Lovecraft’s Providence
Lovecraft’s second house & Fall into middle class

Lovecraft’s second house & Fall into middle class

Address

598 Angel St.

Number

3

Tags
PersonalWayland Square

598 Angell Street

(NOTE) This is a Private Residence, Please be respectful of the house and neighbors.

Here In a dimly lit room, bookshelves lining every wall save for his desk a young Lovecraft scrawls out the first stories of the Cthulu Mythos.

Welcome, to 598 Angell St.

This is Lovecraft's second home in Providence, where he lives from the ages of 13 to 34 and experiences some of the most difficult and loneliest years of his life, only to escape his isolation in the most unexpected of ways.

Popular Stories Written Here

  • Dagon
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep
  • The Cats of Ulthar
  • The Temple
  • From Beyond
  • The Outsider
  • The Music of Eric Zann
  • ReAnimator
  • The Rats in the Walls

This is the first Private residence on the tour, and the quietest neighborhood on any part of the tour. So please, be respectful and don’t hang around too much if you’re visiting in person.

1
1919, June 30? – Lovecraft in front of his home at 598 Angell Street, Providence.

When Lovecraft First Moved in here it seemed like his life was ending. He has just lost his Grandfather and his Childhood home in a matter of months.

Financially forced into a more affordable housing , Him and his mother move only two blocks away and start living off a their measly inheritance.

“I felt that I had lost my entire adjustment to the cosmos-for indeed what was HPL without the remembered rooms and hallways and hangings and staircases and statuary and paintings...”
“In 1904 the death of my beloved maternal grandfather broke up the home at 454 Angell St. (Birthplace) , and caused my mother and myself to take our present smaller quarters at No. 598 on the same thoroughfare." -HPL (Letter to Maurice Moe, 1 January 1915)
"For the first time i know what a congested, servant less house-with another family in the same house was…

Once the doors on 598 Angell St. Shut behind him, Lovecraft and his mother were on their own for the first time. Their relationship is, odd to say the least. Something I’ll get into in another location.

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At 18 years old, Lovecraft suffers a breakdown, drops out of high school and enters into a self imposed isolation.

He shuts himself into his room and into his books, His only escape dreams, nightmares and writing. He writes the alchemist around this time and shuts himself into his room and into his books. His only escape dreams and nightmares,

" Then I perceived with horror that I was growing too old for pleasure. Ruthless Time had set its full claw upon me, and I was seventeen. Big boys do not play in toy houses and mock gardens, so I was obliged to turn over my world in sorrow to another and younger boy who dwelt across the lot from me. And since that time I have not delved in the earth or laid out paths and roads. There is too much wistful memory in such procedure, for the fleeting joy of childhood may never be recaptured. Adulthood is hell."

—H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

by Michel Houellebecq, pp 30-31

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three years later at the age of 21 Lovecraft spends his birthday riding around the trolley, still in the depths of his isolation and depression.

And although may have been isolated physically, his words and mind were anything but,

Letters become his main social outlet, and he writes far and wide sending into letter columns of his pulpy magazines he loves so much, stuff he’s been reading since he was young without realizing the low-brow nature the rest of society viewed such publications.

Lovecraft seemed to read almost anything he could get his hands on, one thing he can’t stand though Romance.

When one of his favorite magazines dares to increasingly publish an on the rise romance author.

Lovecraft sends his opinions into the letter colum, starting a back and forth with the author’s fans.

The event gets noticed by printing press hobbists and in a turning point in Lovecrafts life He’s invited to join the Press association.

Hobbyists of printing more than writing, the 24 years old Lovecrafts abilities quickly got him noticed and promoted within the organziation.

Within a year Lovecraft would fully be out of his isolation.

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1919, June 30 – Lovecraft with Rheinhart Kleiner in front of his home at 598 Angell Street, Providence

The social connections from the Press association would gain him friends for life,

They would support him start writing fiction again

And at the age of 27 He would write the first story of the Ctlhulu mythos, Dagon.

After he turns a nightmare he has here into a story.

His new connections at the United Press association would

finally get him out of the house, and even out oProvidence it’self.

During his travels he’ll meet Sonia Green, his soon to be wife,

and his only reason to ever Move out of Providence.

This address also gets a mention in Charles Dexter Ward

”Hazard Weeden of 598 Angell Street recalls a family legend according to

which Ezra Weeden was involved in some very peculiar circumstances,” -CDW

Mentions of 598 Angel St. in Fiction

In Charles Dexter Ward,

"Hazard Weeden of 598 Angell Street recalls a family legend according to which Ezra Weeden was involved in some very peculiar circumstances, not dishonorable to himself, shortly before the Revolution;"

Lovecraft wrote Theese stories Here (copied and pasted from HP lovecraft.com Lovecraft’s Fiction Chronilogical Order.

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Relevant Episode of Voluminous
Tags
PersonalWayland Square
Address

598 Angel St.

Number

3