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Next Location, Wayland Square (start of driving tour)
454 Angel St.
The house is demolished in 1961, currently there is a small memorial marking the birthplace
This is where Lovecraft was born and spent the first 13 years of his life. Where he fell inlove with poetry, Poe, old English literature, and the stars.
The foundations of everything in Lovecraft's life start here.
But it wasn’t means to last, and when Lovecraft’s Grandfather died he Lost the house soon after
The Loss devastated a young Lovecraft, send him spiraling into darkness and despair and he would dream of this house for the rest of his life. (note: this will be one of the Longest and most foundational reads because it covers the first 13 years of Lovecraft’s Life)
"I was born on the 20th of August, 1890, at No. 454 (then numbered 194) Angell Street, in the city of Providence. This was the home of my mother’s family; my parents’ actual residence at the time being in Dorchester, Mass....In the mid-seventies, my grandfather transferred all his interests to Providence (where his offices had always been) & erected one of the handsomest residences in the city—to me, the handsomest—my own beloved birthplace! This spacious house, raised on a high green terrace, looks down upon grounds which are almost a park, with winding walks, arbors, trees, & a delightful fountain." -Letter to Reinhardt Kleiner, 16 November 1916
454 Angell St.
Lovecraft’s Mother Susie came here to her parents house in Providence to give birth to her one and only child Howard Phillips Lovecraft born August 20, 1890.
Lovecraft’s parents started their new life nearby in Massachusetts but their dreams of a normal life were shattered when Lovecraft’s Father Winnifield suffered a nervous collapse.
Susie and Howard moved back home here, Howard would experience most of his childhood here, while his father withered away from Syphilis at the nearby Butler mental Hospital (another location on the driving tour)
Only Three years old, Howard would never see his father again.
His new father figure was his grandfather Whipple Phillips, Susie's father and the owner of the beautiful 3 story Providence home that used to sit at this Location.
- Lovecraft became very close to this house and his Grandfather and his love for many fictional and scientific pursuits started in his grandfathers library here at 454 Angell St.
- Poe & Horror
- Greek & Roman Literature
- Old English literature and poetry
- Science, Chemistry and Astronomy
- The Arabian nights tales
- Lovecraft creates the character Abdul Al Hazred here during his Arabian nights obsession.
“No—we are never scared of the dark now, though we used to be prior to 1895 or 96. Our grandfather cured us of this tendency by daring us to walk through certain chains of dark rooms in the fairly capacious old home at 454 Angell. Little by little our hardihood increased—and by the time we graduated from the fully-inhabited 2nd floor to the merely servant-and-store-and-guest-room-occupied 3rd floor, we were hard-boiled so far as the Anamorphous Entities of Shadows were concerned” -Letter to RH Barlow Aug 8 1933 ”After that, dark places held a certain fascination for me. But it is in dreams that I have known the real clutch of stark, hideous, maddening, paralysing fear.” -CLM 323
When Lovecraft's grandmother Dies in 1896 the mourning family members covered in black and shawls started to haunt Lovecraft’s dreams, turning fantasy into nightmare.
At the age of six my dreams become peoples with a race of lean, faceless, rubbery, winged things to which i applied the home-made name of night-gaunts. Night after nigth they would appear in exactly the same form-& the terror they brought was beyond verbal description -CLM 323Full Quote‣
In 1904 Lovecraft’s Grandfather Dies, and the family loses the house. Thus begins Lovecraft and his Mothers life long slide into Poverty. Lovecraft would think fondly of this house and of his childhood, for the rest of his life
“It takes no effort at all— especially when I am out in certain woods and fields which have not changed a bit since my boyhood— for me to imagine that all the yeas since 1902 or 1903 are a dream… that I am still 12 years old, and that when I go home it will be through the quieter, more village-like streets of those days—with horses and wagons, and little varicolored street cars with open platforms, and with my old home at 454 Angell St. still waiting at the end of the vista—with my mother, grandfather, black cat and other departed companions alive and unchanged” -Letter to RH Barlow Aug 8 1933
Full quotes
Wayland Sq
2
Where the Seekonk meets the east Side.
4 & 5
324 Hope St.
10 & 11
14
Demolished
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