In a recent post I mentioned Robert H. Barlow (1918-51), who at a young age started corresponding with H.P. Lovecraft, striking up a friendship with him. Later he would host Lovecraft at his family’s home in DeLand, Fla., for two summers and become Lovecraft’s literary executor after he died.
Early on, Lovecraft encouraged Barlow to get involved with the amateur journalism movement. This movement got its start in 1876 with the National Amateur Press Association, which still exists. Lovecraft himself joined the newer United Amateur Press Association but later joined the NAPA when the UAPA collapsed in 1926.
Barlow would soon start sending his writing to papers in the NAPA around 1933. He would later obtain his own printing press and created Dragon-Fly Press to publish works. He soon published his own paper, The Dragon-Fly, which lasted two issues in 1935 and 1936. My understanding is this was his contribution to NAPA. Due to family issues unclear to me, he had to leave his home (and printing press) after that, and so his next effort was a mimeographed paper called Leaves, which would have two issues in 1937 and 1939, with at least two more planned.
All these early publications contained various works from people like H.P. Lovecraft, C.L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, Frank Belknap Long, Donald Wandrei, and more. These include fiction, poems, and articles, some reprints, and some originals.
While I believe the contents of these have been republished elsewhere, there has never been an opportunity to read the content of Barlow’s amateur publications until S.T. Joshi put out the collection The Dragon-Fly & Leaves through his Sarnath Press.
Here the four issues are re-typeset for easy reading, a short introduction gives info on these magazines and their contents, and there’s an appendix listing the planned contents of further issues of Leaves. If I have any complaints, it’s that I wish they had included photos of the front covers of each paper. The recent L’Affaire Barlow did include some of this.
I’m not going to go over everything in each issue but will point out a few interesting items. I was surprised by the length of these in the book. The two issues of Dragon-Fly take up about 15 pages each, whereas Leaves #1 is about 150 pages, and Leaves #2 is 100 pages. Apparently only 100 copies of Leaves #1 was printed, and 60 of Leaves #2.
The Dragon-Fly #1 (1935) gives us a variety of short poems by Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, and others. Barlow has a short weird story, and we get one from an Ernest A. Edkins.
The Dragon-Fly #2 (1936) has another short story by Barlow. The longest work is an article on poetry by Edkins. CAS and Derleth are again included, and J. Vernon Shea Jr. has a short work on four current playwrights.
Leaves #1 (1937) provides items from Clark Ashton Smith, Wandrei, Derleth, A. Merritt, and Edith Miniter.
If you don’t know the last name, she was an amateur writer in Boston who was well-known to Lovecraft and passed away in the 1930s. She’s largely overlooked, but Hippocampus Press has two collections of her works. Here we get her most well-known work “Dead Houses.”
CAS provides his completion of William Beckford‘s “Third Episode of Vathek.” Wandrei has three works, one a reprint from Weird Tales, but the others are original, one being a sequel to that story. Merritt’s is a reprint. We get a previously unpublished essay by Lovecraft, and the rest is poetry.
Leaves #2 (1938) is highlighted with a previously unpublished work by C.L. Moore: “Were-woman.” We get several short pieces by Lovecraft, including an unfinished collaboration with Barlow. And there’s a short work by Barlow. There is a reprint of Henry S. Whitehead (1882-1932) “The Tree-Man” from Weird Tales, as well as a listing of his weird fiction. Other works and poetry round out the issue.
Overall this is an interesting collection, though only some may want to obtain it. S.T. Joshi has put out a lot of works, and his Sarnath Press has almost 100 volumes, though most are reprints of Ambrose Bierce works.
