Genesis, where Asenath is the wife of Joseph (41:45) and gives birth to Ephraim (46:20); HPL reverses the genealogy and makes Ephraim the father of Asenath.

Walakea.

In “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” the chief of a band of Kanakas dwelling on an island in the South Seas, whose inhabitants mate with loathsome sea-creatures and derive great bounties of fish and gold as a result. Walakea has no hybrid blood in him, as he is of a royal line that intermarries only with royal lines on other islands.

Walter, Dorothy C[harlotte] (1889–1967),

friend of HPL. In early 1934, at the urging of her friend W.Paul Cook, Walter wrote to HPL urging him to visit her at her temporary residence in Providence (Walter was a native of Vermont). But

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on the day of the planned visit, HPL found the weather so cold that he could not venture outdoors without risk of serious illness, so he telephoned Walter and apologized effusively. He visited a few days later, an incident recounted in Walter’s “Three Hours with H.P.Lovecraft” (in SR;rpt. LR). Walter also wrote a sensitive piece on HPL’s relation to his native city, “Lovecraft and Benefit Street” ( Ghost, Spring 1943; rpt. LR).

Wandrei, Donald [Albert] (1908–1987),