While literary criticism emphasis in the late 20th century was upon Lovecraft’s use of his dreams and nightmares, his technique of lifting news articles, encyclopedia entries, and other materials to enhance the realism of his fiction should be re-examined. In many of his earliest fictional works, news articles and reference works prop up his fiction and add elements of realism to balance his atmospheric moods.
A previous example was “Polaris” which utilized another Lovecraft dream as its basis. The text of Polaris cannot be any earlier than 7 March 1918*, the night of a major aurora borealis event, and the precise date of the “horned moon” as in this passage:
“Well do I remember the night of the great Aurora, when over the swamp played the shocking coruscations of the demon light. After the beam came clouds, and then I slept. // And it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the first time.”
Miskatonic Books blog can now add a new example of Lovecraft using a very real event for the basis of an early story – and perhaps this additional data from mid 1913 can help establish an earlier genesis of the story’s timeline.
H. P. Lovecraft and Winifield Virginia Jackson collaborated on a story called “The Green Meadow” and published it under pseudonyms. The details of this story have been recently sketched out in S. T. Joshi’s Lovecraft biography: I Am Providence**.
In a letter to Frank Belknap Long by H. P. Lovecraft dated 4 June 1921, Lovecraft stated: “…The Green Meadow … has a curious history. It began with me – the seacoast and forest scene being an actual dream of my own, around which I wrote the first paragraph of the story proper … on which to build a later narrative. … I decided to … develop the Jacksonian outline – which I did, supplying the quasi-realistic aerolite introduction from my own imagination …”.
Evidence seems clear that Lovecraft utilised at least one and perhaps two news paper articles to construct his introduction using some of the text almost verbatim.
The introductory Lovecraft paragraph written by his hand alone:
INTRODUCTORY NOTE: The following very singular narrative or record of impressions was discovered under circumstances so extraordinary that they deserve a careful description. On the evening of Wednesday, August 27, 1913, at about 8:30 o’clock, the population of the small seaside village of Potowonket, Maine, U.S.A., was aroused by a thunderous report accompanied by a blinding flash; and persons near the shore beheld a mammoth ball of fire dart from the heavens into the sea but a short distance out, sending up a prodigious column of water. The following Sunday a fishing party composed of John Richmond, Peter B. Carr, and Simon Canfield caught in their trawl and dragged ashore a mass of metallic rock, weighing 360 pounds, and looking (as Mr. Canfield said) like a piece of slag. Most of the inhabitants agreed that this heavy body was none other than the fireball which had fallen from the sky four days before; and Dr. Richmond M. Jones, the local scientific authority, allowed that it must be an aerolite or meteoric stone. In chipping off specimens to send to an expert Boston analyst, Dr. Jones discovered imbedded in the semi-metallic mass the strange book containing the ensuing tale, which is still in his possession.
A New York Times article related the basic facts of the meteor Lovecraft references.
METEOR FALLS IN RIVER. Shock of Its Explosion Breaks Windows in Tiverton, R. I. FALL RIVER, Mass., Aug. 28. – A meteor fell into the Seaconnett River near Tiverton, R. I., last night, churning up the water and producing and explosion that sounded like the discharge of a twelve-inch gun. The phenomenon occurred during an electrical storm. The explosion was heard for a distance of twenty miles. In the immediate vicinity windows were broken and crockery shaken from shelves, while at Island Park, nearly two miles away, a merry-go-round was jarred into motion. Persons who saw the fiery body as it hissed through the sky say it was of unusual size and traveling so rapidly as to appear almost like a flash of lightning. Great jets of steam spurted from the water when the meteor struck the river. The New York Times New York, New York August 29, 1913
Providence newspapers indicate that between 26 and 28 August 1913 numerous electric storms hit Rhode Island. In fact, the famed steeple of St. John’s church was struck and slate exploded from its surface later to be replaced by workers. A later 1935 incident would repeat and destroy the steeple and that latter event would also find its way into a Lovecraft story.
