Corporal Howard P. Lovecraft, US Army

[Doug M.]

Little-known fact: in 1917, soon after the US entered the First World War, H.P. Lovecraft tried to join the Army.

HPL was then 27 years old, bookish, otherworldly, and thin as a rail. But although he had suffered from a variety of illnesses all his life, he managed to pass the Army physical. (It seems likely that some of his problems were psychosomatic. Other hand, he may have had some subtle but real issue not detectable by the medicine of the time. It's really hard to tell.) They accepted him as a private in an artillery regiment.

When Lovecraft's mother found out, she went absolutely nuts, and pulled every string she could to get her son back out. She succeeded. HPL came back home, sat out the war, and didn't even consider leaving Providence until years later.

Of the Army episode, he said "It would either have killed me, or cured me."

Now: it was during these years that Lovecraft began his writing career. His first story was sold later in 1917. Not too likely that he'd have managed this on a troop transport headed for France.

Let's say HPL serves out the war, gets a glimpse of combat, survives. Although he does not like Army life _at all_, he manages. Soldiers have been made from stranger stuff. And the outcome is "cure" rather than "kill". He returns to Providence in 1919 a very different man -- tough, sinewy, and far more worldly.

We could run with this, and imagine HPL becoming a surprisingly good soldier, taking up a military career, fighting in Europe or the Pacific a generation later... but no. One, I think it really is unlikely; and two, it's been done already, for Edgar Allen Poe. (Walter Jon Williams' excellent novella "No Spot of Ground". If you haven't read it yet, do so.)

No, *Lovecraft is happy to be out of the Army. But what will he do with himself now?

OTL, Lovecraft made his living as a freelance editor and ghost writer. His fiction writing was a hobby, done in his spare time; the bulk of his income came from rewriting other people's work. There are hundreds of thousands of words of journalism and fiction from the 1920s and '30s that are to some extent his work; but since he kept most of his clients confidential, we'll never know for sure.

OTL, Lovecraft never made much of a living at his work. He was very competent -- fast, diligent, and very good at writing in other peoples' voice when he needed to -- but he had no head for business, and refused to negotiate or haggle over price. TTL, a somewhat tougher *Lovecraft may be a little more practical. This might leave him more time for his own work.

Goodness only knows what direction his writing would take in this TL. Certain trends were probably fixed by 1917, and the war would likely do nothing to dent his Anglophilia, nor either his nihilistic conviction of the ultimate meaninglessness of human existence. On the other hand, a couple of years in the Army would probably put a dent in his snobbishness and racism, and might give him a bit of an ear for dialogue -- one thing he utterly lacked OTL.

He'd get some leave in Paris, where he'd greatly appreciate the architecture and history. But he'd have little interest in the wine, the women, or the food, so I don't see him as hanging around and joining the Lost Generation. For HPL it would always be about Providence, first and last; a spot of war wouldn't change that.

-- I suppose there are really two AH questions here. One, what becomes of Lovecraft And two, WI no Cthulhu Mythos? The Mythos was very much the product of Lovecraft's life OTL; the isolation and alienation that pervade the books were drawn from his very unusual circumstances. TTL he may produce works of equivalent interest and value, but I don't think they're going to be very close to the Cthulhu Mythos as we know them.

The Mythos has been hugely influential in fantasy and horror. Not sure if you could say it had much influence on mainstream literature or popular culture, though. In a no-CM TL, fantasy would be unrecognizable, and comic books and mainstream SF would be noticeably different, but I'm not sure the world at large would be changed much at all. Yes, Borges, Bradbury, Harlan Ellison and Stephen King, but the greater literary world... I dunno.

Thoughts?


Doug M.

[Sovereign12]

I actually believe his Mythos would have still been created with this scenario. In fact it would probably be more malign if anything else.

The Old Ones were seen as far beyond and different from humans in the stories from OTL. Not evil or out to destroy humanity, just above us and different. The old cliche of man is like insect to them, below their notice. With a possible stint in the military and actual live combat, I could see his psychosis actually becoming worse in regards to actual descriptions of the horrors, even if he doesn't become a shellshock victim. I think the actual immersion in the horror of combat would change his stories from indifference on the part of the Old Ones and other beings, to an actual evil. That these beings are out to destroy us. I could see him moving toward the whole good vs evil bit, which was never his intent in his stories, even if some readers see it this way in his stories (OTL).

The need to be away from an overbearing mother and his aunts would releave that stress on his life, and I could see him maybe being able to keep a marriage, at least longer, if he is away from their influence. Being away from his family and in France, while not removing Anglophilia, may lessen it a bit and allow him to be more open to other races. At least those of European descent.

This, along with the combat experience, may cause him to create an organization in his stories about a group or groups, that secretly fight these beings. Say an earlier version Unit (Dr. Whoverse), Torchwood (Dr. Whoverse), or the Intiative (Buffy). He could possibly move over to more mainstrem SciFI writing after his time in the military after seeing all the machines that were used in the war.

[Alcuin]

Suppose, with this different experience, Lovecraft writes exactly the same (I can imagine that experience in Belgium in WWI might have made the mythos infinitely more creepy but let's suppose nothing has changed).

We would never know what changed but some transdimensional traveller (Such as the Tcho Tcho for example) might well notice the similarity. Of course, if the Tcho Tcho notice, then the inhabitants of Leng will also notice and might suspect that they have been discovered (as indeed they would have to be for Lovecraft's work to remain the same) leading to an invasion of both timelines by nameless horrors, bringing with them terrorism, pollution, global warming, advertising and all sorts of other problems turning earth inimical to man. Global Warming, of course, will release that which is hidden at the mountains of madness and no doubt stirs the sleep of Great Cthulhu himself.

Alternatively of course (if the Mythos is fictional), should Lovecraft do something other than writing, perhaps Clark Ashton Smith or August Derleth will conspire with Robert E Howard to produce a Mythos of their own.

[Berra]

And then there is the obvious answer, the mother of all cliches. He meet Hitler:D But WI he was captured by the Germans?