An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

HPL visited Whitehead in Dunedin, Fla., from May 21 to June 10, 1931. Among HPL’s activities then was an impromptu narration of the plot of “The Cats of Ulthar” to a boys’ club organized by Whitehead. At this time or a few months later, HPL assisted Whitehead on the revision of his story, “The Trap”; as revised, the story is perhaps one-half to three-fourths by HPL, but it was published only under Whitehead’s byline in Strange Tales(March 1932). Later that year HPL apparently allowed Whitehead to use a plot-germ from his commonplace book (entry #133, about a man with a miniature Siamese twin); Whitehead wrote up the idea as “Cassius” ( Strange Tales,November 1931), but HPL later admitted that his development of the idea would have been very different from Whitehead’s (see SL5.33–35). In the spring and summer of 1932 HPL appears to have assisted Whitehead on another story, apparently titled “The Bruise.” This story (about a man who experiences strange visions after receiving a blow to the head) had been rejected by Strange Talesas too tame, and HPL devised an elaborate plot involving the man’s access to hereditary memory, so that he sees in his mind his distant ancestor’s experience of the destruction of the Pacific continent of Mu 20,000 years ago. HPL was unsure whether Whitehead had managed to finish the story prior to his death on November 23, 1932. A story in West India Lightsentitled “Bothon” (published simultaneously in Amazing Stories,August 1946) is the story in question. From internal evidence, there appears to be no prose by HPL in the tale, but it may well have been based upon what seems to be a detailed synopsis by HPL. A. Langley Searles has conjectured that August Derleth in fact wrote the story from HPL’s synopsis and published it under Whitehead’s byline.

In 1932 R.H.Barlow planned a very limited edition of Whitehead’s letters, to be entitled Caneviniana, but never progressed beyond the setting of a few pages in type. HPL’s letters to Whitehead were apparently destroyed (see Bar

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low’s introduction to Jumbee). No letters by Whitehead to HPL survive. HPL’s “In Memoriam: Henry St. Clair Whitehead” was a brief obituary that appeared in WT(March 1933). HPL notes that editor Farnsworth Wright used only about a quarter of what HPL had written (see HPL to R.H.Barlow, April 9, 1933; ms., JHL); however, the full version of this essay is probably similar to a lengthy letter by HPL to E.Hoffmann Price, December 7, 1932 (ms., JHL; printed in part in SL4.116–17), written a few weeks after Whitehead’s death.

See R.Alain Everts, Henry St. Clair Whitehead(Strange Co., 1975); A. Langley Searles, “Fantasy and Outré Themes in the Short Fiction of Edward Lucas White and Henry S.Whitehead,” in American Supernatural Fiction,ed. Douglas Robillard (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 59–76. Wilcox, Henry Anthony.

In “The Call of Cthulhu,” the young artist who fashions, following a dream, a strange bas-relief resembling idols worshipped by members of the Cthulhu Cult.

Willett, Dr. Marinus Bicknell.

In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,the Ward family’s doctor. When Ward realizes his error in revivifying Joseph Curwen, he enlists Bicknell’s help to destroy Curwen, but too late to save his own life. HPL had conceived his novel as a work of detective fiction, and Willett is his detective. Willett solves the mystery of Curwen’s resurrection and destroys him.

Williams,———.

In “The Descendant,” a young man who presents to Lord Northam a copy of the Necronomicon.He had “known of the dreaded volume since his sixteenth year.”

Williamson, James.

In “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” the uncle of Robert Olmstead, brother of Douglas (who commited suicide when he learned the family secret), and father of Lawrence (who is confined to a sanitarium). When he shows Olmstead various family artifacts, Olmstead cannot help but conclude that he, like his cousin Lawrence, is of tainted Innsmouth ancestry.

Willis, John.

In “The Mound,” a government marshal who went into the mound region of Oklahoma in 1892 and came back with bizarre tales of supernatural entities in the area.

Wilmarth, Albert N.

In “The Whisperer in Darkness,” a professor of literature at Miskatonic University whose interest in folklore impels him to investigate reports about alien creatures observed in the Vermont River following the floods of 1927.

Wilson, Dr.

In “The Shadow out of Time,” the doctor who attends Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee following the abrupt cessation of his “amnesia” on September 27, 1913.

“Winged Death.”