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 Nine - The High Tide of My Life (1921–22)
- 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
Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft died on 24 May 1921, at Butler Hospital. Her death, however, was not a result of her nervous breakdown but rather of a gall bladder operation from which she did not recover. Winfield Townley Scott, who had access to Susie's now destroyed medical records, tells the story laconically: ‘She underwent a gall-bladder operation which was thought to be successful. Five days later her nurse noted that the patient expressed a wish to die because “I will only live to suffer.” She died the next day.’
Lovecraft's reaction was pretty much what one might expect: ‘The death of my mother on May 24 gave me an extreme nervous shock, and I find concentration and continuous endeavour quite impossible … I cannot sleep much, or labour with any particular spirit or success.’ Later on in this letter, written nine days after the event, Lovecraft adds disturbingly:
For my part, I do not think I shall wait for a natural death; since there is no longer any particular reason why I should exist. During my mother's life-time I was aware that voluntary euthanasia on my part would cause her distress, but it is now possible for me to regulate the term of my existence with the assurance that my end would cause no one more than a passing annoyance.
Evidently his aunts did not figure much in this equation. But it was a passing phase, as we shall shortly see.
What, in the end, are we to make of Lovecraft's relations with his mother? Susie Lovecraft has not fared well at the hands of Lovecraft's biographers, and her flaws are readily discernible: she was overly possessive, clearly neurotic, failed (as Lovecraft himself and the rest of his family did) to foresee the need for training her son in some sort of remunerative occupation, and psychologically damaged Lovecraft at least to the point of declaring him physically hideous and perhaps in other ways that are now irrecoverable.
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- A Dreamer and a VisionaryH P Lovecraft in His Time, pp. 143 - 162Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2001