Price, Robert. “A Biblical Antecedent for ‘The Colour out of Space.’” Lovecraft Studies No. 25 (Fall 1991): 23–25.
Roberts, Warren. A Bibliography of D. H. Lawrence. London: Hart Davis, 1963.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. The Poetic and Dramatic Works. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927.
Waugh, Robert H. “The Blasted Heath in ‘The Colour out of Space’: A Nightmare Theodicy.” Lovecraft Studies No. 45 (2005): 10–21.
———. “Landscapes, Selves, and Others in Lovecraft.” In An Epicure in the Terrible, ed. David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991. 220–43.
* * *
1. Price (23–25), Burleson (116), and Waugh (“Landscapes” 234–36) deal with these allusions in detail.
2. Burleson (111–13) and Waugh (“The Blasted Heath”) discuss these particulars.
3. This word refers to Horace’s anxiety that a classic is good for nothing but teaching children their grammar (Epis. 1.20.17–18).
4. I have in mind here the contrast that Jane Harrison drew between teratic and peloric manifestations; the teratic is a sign in the sky, a manifestation of the rational powers, the peloric a monstrous growth in the earth (458–59).
5. Cf. Joshi (134–39) and Cannon (86).
* * *
Briefly Noted
Lovecraft’s works have appeared in all manner of media, from films and television to comic books and role-playing games. One of the purest transformations of Lovecraft’s words into an alternate medium is the audio recording. Lovecraft has not been entirely lucky with his audio interpreters: Roddy McDowall’s 1961 Caedmon recording is splendid, but subsequent ventures—by David McCallum and others—have left a bit to be desired. It is therefore with great pleasure that we can announce the recent release of four splendid audiobooks by Audio Realms. The first contains “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Call of Cthulhu,” the second has “The Shadow over Innsmouth” and “Dagon” (a felicitous pairing indeed!), the third includes “Herbert West—Reanimator,” “The Horror at Red Hook,” “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” and “The Outsider,” and the fourth contains “The Rats in the Walls,” “The Shunned House,” and “The Music of Erich Zann.” Each audiobook contains three CDs and lasts well over three hours. They are read by Wayne June, whose deep, cavernous, almost sepulchral voice, subtly modulating its timbre and emotional resonance with the fluctuations of the text, forms an ideal vehicle for Lovecraft’s richly textured prose. Uncluttered by distracting and unnecessary music or other frills, these audiobooks provide a wonderful vehicle for appreciating Lovecraft’s dense and complex work. For further information, go to: www.audiorealms.com.
Memories of Sonia H. Greene Davis
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Martin H. Kopp
[The following memoir by Sonia Davis’s nephew provides valuable sidelights on the life and career of H. P. Lovecraft’s wife.—E D .]
It occurs to me that a memoir of my recollections regarding my Aunt Sonia is probably timely, since I have recently become aware of the importance of her life with H. P. Lovecraft.
Accordingly, I’ll begin with my earliest memories.
My grandmother, Rachel Moseson (when I knew her) was living in the small village of Ichnya near Kiev in the Ukraine at the time Aunt Sonia was born (March 16, 1883). Since Sonia was named Sonia Haft Shafirkin, I assume that Grandma was married to a Mr. Shafirkin (of whom I had never heard).1 Furthermore, the inclusion of the Haft name in Sonia’s implies to me that Grandma’s maiden name was Haft. This fits with my memories of the Haft family connections in New York during the 1920s, of which there is more later.
S. T. Joshi (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life 262, note 4) mentions that Grandma left Sonia with her brother in Liverpool. I have never heard of Grandma’s brother, but that is more likely than the inference that the “brother” referred to is Sonia’s. So I have to assume my grandmother had a brother of whom I never heard.
I do remember two cousins of the Morris W. Haft family who worked for them in their New York offices in the 1920s. These two men were, as I remember it, Jack and Jules Friedman. I remember that they definitely had “English” accents! Thus, I wonder if they were descendants of that “brother.”
Apparently, my grandmother arrived in New York sometime between 1883 and 1892. As she was a widow, alone, but a member of the Haft family, I have long pondered how she was supported.
