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A micro-biography of horror fiction’s most influential author and his love–hate relationship with New York City.
By the end of his life and near financial ruin, pulp horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft resigned himself to the likelihood that his writing would be forgotten. Today, Lovecraft stands alongside J. R. R. Tolkien as the most influential genre writer of the twentieth century. His reputation as an unreformed racist and bigot, however, leaves readers to grapple with his legacy. Midnight Rambles explores Lovecraft’s time in New York City, a crucial yet often overlooked chapter in his life that shaped his literary career and the inextricable racism in his work.
Initially, New York stood as a place of liberation for Lovecraft. During the brief period between 1924 and 1926 when he lived there, Lovecraft joined a creative community and experimented with bohemian living in the publishing and cultural capital of the United States. He also married fellow writer Sonia H. Greene, a Ukrainian-Jewish émigré in the fashion industry. However, cascading personal setbacks and his own professional ineptitude soured him on New York. As Lovecraft became more frustrated, his xenophobia and racism became more pronounced. New York’s large immigrant population and minority communities disgusted him, and this mindset soon became evident in his writing. Many of his stories from this era are infused with racial and ethnic stereotypes and nativist themes, most notably his overtly racist short story, “The Horror at Red Hook,” set in Red Hook, Brooklyn. His personal letters reveal an even darker bigotry.
Author David J. Goodwin presents a chronological micro-biography of Lovecraft’s New York years, emphasizing Lovecraft’s exploration of the city environment, the greater metropolitan region, and other locales and how they molded him as a writer and as an individual. Drawing from primary sources (letters, memoirs, and published personal reflections) and secondary sources (biographies and scholarship), Midnight Rambles develops a portrait of a talented and troubled author and offers insights into his unsettling beliefs on race, ethnicity, and immigration.
Meticulously researched, carefully documented, and clearly written, David J. Goodwin's Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham offers an intimate and even-handed portrait of the fascinating—if problematic—author's time in New York City. Refuting some myths while confirming others, Goodwin's biographical study productively supplements the existing literature and helps us better understand both the man and his work.---Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, author of Gothic Things: Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety
A brief, but amazingly thorough discussion of Lovecraft’s biography. . . Very accessible.---W. Scott Poole, author of Dark Carnivals: Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire
David Goodwin illuminates a pivotal period in Lovecraft’s career, the two eventful years in New York City that began with hope and ended in despair. This accessible book offers new insights into Lovecraft’s marriage and other relationships, his ambitions, anxieties, and prejudices. Drawing on extensive research and a sharp critical eye, Goodwin has made a major contribution to our understanding of this troubled and troubling writer.---Scott Peeples, author of The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City
Goodwin doesn’t pull punches when discussing Lovecraft’s bigotry, noting that much of the writer’s distaste for the city stemmed from his 'nativist, anti-Semitic, and racist beliefs,' which put him at odds with the diversifying metropolis. Goodwin builds his scrupulous account on a thorough reading of Lovecraft’s letters and diaries, and the unsparing portrait that emerges, while unflattering, offers keen insight into his character. Lovecraft scholars will want to take a look.
. . .A usefully focused study, appropriate to a man who by his own admission preferred scenes, places and atmospheres to people.
H.P. Lovecraft, the author known as the father of cosmic horror fiction, lived in New York City from 1924 to 1926. David J.Goodwin’s Midnight Rambles is the first book to offer a detailed—and often disturbing—depiction of that brief but significant period in Lovecraft’s life.
A beautifully crafted new study of three crucial years in Lovecraft’s life (1924, 1925, and 1926) delves into how his peculiar authorial vision and life experience were shaped by his only long foray outside his native Providence, Rhode Island. David J. Goodwin deftly unfolds Lovecraft’s attempt to make a place for himself as a writer in New York City.
Midnight Rambles [is] an intriguing “micro-biography” of [Lovecraft's] two years in New York. . .
. . .[A] fascinating biographical monograph. . .
Introduction: “Age Brings Reminiscences” | 1
1 “A Person of the Most Admirable Qualities” | 17
2 “An Eastern City of Wonder” | 32
3 “It Is a Myth; A Dream” | 51
4 “Brigham Young Annexing His 27th” | 67
5 “The Somewhat Disastrous Collapse” | 80
6 “A Maze of Poverty & Uncertainty” | 96
7 “A Pleasing Hermitage” | 114
8 “Circle of Aesthetic Dilettante” | 131
9 “Long Live the State of Rhode- Island” | 154
Conclusion: “The Merest Vague Dream” | 169
Acknowledgments | 181
Notes | 185
Bibliography | 251
Index | 269