several nation-wide correspondence organizations of literary novices who publish papers of their own and form collectively, a miniature world of helpful mutual criticism and encouragement. The benefit received from this affiliation can scarcely be overestimated, for contact with the various members and critics helped me infinitely in toning down the worst archaisms and ponderosities in my style. It was in the ranks of organized amateurdom that I was first advised to resume weird writing—a step which I took in July 1917, with the production of The Tomb and Dagon in quick succession. Also through amateurdom were established the contacts leading to the first professional publication of my fiction—in 1922, when Home Brew printed a ghastly series entitled Herbert West, Reanimator. The same circle, moreover, led to my acquaintance with Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Jun., Wilfred B. Talman, and others since celebrated in the field of unusual stories.
About 1919 the discovery of Lord Dunsany—from whom I got the idea of the artificial pantheon and myth-background represented by “Cthulhu,” “Yog-Sothoth,” “Yuggoth,” etc.—gave a vast impetus to my weird writing; and I turned out material in greater volume than ever before or since. At that time I had no thought or hope of professional publication; but the founding of Weird Tales in 1923 opened up an outlet of considerable steadiness. My stories of the 1920 period reflect a good deal of my two chief models, Poe and Dunsany, and are in general too strongly inclined to extravagance and over-colouring to be of much serious literary value.
Meanwhile my health had been radically improving since 1920, so that a rather static existence began to be diversified with modest travels giving my strong antiquarian interests a freer play. My chief delight outside literature became the past-reviving quest for ancient architectural and landscape effects in the old colonial towns and byways of America’s longest-settled regions, and gradually I have managed to cover a considerable territory from glamorous Quebec on the north to tropical Key West on the south and colourful Natchez and New Orleans on the west. Among my favorite towns, aside from Providence, are Quebec; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Salem and Marblehead in Massachusetts; Newport in my own state; Philadelphia; Annapolis; Richmond with its wealth of Poe memories; eighteenth-century Charleston; sixteenth-century St. Augustine; and drowsy Natchez on its dizzy bluff and with its gorgeous subtropical hinterland. The “Arkham” and “Kingsport” figuring in some of my tales are more or less adapted versions of Salem and Marblehead. My native New England and its old lingering lore have sunk deep into my imagination, and appear frequently in what I write. I dwell at present in a house 130 years old on the crest of Providence’s ancient hill, with a haunting vista of venerable roofs and boughs from the window above my desk.
It is now clear to me that any actual literary merit I may have is confined to tales of dream-life, strange shadow, and cosmic “outsideness,” notwithstanding a keen interest in many other departments of life and a professional practice of general prose and verse revision. Why this is so, I have not the least idea. I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales, and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors—Poe, Arthur Machen, Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, Walter de la Mare, and Montague Rhodes James. The only thing I can say in favour of my work is its sincerity. I refuse to follow the mechanical conventions of popular fiction or to fill my tales with stock characters and situations, but insist on reproducing real moods and impressions in the best way I can command. The result may be poor, but I had rather keep aiming at serious literary expression than accept the artificial standards of cheap romance.
I have tried to improve and subtilise my tales with the passing of years, but have