I knew of the Morris W. Haft & Brothers coat and suit manufacturing company as a leading business on Seventh Avenue in New York City all through the 1920s, and even later. Their trade name was “Donnybrooke.” In business with Morris were at least two brothers: Harry and Jules. But their relationship with and friendship toward my mother, Anna, has always led me to think they were first cousins. If they were my grandmother’s “wealthy” cousins, which seems most likely, I would have to suppose they made sure she was provided for. In retrospect, I believe they made sure she was okay.
Picture this: Rachel Haft, a widow, with a pre-teen age daughter, needs a husband. Somehow, she is matched up with a guy from the Sevastopol region on the Black Sea who now (1892) lives in Elmira, N.Y. He is a widower, with a daughter and two sons, and needs a wife. And Grandma marries Solomon Moseson. They lived in a fine big house at the comer of John and Water Streets. They then had two more children: my mother, Anna (born September, 1894) and Sidney (born in 1897).
Of course, there is a mystery in how Grandpa Moseson got to Elmira. Not only did he get there, but so did his sister Sarah (who married a Mr. Linker, the Elmira train station telegrapher), and his brother, Mike. Thus, there were a lot of Mosesons in Elmira, N.Y, in the early 1900s.
But all was not happy in this new family. Apparently, Grandpa was an overpowering, dominating Orthodox man, and here was Grandma, the product of a very cultured, urbane family environment. It must have been an interesting situation: six children, etc.
The oldest of Grandpa’s children from his first wife was Max. He ran away from home at the age of fourteen. Somehow, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy just before 1898 and the Spanish-American War. To avoid detection, he changed his name to Morrison.
By 1910, Grandma finally gave up and took her two children from this marriage to New York. I believe that Grandpa’s other two children, who were young adults by this time, were also living in New York. In fact, Jenny married an architect whose last name was Suskind. She and Mr. Suskind had four children, two boys and two girls. Regrettably, Mr. Suskind was killed in a subway accident, leaving Jenny with Henry, 8, Milton, 6, Rena, 4, and Norma, 2. The shock was too much for Jenny and she wound up in Rockland State Hospital for the Insane for the rest of her life. The other son from Grandpa’s first marriage was Mike. Uncle Mike undertook to bring up the four kids, and did so successfully, but he never married. Interestingly, he and Uncle Sidney, became very close in their later years.
In the meantime, Sonia had left Elmira for a career in New York. It was there, in 1899, that she married Samuel Seckendorff and my cousin, Florence, was born March 19, 1902. Their name was changed sometime later to Greene. He died sometime in 1916, the year I was born.
I have no memories of him ever being mentioned. Nor did I ever hear of a baby boy (who only lived three months). I do have a memory of meeting Florence. But she vanished from connections sometime thereafter (Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life 333).
I do remember that Aunt Sonia worked for the millinery firm Ferle Heller, and that she was well paid. The Parkside Avenue address that Mr. Joshi refers to in his study is a vaguely familiar one. My memory is that Sonia’s mother lived on the upper floor of that place.
My mother and Sonia were very close. I remember occasions when Sonia visited with us in our home at 117 Coligni Avenue in New Rochelle, N.Y., and I remember her steaming hats with feathers, etc. on the kitchen stove.
There is a reference in Mr. Joshi’s text (on page 335) to some real estate that Sonia and Mr. Lovecraft bought in Yonkers, N.Y. I can remember a trip from New Rochelle when my mother
drove us over there for Sonia to have some business dealing at the Homewood Company. Perhaps it really was “Homeland” company. Anyway, my memory was that it was a cemetery, and involved burial plots! Wow! But I had to be about eight to ten years old at the time.
Grandma died around 1925. She lived with us in New Rochelle at the time. I remember Uncle Sidney coming to her funeral, but I have no memory of Aunt Sonia in that connection.
Nonetheless, she and my mother continued their close relationship. This was evident to me, since Aunt Sonia would take me on trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bronx Zoo, etc.
