Hoffmann Weird Tales, Signed (1 results)

Single card. 3 1/2" x 5 1/2". Color photograph of Napoleon Bonaparte House, New Orleans, to front (illustrator). First Edition. A wonderful handwritten postcard from H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, in which Lovecraft mentions Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, various works by all four writers, their primary outlet at the time--Weird Tales Magazine--its editor, Farnsworth Wright, and much more. The card is postmarked from Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, RI on June 9, 1933. Here is the transcript of Lovecraft's handwriting on both sides of the card: _____________ [back of card, main message area]: "Keep me posted on your programme. Around July 1st & afterward I may be in N.Y. City attending a convention, but I guess we can make the chronology & geography come out all right with a little care. Congratulations on your current work! By the way-why bother about copying The Silver Key? The carbon is all corrected & it would be easy to switch it to Wright from its present rounds. He knows us well enough not to insist on ceremony. No-I haven't heard anything about payments delayed by the bank holiday . . . . tho' nearly everyone complains of delay of some sort. Just had a circular from the Am. Fiction Guild (to which I do not belong) with considerable data about the recent Clayton difficulties. Glad your toil is reasonably punctuated by diversions-but I haven't yet figured out where Wantagh is. Your bulletin, though, informs me that it has a beach. I'll start a new search along the seacoast! My aunt is now getting settled at #66, & the place is beginning to look ineffably homelike. You must have a look at it! Weather gloriously warm for the past five days, (90º yesterday) so I've been unusually active. Have taken several rural walks up to 15 miles in length. New W. T. isn't bad. Klarkash-Ton's "Genius Loci" is a high spot. Well-keep up the bulletins! Peace of the Prophet-- (hieroglyphic signature)" [back of card, addressing it to Price]: "E. Hoffmann Price, Esq., Box 398, Wantagh, N.Y." [back of card, upside down in top margin]: "The appearance of my 'Shunned House' as a small book is now imminent." [front of card, running around top margin]: "My new abode is older than this edifice--& today I doubt if N. O. could beat Providence for temperature!" [front of card, along bottom margin]: "I note that Two-Gun Bob has chosen a story motto from your immortal books." _____________ A few clarifying notes on the above content: > "The Silver Key" -- A collaborative story by Lovecraft and Price, building upon an earlier Lovecraft piece, and published a year later in Weird Tales Magazine as "Through the Gates of the Silver Key." > "Wright" -- Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales Magazine. > "Clayton difficulties" -- refers to the financial problems then being experienced by Clayton Magazines, an important outlet for pulp writers. > "New W. T. isn't bad" -- Weird Tales Magazine. > "Klarkash-Ton's 'Genius Loci'" -- Clark Ashton Smith, whose named story had just appeared in the June 1933 issue of Weird Tales. > Hieroglyphic signature -- This is Lovecraft jesting at Price's fascination with the Near East. > "Shunned House" -- This is Lovecraft's first book of fiction, printed but never bound in 1928. Lovecraft here refers to a plan to finally bind and distribute the book--a plan which only resulted in 5 bound copies being distributed to Lovecraft and his circle in his lifetime. > "Two-Gun Bob" -- Lovecraft's playful nickname for Robert E. Howard referencing his Texas roots and his pulp adventure writing. _______ Lovecraft met E. Hoffmann Price on a 1932 visit to New Orleans on an introduction from their mutual friend, Robert E. Howard. The two hit it off and struck up a correspondence, of which this is a particularly rich and culturally resonant fragment. Here we see the intersection of several important writers and publications in the early 20th century genre of weird fiction captured on a single artifact of Lovecraft and his circle. Very good, with mild age toning and a few minor creases. Housed in a custom tri-fold sleeve with printed title on front. Signed.