Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter One Unmixed English Gentry
- Chapter Two A Genuine Pagan (1890–97)
- Chapter Three Black Woods and Unfathomed Caves (1898–1902)
- Chapter Four What of Unknown Africa? (1902–1908)
- Chapter Five Barbarian and Alien (1908–14)
- Chapter Six A Renewed Will to Live (1914–17)
- Chapter Seven Feverish and Incessant Scribbling (1917–19)
- Chapter Eight Cynical Materialist (1919–21)
- Chapter Nine The High Tide of My Life (1921–22)
- Chapter Ten For My Own Amusement (1923–24)
- Chapter Eleven Ball and Chain (1924)
- Chapter Twelve Moriturus Te Saluto (1925–26)
- Chapter Thirteen Paradise Regain'd (1926)
- Chapter Fourteen Cosmic Outsideness (1927–28)
- Chapter Fifteen Fanlights and Georgian Steeples (1928–30)
- Chapter Sixteen Non-supernatural Cosmic Art (1930–31)
- Chapter Seventeen Mental Greed (1931–33)
- Chapter Eighteen In My Own Handwriting (1933–35)
- Chapter Nineteen Caring about the Civilization (1929–37)
- Chapter Twenty The End of One's Life (1935–37)
- Epilogue: Thou Art Not Gone
- Notes
- Index
Chapter Five - Barbarian and Alien (1908–14)
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter One Unmixed English Gentry
- Chapter Two A Genuine Pagan (1890–97)
- Chapter Three Black Woods and Unfathomed Caves (1898–1902)
- Chapter Four What of Unknown Africa? (1902–1908)
- Chapter Five Barbarian and Alien (1908–14)
- Chapter Six A Renewed Will to Live (1914–17)
- Chapter Seven Feverish and Incessant Scribbling (1917–19)
- Chapter Eight Cynical Materialist (1919–21)
- Chapter Nine The High Tide of My Life (1921–22)
- Chapter Ten For My Own Amusement (1923–24)
- Chapter Eleven Ball and Chain (1924)
- Chapter Twelve Moriturus Te Saluto (1925–26)
- Chapter Thirteen Paradise Regain'd (1926)
- Chapter Fourteen Cosmic Outsideness (1927–28)
- Chapter Fifteen Fanlights and Georgian Steeples (1928–30)
- Chapter Sixteen Non-supernatural Cosmic Art (1930–31)
- Chapter Seventeen Mental Greed (1931–33)
- Chapter Eighteen In My Own Handwriting (1933–35)
- Chapter Nineteen Caring about the Civilization (1929–37)
- Chapter Twenty The End of One's Life (1935–37)
- Epilogue: Thou Art Not Gone
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Lovecraft is very reticent about the causes or sources of what we can only regard as a full-fledged nervous breakdown in the summer of 1908. Beyond the mere fact of its occurrence, we know little. Consider four statements, made from 1915 to 1935:
In 1908 I should have entered Brown University, but the broken state of my health rendered the idea absurd. I was and am a prey to intense headaches, insomnia, and general nervous weakness which prevents my continuous application to any thing.
In 1908 I was about to enter Brown University, when my health completely gave way—causing the necessary abandonment of my college career.
after all, high-school was a mistake. I liked it, but the strain was too keen for my health, and I suffered a nervous collapse in 1908 immediately after graduating, which prevented altogether my attending college.
My health did not permit me to go to the university— indeed, the steady application to high-school gave me a sort of breakdown.
In the first, second, and fourth of these statements Lovecraft is a little disingenuous: he implies that his entry into Brown University was a matter of course, but in fact he never graduated from high school, and certainly would have required at least another year of schooling before he could have done so. The third statement, which states that he actually did graduate, is one of the few instances I have found where Lovecraft plainly lies about himself.
Since we are generally left in the dark about the nature of this breakdown, we can work only on conjecture. We have two pieces of external evidence. One comes from Harry Brobst, who spoke to a woman who had gone to high school with Lovecraft:
She … described these terrible tics that he had—he'd be sitting in his seat and he'd suddenly up and jump—I think they referred to them as seizures. The family took him out of high school, and then whatever education he got presumably was done by private tutors, whatever that meant.
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- Information
- A Dreamer and a VisionaryH P Lovecraft in His Time, pp. 62 - 76Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2001