An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

See Will Murray, “Dagon in Puritan Massachusetts,” LSNo. 11 (Fall 1985): 66–70; William Fulwiler, “‘The Tomb’ and ‘Dagon’: A Double Dissection,” CryptNo. 38 (Eastertide 1986): 8–14. Dalton, James.

In “The Last Test,” the governor of California who is in love with Dr. Alfred Clarendon’s sister, Georgina. Dalton prevents Clarendon from conducting a medical experiment on her. Danforth,———.

In At the Mountains of Madness,the graduate student who accompanies William Dyer in his explorations of the ruins of the Old Ones’ city in the Antarctic. Before the two leave, Danforth witnesses something so horrifying that he suffers a nervous breakdown.

Davenport, Eli.

In “The Whisperer in Darkness,” the author of an “exceedingly rare monograph” recording material obtained orally prior to 1839 from old Vermont denizens concerning the possible existence of a hidden race of alien entities in the mountains.

Davis, Dr.

In “In the Vault,” George Birch’s original personal physician, who is summed to Birch’s side when the latter crawls out of the receiving tomb in which he had been trapped. Davis, recognizing the nature and cause of Birch’s injuries, berates his patient for his carelessness and callousness.

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Davis, [Francis] Graeme (1882–1938).

Early amateur journalist who, as Official Editor of the NAPA (1917–18), violently attacked both HPL and the UAPA in two articles in his journal, The Lingerer:“With Consideration for the Conservative” (Summer 1917) and “Mere Musings” (Winter 1917). HPL responded to the former with “A Reply to The Lingerer” ( Tryout,June 1917).

Davis, Sonia H[aft Greene Lovecraft] (1883–1972).

HPL’s wife (1924–29). Born Sonia Haft Shafirkin in Ichnya (near Kiev), in the Ukraine, she came to Liverpool with her mother and brother around 1890; her mother, Racille, went on to New York and married Solomon H———(last name unknown) in 1892. Sonia joined her mother later that year. She married Samuel Seckendorff in 1899; a son, born in 1900, died after three months, and a daughter, Florence, was born on March 19, 1902. Seckendorff later adopted the name Greene from a friend in Boston. The marriage was turbulent, and Samuel Greene died in 1916, apparently by his own hand. In 1917 Sonia became acquainted with James F.Morton, who introduced her to amateur journalism. She was by this time a highly paid executive at a clothing store in Manhattan, Ferle Heller’s, and had a salary of $10,000. She resided at 259 Parkside Avenue in the fashionable Flatbush section of Brooklyn. She came to the NAPA convention in Boston in early July 1921; Rheinhart Kleiner introduced her to HPL. Shortly thereafter she contributed $50 to the UAPA (see SL1.143). A correspondence with HPL ensued, and over the next two and a half years she visited Providence as frequently as her business schedule (which indeed entailed considerable traveling) allowed. She published, at considerable expense, two lavish issues of the amateur journal The Rainbow(October 1921, May 1922); the first contained HPL’s “Nietzscheism and Realism” (a series of aphorisms derived from two of his letters to Sonia) and his revision of Sonia’s poem “Mors Omnibus Communis,” the second his story “Celephaïs.”

In the spring of 1922 Sonia persuaded HPL to come to New York to meet his friends, notably Samuel Loveman; HPL stayed in Sonia’s apartment (April 6–12) while she stayed with a neighbor. She then persuaded HPL to spend more than a week with her in Gloucester and Magnolia, Mass. (June 26– July 5)—evidently the first time HPL had spent time alone with a woman to whom he was not related. At this time Sonia conceived the idea for the story “The Horror at Martin’s Beach,” which HPL later revised for her (published in WT[November 1923] as “The Invisible Monster”). The story “Four O’clock” (first published in HM[1970 ed.]) may also have been conceived then, but Sonia later testified that HPL merely suggested that she write it, and did not contribute any prose to the story (see Sonia H.Davis to Winfield Townley Scott, December 11, 1948; ms., JHL). In late July, HPL came to New York again—both to see Sonia and to continue on to Cleveland, where he spent time with Loveman and Alfred Galpin (July 30–August 15). Returning to New York, he stayed with Sonia until mid-October.

By the spring of 1924 it was clear that HPL and Sonia were seriously involved. The impetus to marry probably came from her, but HPL agreed to it apparently without reluctance. He did not, however, inform his aunts of his decision; instead, he boarded a train to New York on March 2 and married Sonia the