An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

Amateur journalist in North Montpelier, Vt., who issued the little magazine Driftwind,which contained much poetry by HPL as well as “The Materialist Today” (initially a letter to Coates, c. May 1926; published in Driftwindfor October 1926 and also as a separate brochure [Driftwind Press, 1926] in fifteen copies). Coates contributed a lengthy essay on Vermont poetry to W.Paul Cook’s Recluse (1927). He was the author and editor of many volumes of poetry, including Mood Songs: Voices within Myself(Hartford, Vt.: Solitarian Press, 1921), Vermont in Heart and Song(editor) (North Montpelier, Vt., 1926), Vermont Verse: An Anthology(editor) (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Daye Press, 1931), Harvest: A Sheaf of Poems fromDriftwind (editor) (North Montpelier, Vt.: Driftwind Press, 1933). He corresponded sporadically

< previous page page_40 next page > < previous page page_41 next page >

Page 41

with HPL to the end of the latter’s life, and wrote an obituary of HPL for Driftwind,April 1937. Cole, Edward H[arold] (1892–1966).

Massachusetts amateur journalist; editor of The Olympian. He came in touch with HPL in late 1914, when he advised HPL to assist the Providence Amateur Press Club; he met HPL in December 1914. Their correspondence continued until HPL’s death. He married Helene E. Hoffman (1893–1919), who gave birth to a son, E[dward] Sherman Cole (b. 1918), to whom HPL wrote a few whimsical letters in early 1919. Upon Helene Hoffman Cole’s death, HPL wrote a poetic tribute, “Helene Hoffman Cole: 1893–1919: The Club’s Tribute” ( Bonnet,June 1919), as well as a prose article, “Helene Hoffman Cole—Litterateur” ( United Amateur,May 1919). HPL frequently visited Cole in the Boston area in the 1920s and 1930s. After HPL’s death, Cole edited a special issue of The Olympian(Autumn 1940) devoted to HPL, for which he wrote a lengthy memoir, “Ave atque Vale!” (rpt. LR). Cole, Ira A[lbert] (1883–?).

Kansas amateur journalist and editor of The Plainsman,for which HPL wrote “On the Cowboys of the West” (December 1915). He became a member of the round-robin correspondence group, the Kleicomolo (1915–19?), with HPL, Rheinhart Kleiner, and Maurice W.Moe. HPL published some of Cole’s poems in The Conservative(“The Dream of a Golden Age,” July 1915; “In Vita Elysium,” July 1917). Cole later converted to Pentacostalism. He wrote a brief memoir of HPL, “A Tribute from the Past” ( OWash-Ta-Nong,1937; rpt. LR).

“Collapsing Cosmoses.”

Short story fragment (640 words); written in collaboration with R.H.Barlow. First published in Leaves (1938); first collected in MW

Dam Bor looks through his cosmoscope and sees an enemy fleet advancing through space. He and the narrator go to the Great Council Chamber to alert delegates from other galaxies. Hak Ni, a commander, is asked by Oll Stof, the president of the chamber, to battle the fleet. He does so. The fragment ends at this point.

The idea was for each author to write alternating paragraphs, although HPL sometimes wrote only a few words before yielding the pen to his younger colleague, so that considerably more than half the piece is Barlow’s, as are a fair number of the better jokes. As a satire on the space operas popularized by Edmond Hamilton, E.E. “Doc” Smith, and others, the story is fairly effective. “Colour out of Space, The.”

Short story (12,300 words); written in March 1927. First published in Amazing Stories(September 1927); first collected in O;corrected text in DH;annotated version in An1and CC A surveyor for the new reservoir to be built “west of Arkham” encounters a bleak terrain where nothing will grow; the locals call it the “blasted heath.” The surveyor, seeking an explanation for the term and for the cause of the devastation, finally finds an old man, Ammi Pierce, living near the area, who tells him an incredible tale of events that occurred in 1882. A meteorite had landed on the property of Nahum Gardner and his family. Scientists from Miskatonic University

< previous page page_41 next page > < previous page page_42 next page >

Page 42

who examine the object find that its properties are very bizarre: the substance refuses to cool, displays shining spectroscopic bands never seen before, and fails to react to conventional solvents. Within the meteorite is a “large coloured globule”: “The colour…was almost impossible to describe; and it was only by analogy that they called it colour at all.” When tapped with a hammer, it bursts. The meteorite itself, continuing anomalously to shrink, finally disappears.