And, despite the depression, she paid for my first (and only) semester at the University of Pennsylvania from September 1933 to January 1934: a sum of $400.00, for which she asked nothing in return, except that I succeed as a student. (I then transferred to CCNY at night until I graduated in June 1941.)
It may be of interest to know that Sidney’s grandson is J. J. Goldberg, the author of a powerful book Jewish Power. He is also the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, published in New York City.
Jenny has a grandson, Ira Russell Suskind, who is a prominent attorney in Newark, Ohio.
I have never heard of any descendants of Florence. It would be interesting to learn of them if there are any.
Sonia moved to California around 1933 where she met and married Nathaniel Abraham Davis.
Interestingly, Aunt Sonia attended a gathering during Word War II in Los Angeles at which a Boy Scout Troop presented the “colors.” And who was their Scout Master? He was Sonia’s step-brother, the runaway Mike! And she recognized him! He was now the highest ranking Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy! But nothing came of their meeting except that it happened.
I also heard that Sonia located Florence, who, as I remember it, was living in the San Francisco area. This was after World War II. They finally met. It was a disaster, and Sonia returned to the Los Angeles area, and never discussed the matter again.
* * *
1. S. T. Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1996), p. 262. I have to say that Mr. Joshi’s book has been most interesting for information that I never knew about my family.
Letters to Lee McBride White
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H. P. Lovecraft
Edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz
Lee McBride White, Jr., was born on June 24, 1915, in Monroe, North Carolina, the son of a Baptist minister. In his early years his family lived in Jacksonville, Florida, but it moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in the summer of 1932, where White attended his final year of high school at John Herbert Phillips High School. It is likely that he contacted Lovecraft in the autumn of 1932 through Weird Tales.
In 1933, after his graduation from high school, White went to Howard College (now Samford University) in Birmingham, graduating with a B.A. in English in 1937. He worked on a number of college publications at Howard, including The Howard Quill (at least one issue of which he sent to Lovecraft), Campus (also sent to Lovecraft), The Crimson, the college’s weekly newspaper, and the 1937 edition of the college yearbook, The Howard Crimson. White also acted in a number of college stage productions, as did his younger brother Harvey.
White then did graduate work at Harvard (working with Howard Mumford Jones) and Columbia, then returned to Birmingham, where he worked on the Birmingham Age-Herald. He enlisted in the armed forces on June 27, 1941, and during World War II he was in the Air Force, staying in North Africa until 1945. He then moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where he worked as the editor of a paper, Folsom’s Forum, for Alabama’s Governor Jim Folsom. He married Anne Mary Trebing on May 31, 1947, and eventually had four children, two sons and two daughters. The couple moved to Atlanta, where in 1950 White began working at the regional headquarters of the Communications Workers of America; in 1957 he moved to the central office in Washington, where he lived until his retirement in 1980. For the Bicentennial he edited a book, The American Revolution in Notes, Quotes, and Anecdotes (Fairfax, VA: L. B. Prince, 1975). He died on February 5, 1989, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. White had one of the greatest private collections of 78-rpm jazz records of his day, and was also a voluminous book collector.
Lovecraft’s correspondence with White probably did not consist of many more than the nine surviving letters we have. The first extant letter dates to September 1932. After an early hiatus of two and a half years, they reestablished contact in May 1935. Although Lovecraft’s letters to White are short, infrequent, and somewhat impersonal, they reflect his literary tastes and reading, even his general awareness of modern literary works and modern sentiments about writers from other periods of history. We find that in 1932—six years after he wrote “Cool Air”—Lovecraft could still say that Poe “probably continues to [influence me] more than any other one author.” And it is amusing to know that the blue-nosed Lovecraft could recommend bookstores where one could purchase what was euphemistically termed “curiosa” (i.e., erotica).
The letters by H. P. Lovecraft to Lee White are printed by permission of Robert C. Harrall of Lovecraft Properties LLC and the John Hay Library, Brown University. For information on White, the editors are grateful to Lee White’s widow, Anne (Trebing) White, and White’s brother, Harvey O. White.
