An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

Husband of HPL’s elder aunt Lillian Delora Phillips Clark. He attended high school in Warren, R.I., and received an A.B. from Brown University (1869). He studied literature and attended special classes given by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and received a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City (1872). Returning to Providence as an intern at Rhode Island Hospital, Clark served as surgeon in the outpatient department (1876–83). He conducted a private medical practice from 1872 to 1915 and also served as physician for Providence Dispensary and for the Home for Aged Women (1883–84) and as acting police surgeon for the City of Providence (1896). He was a prolific writer of articles on medicine, natural history, and genealogy; collections of his magazine articles and of his manuscripts are held in the University Archives at Brown. He married Lillian Delora Phillips on April 10, 1902; they had no children. In 1904, with HPL’s father and grandfather both dead, Clark became the leading male adult figure in HPL’s life; HPL testifies that his early prose and verse were much improved by Clark’s assistance (see SL1.38). Clark died on April 16, 1915, of cerebral hemorrhage and chronic Bright’s disease; HPL wrote a poetic tribute, “An Elegy on Franklin Chase Clark, M.D.” ([Providence] Evening News,April 29, 1915). Dr. Elihu Whipple in “The Shunned House” (1924), Dr. George Gammell Angell in “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926), and Dr. Marinus Bicknell Willett in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward(1927) are probably based in part on Clark; perhaps also Dr. Henry Armitage in “The Dunwich Horror” (1928) and Dr. Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee in “The Shadow out of Time” (1934–35).

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Clark, Lillian D[elora Phillips] (1856–1932).

First child of Whipple V.Phillips and Robie Alzada Place Phillips; elder sister of Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft, HPL’s mother. She spent two academic years at the Wheaton Seminary in Norton, Mass. (1871–73), and completed her education at the Rhode Island Normal School. She was a schoolteacher prior to her marriage to Dr. Franklin Chase Clark, M.D., on April 10, 1902; they had no children. After Dr. Clark’s death, she lived in various rented rooms in Providence, including 135 Benefit Street (the locale for “The Shunned House” [1924]) in 1919–20. She was the principal housekeeper for HPL at 598 Angell Street during 1919–24, after the hospitalization and death of HPL’s mother. HPL wrote an enormous number of letters (now at JHL) to her during his New York period (1924–26); in spite of her chronic poor health, she came to Brooklyn in December 1924 to assist HPL in moving to 169 Clinton Street. Upon HPL’s return to Providence in April 1926, Lillian took rooms immediately above his at 10 Barnes Street. She was a gifted painter in oils who exhibited at the Providence Art Club. She died on July 3, 1932.

Clay, Ed.

In “The Mound,” the elder of two brothers in the Oklahoma Territory who explore the mound region in 1920. He comes back three months later with his hair turned white and a strange scar branded on his forehead. He claims that his brother Walker had died after being captured by Indians. Later Ed commits suicide after writing a note urging that the mound region be left alone.

Club of the Seven Dreamers, The.

A “hideous novel” conceived by HPL in March 1920 (see SL1.110); probably never begun. Possibly it was not intended to be a genuine novel but rather a series of short stories with different narrators— these being the “seven dreamers” of the title. If so, the conception would be somewhat similar to Poe’s plans for Tales of the Folio Club;in his preface to this volume (first printed in James A.Harrison’s collected edition of Poe [1902]), Poe declares that “The number of the club is limited to eleven.” One may also suspect the influence of John Osborne Austin’s More Seven Club Tales(1900), a book that HPL owned about strange happenings in Rhode Island. This slim volume contains seven stories, each narrated by a different individual, mostly figures from seventeenth-century Rhode Island. Only a few of the tales are genuinely weird, and even they are rather innocuous ghost stories; but HPL may have found the format suggestive.

Coates, Walter J[ohn] (1880–1941).