In this case, the residents of the “small seaside village” of Tiverton, Rhode Island on “Wednesday, August 27, 1913″ experienced a “blinding flash”. The NYT article stated that it was “almost like flash of lightning”. Tiverton was on the Seaconnett River on an inlet of the Atlantic coast. Lovecraft’s “mammoth ball of fire” was the NYT’s “fiery body”. Lovecraft’s “prodigious column of water” was the NYT’s “Great jets of steam spurted from the water”.
The 1913 Tiverton meteor is still proclaimed in books and internet articles today. The event was no doubt influenced by an earlier global event. On 9 February 1913, a notable meteor procession captivated New England and much of the world as scientific investigation pieced together numerous reports. The Earth had a very near miss as objects swept a 7000 mile arc from Canada to Brazil. This may have ben the breakup of a sizable passing asteroid or which may have been in an asteroid in an unstable terrestrial orbit for an unknown period of time.
In any event, Lovecraft’s language could not be much more identical than the press report of the Tiverton event. However, Lovecraft goes on to relate much more narrative beginning on the following Sunday. Did this come from his furrowed brow of imagination?
No.
It turns out that the “Tiverton meteor” was a misunderstanding at best, and most likely a dangerous hoax that some of the locals tried to take advantage of for a profit. Lovecraft did not miss this. He uses it to full extent to make one of his classic “inside jokes” and to poke fun.
References of this follow up report are not as easy to ferret, but The Atlanta Constitution of Sept 9, 1913 reported:
Tiverton “Meteor” Proves to be Fake. Tiverton R.I. September 8 {1913} – The Tiverton meteor of August 27 was today removed from the realm of natural phenomena by two young men who confessed to the police that the supposed celestial meteor was composed of sixty pounds of dynamite and a quantity of copper slag. The meteor which was reported to have fallen in the Seaconnet river was accompanied by a blinding light and a deafening crash. Two fishermen later found in the nets a heavy piece of metal, which was declared to be the fallen “meteor.” The fishermen put their find on exhibition and did a profitable business until a Brown University geologist pronounced the meteor nothing but copper slag, found in quantities near a local manufacturing plant. The police closed the exhibition and began an investigation which resulted in the confession of two young men that with some companions, they had taken the dynamite and exploded it behind Gould’s Island in order to cause a sensation.
To these brief details of the Atlanta press report can be added that three individuals extracted slag from the Seaconnett and were trying to exhibit them as fragments of the meteor. There were in all three boaters who extracted fragments. Lovecraft still had connections at Brown University’s observatory, and while the Providence Journal is not available for reference, other sources are. These are reproduced as images below.
Lovecraft likely made up names and weight of the slag, but he closely follows the exact details of the fraud leaving out only that kids caused the explosion on a nearby island by setting off stolen explosives. He instead substitutes one of his classic “secret and forbidding books” found within. The joke is that if one had the true secret knowledge, the “hidden manuscript” would likely tell the reader that local yokels had been taken in because they were ignorant of basic scientific facts. Astronomical and chemical facts, of course, which Lovecraft had studied for many years.
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In a forthcoming publication from Miskatonic Books, another fascinating and real – but hitherto unknown – meteor event will be tied to a very famous Lovecraft story.
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**I Am Providence, S. T. Joshi details the creation and publication of the story in pages 258-260, as well as other pages. His footnote 45 for chapter 8 lists as a reference Selected Letters (Derleth) Volume 1 letter 136, but in fact “136″ refers to page 136 of that volume, which is letter 71. It is to Frank Belknap Long by H. P. Lovecraft dated 4 June 1921 and – for the purposes of this research – stated: “…The Green Meadow … has a curious history. It began with me – the seacoast and forest scene being an actual dream of my own, around which I wrote the first paragraph of the story proper … on which to build a later narrative. … I decided to … develop the Jacksonian outline – which I did, supplying the quasi-realistic aerolite introduction from my own imagination …”.
* http://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/2011/04/aurora-borealis-in-polaris.html
Filed under: Miskatonic Books Tagged: Frank Belknap Long, H. P. Lovecarft, S. T. Joshi, Winifield Virginia Jackson