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 Nineteen - Caring about the Civilization (1929–37)
- 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
In the summer of 1936 Lovecraft made an interesting admission:
I used to be a hide-bound Tory simply for traditional and antiquarian reasons—and because I had never done any real thinking on civics and industry and the future. The depression —and its concomitant publicisation of industrial, financial, and governmental problems—jolted me out of my lethargy and led me to reëxamine the facts of history in the light of unsentimental scientific analysis; and it was not long before I realised what an ass I had been.
This is one of the few times Lovecraft explicitly mentions the Depression as signalling a radical change in his beliefs on politics, economics, and society; but perhaps he need not have made such an admission, for his letters from 1930 onward return again and again to these subjects.
There was little in Lovecraft's personal circumstances that led him to the adoption of a moderate socialism; he did not—as many impoverished individuals did—become attracted to political or economic radicalism merely because he found himself destitute. First, he was never truly destitute—at least, not in comparison with many others in the Depression (including some of his own friends), who lost all their money and belongings and had no job and no roof over their heads; second, he scorned Communism as unworkable and culturally devastating, recommending an economic system considerably to the left of what the United States actually adopted under Roosevelt but nevertheless supporting the New Deal as the only plan of action that had any chance of being carried out.
And yet, Lovecraft's conversion to socialism was not entirely surprising, first because socialism as a political theory and as a concrete alternative to capitalism was experiencing a resurgence during the 1930s, and second because Lovecraft's brand of socialism still retained many of the aristocratic features that had shaped his earlier political thought. The latter point I shall take up presently; the former is worth elaborating briefly.
The United States has never been an especially fertile soil for socialism or Communism, but there have been occasions when they have been a little less unpopular than usual.
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- Information
- A Dreamer and a VisionaryH P Lovecraft in His Time, pp. 346 - 363Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2001