Sonia's Typescript & Signed Essay on Lovecraft

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Lovecraft, H[oward] P[hillips] and Sonia H. Davis. "LOVE AND MARRIAGE" a.k.a. "LOVECRAFT IN LOVE" [essay]. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT SIGNED (AMsS). Written on rectos of twelve sheets of letter-size paper on rectos only, all in Davis' hand. "A de-facto collaboration by Greene and Lovecraft, written out here entirely in Sonia's hand but with notes indicating where each one's contributions start and stop.

Lovecraft's section runs from the middle of page [2] to the end of page [8], sandwiched in between Sonia's; according to the ARKHAM COLLECTOR, (number eight, winter 1971), it is transcribed in its entirety from a letter written by HPL to Sonia around 1922, two years before the beginning of their ill-fated marriage.

A discerning reader might have noticed some warning signs in Lovecraft's epistle, which makes the Sears, Roebuck catalog sound romantic, but both authors here come across as starry-eyed and Sunday schoolish, consumed by high-flown, ethereal ideas about conjugal love having little to do with real men and women.

Written in Sonia's broad hand, using a black fountain pen, with a short added section near the end in blue fountain ink, and a few later corrections and notes using a blue ball-point pen.

The sheets are numbered at the top in Roman numerals, signed 'S. H. Davis' in pencil at top of first page, with 'LOVE AND MARRIAGE' written on verso of page [12] and 'For A. Derleth' on verso of page [10]. It's not clear whether this was ever published as a jointly written essay.

That a man of Lovecraft's temperament and convictions should ever have married is one of the more improbable facets of a life that outdoes his own fiction in its strangeness. The present manuscript documents that marriage unconsciously in the way the contributions lie calmly side by side with very little intellectual intercourse between them." - Robert Eldridge.

Sheets are a bit rumpled, with a few minor stains and blots, edge-nicking, old staple stabs, still, in general, very good or better condition. (#114491) Price: $1,000.00