Abbreviations
ALS autograph letter, signed JHL John Hay Library, Brown University LL S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft’s Library: A Catalogue, 2nd ed. (Hippocampus Press, 2002) SHL The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature (Hippocampus Press, 2000) WT Weird Tales
[1] [Letter non-extant.]
[2] [ALS]
10 Barnes St.,
Providence, R.I.,
Septr. 12, 1932
Dear Mr. White:—
I found yours of the 3d awaiting me upon my return from a combined eclipse expedition & antiquarian pilgrimage to points north of here.1 The eclipse was highly impressive as seen from Newburyport, Mass. (a picturesque & ancient town well within the zone of totality), & I afterward visited Montreal & Quebec2—the latter being perhaps the most delightful 18th century survival on this continent with the possible exception of Charleston, S.C. When in the Boston zone I did not fail to visit my favourite seaport village of Marblehead—which remains today much as it was two centuries ago, & which is the prototype of the “Kingsport” mentioned in my tales. I think I told you that I am a confirmed amateur antiquarian whose chief delight is to visit places where reliques of the past survive.
I am glad you agree with me regarding Poe, especially the merit of “Silence—A Fable”,3 which I have long considered notable both as a piece of visual imagery & as a triumph of musical language; Poe has influenced me since early youth—& probably continues to do so more than any other one author. I first came across Dunsany in 1919, & was prodigiously influenced by him—more, really, than I ought to have been; since my own tales became almost imitative of his during the next six or seven years. Now, however, I am trying to be more independent in style.
Baudelaire is certainly a titanic figure, & has greatly influenced Clark Ashton Smith, whose magazine work you doubtless know. Smith has vividly translated Baudelaire, though the translations are still unpublished except for minor items.4
Yes—Aristophanes is surely an important figure; & Petronius & Apuleius are permanent enough, though on a somewhat minor level.5 Among the cheaper modern writers A. Merritt is surely one of the most distinctive—his “Moon Pool” in its original version6 being almost a landmark of weird magazine fiction. I have never read the famous “Justine” of de Sade,7 or the equally famous “Venus in Furs” of von Masoch.8 Both are undoubtedly significant in the history of psychology, though perhaps less so as works of art. Probably they can be obtained at any time from dealers in so-called “curiosa” like the Falstaff Press or Esoterika Biblion of New York. I have read parts of “Maldoror”,9 which is certainly a triumph of impassioned chaos— exceeding even Rimbaud’s Bateau Ivre10 in delirious intensity. I don’t know where a copy would be obtainable—ind
eed, I have forgotten where I saw the extracts I did. “Marpessa” is by the late Stephen Phillips,11 (author of “Herod”) & ought to be obtainable without difficulty at any public library.
I’ll send you a copy of “At the Mts. of Madness” very shortly—also any other tales of mine which you may wish to see. Enclosed is a list of my various attempts on which you can check, in pencil, the items that interest you. Some of them, though, are rather crude & poor. I wish you the best of luck in your own literary ventures, & would be interested to see some of your work. Your activities at the camp must have been pleasant & piquant indeed.
Just now I am expecting a visit from Donald Wandrei, whose weird tales & verses you have doubtless seen in various magazines.12 He has a great deal of unpublished material, including a weird novel—“Dead Titans Waken”.13
With all good wishes,
Yrs most cordially & sincerely,
H. P. Lovecraft
Notes
1. HPL and W. Paul Cook had gone to Newburyport on 31 August to see the solar eclipse (cf. SL 4.63).
2. HPL visited Quebec on 2–6 September; it was his second trip to Quebec (the first was in 1930), and his first trip to Montreal.
3. “‘The Masque of the Red Death’, ‘Silence—A Fable’, and ‘Shadow—A Parable’ are assuredly poems in every sense of the word save the metrical one, and owe as much of their power to aural cadence as to visual imagery” (SHL 45). Cf. also SL 2.70.
4. It appears that Smith translated Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal nearly in its entirety (most poems remaining only in preliminary literal prose translations), but few of his verse translations appeared in print, most notably in his column in the Auburn Journal and in Sandalwood (1925).
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