Garth Schwer

Recent Writing

The Lovecraft Circle

3 min read

The Lovecraft Circle

The Lovecraft Circle refers to a loose, informal group of writers, poets, and intellectuals linked by their correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft during the 1920s and 1930s. This network, centered largely around the pulp magazine Weird Tales, is responsible for the development of the “Weird Fiction” genre and the collaborative creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Structure and Dynamics

Unlike the “Inklings” (Tolkien and Lewis), who met in person at Oxford, the Lovecraft Circle was almost entirely epistolary. Lovecraft himself was a compulsive letter writer (estimated at 100,000 lifetime letters), acting as the central hub connecting isolated writers across the United States.

The circle functioned as:

  • A Writers’ Workshop: They shared drafts, critiqued prose, and offered professional advice.
  • A Support Group: They discussed financial poverty, health struggles, and the “outsider” nature of their artistic temperaments.
  • A Shared Universe: They practiced “Yog-Sothothery”—the playful insertion of each other’s invented gods, tomes, and locations into their own stories to create a sense of pseudo-historical verisimilitude.

The “Three Musketeers” of Weird Tales

While the circle was large, the intellectual core is often identified as a triad:

  1. H.P. Lovecraft (Providence, RI): The theorist of “Cosmic Horror.” He provided the nihilistic philosophy and the central pantheon.
  2. Robert E. Howard (Cross Plains, TX): The father of Sword and Sorcery. He grounded the cosmic horror in physical history, contributing the Nameless Cults (Von Junzt) and the Hyborian Age to the timeline.
  3. Clark Ashton Smith (Auburn, CA): The poet and dreamer. His stories (set in Hyperborea and Zothique) added a sardonic, exotic, and dark-fantasy flavour that contrasted with Lovecraft’s clinical dryness. He contributed the entity Tsathoggua and the Book of Eibon.

Other Key Members

  • August Derleth: The “archivist.” After Lovecraft’s death, he founded Arkham House to preserve HPL’s writings. He is controversial for attempting to categorize the Mythos into a “Good vs. Evil” binary (Elemental Theory).
  • Robert Bloch: The “protégé.” The youngest member (author of Psycho), whom Lovecraft “killed” in the story The Haunter of the Dark as a playful tribute.
  • C.L. Moore: One of the first significant female writers in the genre, creator of Jirel of Joiry. She corresponded with HPL and married circle member Henry Kuttner.
  • Frank Belknap Long: A close friend and member of the New York “Kalem Club,” he contributed the Hounds of Tindalos.

The End of the Circle

The Circle’s golden age ended abruptly in the mid-1930s. Robert E. Howard committed suicide in 1936; H.P. Lovecraft died of cancer in 1937. Clark Ashton Smith, devastated by the loss of his correspondents and his parents, largely stopped writing fiction shortly after.

I wonder…

  • How much of the “Cthulhu Mythos” is actually the invention of August Derleth rather than the original intent of Lovecraft?
  • If the internet existed in the 1930s, would the Lovecraft Circle have evolved into a formal collaborative fiction project like the SCP Foundation?
  • We should explore the specific connection between C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry and Howard’s Red Sonya to see how the circle viewed female protagonists.

References

  • Joshi, S.T. I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft. Hippocampus Press.
  • Cannon, Peter. H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to Robert Bloch.
  • Murray, Will. “The Roots of the Cthulhu Mythos.” Crypt of Cthulhu.

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