Intro

Influence of Anxiety: Lovecraft, Bloch, Barlow, et al.

In a letter to his literary mentor H.P. Lovecraft, dated June 9, 1935, an eighteen-year-old Robert Bloch expressed his slavering eagerness for Lovecraft’s new tale: “I shall devour it with ghoulish relish.” He addressed the letter care of seventeen-year-old Robert H. Barlow, whom Lovecraft was visiting in DeLand, Florida at the time.

Bloch and Barlow were perhaps the youngest members of Lovecraft’s circle, an expansive network of correspondents fueled by his loquacity on paper. Through letters and circulated manuscripts, this group of writers formalized the imagined community developing around pulp magazines like Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Fantasy Fan. Lovecraft was at the center of this developing community and these young men would continue to promote his legacy as their careers evolved and diverged.

Bloch, who would later write the seminal horror story Psycho, initiated contact with Lovecraft through a fan letter in 1933. Though they never met in person, the two traded thoughts, stories, and critiques for the remainder of Lovecraft’s life. Bloch would continue to cite the influence of Lovecraft for the remainder of his life. Barlow, a self-proclaimed bibliomaniac and aspiring author, first contacted Lovecraft in 1931. Over the course of their friendship, he authored stories and produced a series of fantasy and science fiction zines. In the years between Lovecraft’s death and his own suicide in 1951, Barlow built a successful academic career in Mesoamerican anthropology.

Shortly after Lovecraft’s death in 1937, Barlow, acting as his literary executor, delivered the first donation of manuscripts and correspondence to the John Hay Library. The H. P. Lovecraft Collection now includes extensive holdings of manuscripts, letters, editions of Lovecraft’s works in 20 languages, periodicals, biographical and critical works, and numerous collections of manuscript and printed materials of Lovecraft friends and associates. Drawn from the collection, this exhibition focuses on correspondence between Lovecraft and a number of budding young authors. Their recorded communication is both visual and literary, descriptive and didactic, light-hearted and severe. It illuminates the shared affinities and fears of those in his circle.