Newly up for sale, a short letter / postcard from Lovecraft in his Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath period. The description is from bookseller James Cummins, and states…

The first paragraph of this note was published in the Arkham House collected correspondence and in Joshi & Schultz [i.e. the Letters books]; the second paragraph has remained unpublished until now.

From this second “unpublished” paragraph we learn that writing a work of Kadath‘s length proved to be slow-going, and was not (as some might have assumed) the rapid and enjoyable dashing-off of a free-wheeling draft. We also see how Lovecraft preferred to work on one tale at a time, and felt he had to get Kadath out of the way in order to do something else. Lovecraft finishes by mentioning that he’s discovered a new artist of the weird, but doesn’t name him. Though there appears to be some miniscule writing inserted above, which might be the name?

I also like Lovecraft’s description of a story as a “hair-raiser deluxe!”

Perhaps just as interesting is what appears to be Lovecraft’s fingerprint in blood, which raises the possibility of chemical analysis of Lovecraft’s blood. I assume that advanced 21st century forensics could achieve something with it, even at this great distance in time. Though perhaps not as much as some would like — such as resurrection via a cloned baby Lovecraft, etc.