R. H. Barlow 89 years

[Ningauble]

I would just like to remind you that tomorrow, May 18, 2007, would have been Robert Hayward Barlow's 89th birthday.

Please take a moment to remember the man we have to thank for the survival of so many Lovecraft manuscripts, and a brilliant life that ended much too early.

[j. d. worthington]

Barlow also wrote some very good fiction and poetry, not to mention two very important memoirs of HPL....

Eyes of the God: The Weird Fiction and Poetry of R. H. Barlow - Hippocampus Press

HPLA - Eyes of the God: The Weird Fiction and Poetry of R.H. Barlow

While his early stories are obviously the work of a teen, he quickly moved to writing such subtle, eerie, and simply beautiful pieces as "The Night Ocean" (revised by HPL, though -- as noted in the links -- recent scholarship has shown the bulk to be Barlow's work) and "A Dim-Remembered Story", among others. A long-forgotten (save by Lovecraftian scholars) member of the Lovecraft circle who showed considerable talent and ability, he was also one of the luminaries in the field of Mesoamerican studies, especially dealing with Precolumbian cultures....

[GOLLUM]

Thanks for the heads up, I wasn't aware of this person. But now I am....

[ghyle]

Don't forget that Barlow proved to be a fine poet in his own right. He wrote some fine examples of modernist poetry shortly before his suicide, and the poems are very unjustly forgotten.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by ghyle

Don't forget that Barlow proved to be a fine poet in his own right. He wrote some fine examples of modernist poetry shortly before his suicide, and the poems are very unjustly forgotten.

Oh, indeed. He wrote some rather powerfully imagistic poetry. He showed himself to be quite talented literarily -- it is such a loss that he lived such a short life, as he really was quite brilliant, with a great deal to offer....