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How to Find the Spirit of H.P. Lovecraft in Providence

By Noel Rubinton

• Aug. 10, 2016

To walk through the streets of Providence, particularly those of the city’s verdant, historic East Side, is to be deep in Lovecraft-land.

Though H. P. Lovecraft was not widely appreciated during his prolific but brief writing career in the early 1900s, his love for and connection to his Rhode Island hometown were near absolute. His stock has risen dramatically in the worlds of horror and science fiction literature in recent years, and so has his place as a local hero.

When I moved to Providence not long ago, I was drawn to learn more about Lovecraft. It proved a fateful decision, because to know Lovecraft turns out to be a way to know a great deal about the city.

Last year was the 125th anniversary of his birth and it’s clear that Lovecraft is more studied and more hip than ever, certainly far more than during his relatively short life (he died at 46 in 1937). More than 2,000 people from around the world came last summer to a four-day NecronomiCon (named after a fictional book Lovecraft created) with more than 100 programs; the next convention is already being planned for Aug. 17 to 20, 2017.

This summer will see the city host the first H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Providence Aug. 19 to 21 (the weekend of his birthday), showing short and feature-length films based on his life and work, along with walking tours and Lovecraft-inspired gaming.

Lovecraft’s higher visibility has come after a radical reassessment by literary critics. He has gone from an eccentric minor author of fantasy and horror tales for the pulp magazines of the 1920s to one of the seminal figures in the development of the horror and science fiction genres. He is credited as an influence on many writers, including Stephen King and Robert Bloch, best known as the writer of “Psycho.” As Lovecraft’s reputation has grown in recent years, so has the recognition that some of his writing was racist; as a result, the World Fantasy Awards last year stopped using his face as a model for their trophy.

In his lifetime, Lovecraft’s work gained little attention. He worked ceaselessly, spending his days and nights writing stories with layered and complicated prose, and he was paid a pittance to rewrite the fiction of others. On top of that, he spent many hours each day writing letters to fans and favorite correspondents. Estimates are that he wrote a staggering 80,000 letters in his lifetime.

When he wasn’t writing, Lovecraft was known for taking long walks. His fiction, full of high-styled descriptions based on many Providence places, shows that he must have been looking and thinking hard on those rambles.

“As a historian and preservationist, I love how he writes about Providence,” said Sarah Zurier of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission as she led a Lovecraft-like walking tour through many of his places. “That’s what he loved to do, go for long walks and show off Providence to his friends.”

It seems fitting to do as much as possible of a modern-day tour through Lovecraft’s historic and architecturally rich Providence on foot, a feat made easier because many of the essential sites are packed into a compact area.

A Lovecraftian journey has a brand-new starting place these days, the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences store that opened last summer in the Greek Revival Providence Arcade downtown. Niels-Viggo Hobbs and Carmen Marusich are the proprietors of a shop that is part bookstore (Lovecraft and beyond in horror and science fiction) and part tourist information bureau for Lovecraft pilgrims from around the world.

“Providence is a peculiar town,” said Mr. Hobbs, who is also director of NecronomiCon. “It is really embracing of weirdness.”

Downtown Providence is not too different now, building-wise, than in Lovecraft’s time. The iron, brick and granite City Hall is the same place where Lovecraft has the main character in his novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” do research.

The former Industrial Trust tower — often a character in Lovecraft stories and also called the “Superman Building” because the 26-story skyscraper closely resembles the Daily Planet building Superman leapt over in the television series — has been empty since 2013. Yet it remains a towering presence on the city’s skyline and each night on goes its large beacon, a recurring motif for Lovecraft, including, menacingly, in his “Haunter of the Dark” story.

One of the great changes in Providence, helping to fuel its renaissance in the last two decades, happened in the 1990s, when two rivers, the Moshassuck and the Woonasquatucket, were moved and a wide bridge covering a third, the Providence River, was removed, creating a wonderful walkway downtown. (This is the site of the spectacular WaterFire on the rivers many Saturday nights each summer.)

Near the river, Ms. Zurier led me to the Market House, the stately brick landmark built in 1773 and now a classroom building for the Rhode Island School of Design. Lovecraft wrote of the spot in a story: “He liked mostly to reach this point in the late afternoon, when the slanting sunlight touches the Market House and the ancient hill roofs and belfries with gold, and throws magic around the dreaming wharves where Providence Indiamen used to ride at anchor.” The shipping trade is gone, but the late-day natural light show continues, showing off many of Providence’s remarkable buildings.

A block up College Hill on majestic Benefit Street, we went to the Providence Athenaeum, an independent library whose origins date back to 1753. It was a place Lovecraft spent many hours, and where his great inspiration, Edgar Allan Poe, had sat before. The Athenaeum welcomes visitors and is home to a bronze bust of Lovecraft. As a child, he had also visited the nearby Rhode Island School of Design Museum, particularly enjoying ancient Greek and Roman artifacts that now share space with more contemporary works.

Farther up the hill took us into the picturesque environs of Brown University. Lovecraft dropped out of high school, yet Brown was a center of his universe as he walked among its buildings most of his life. His writing is infused with the results of his prodigious research in its libraries. Sometimes the school is mentioned by name in his work, though more often it is Miskatonic University, Lovecraft’s creation with Brown at its roots.

Nearby is Brown’s John Hay Library, the rare book repository whose archives include the largest collection of Lovecraft materials in the world, including original manuscripts, books, magazines, letters and items from his personal library. The library, a center of international research about Lovecraft, also mounts occasional exhibitions about him.

Lovecraft was generous in helping many young writers, as his letters show, and Robert Barlow started as a teenage fan and eventually became Lovecraft’s literary executor, donating Lovecraft’s materials to the John Hay. Lovecraft made several trips to visit Barlow in Florida by bus, debunking what for years was a common image of Lovecraft as a sickly person who rarely left home and confined most of his outside activity to nighttime. A broader picture, of a man full of curiosity who loved to travel, has emerged.

An exception to his joy of travel and other places was the two-year period he spent living in Brooklyn after he married Sonia Greene at St. Paul’s Chapel in Manhattan in 1924. He raged about New York and its crowds, and returned to Providence alone in 1926, never to live anywhere else again.

Providence has embraced him. Next to the John Hay library is a memorial plaque installed for the centennial of his birth in 1990. A sign at the next corner, the intersection of Prospect and Angell streets, declares it H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Square.

Nearby, at 65 Prospect Street, is Lovecraft’s last home (though the house was moved a few blocks from College Street, where Lovecraft lived in it). There he wrote “Haunter of the Dark,” the last of his stories. He lived on part of the upper floor of the handsome 1825 house.

“Providence was a place of outcasts and independent-minded people,” Ms. Zurier said as we approached Prospect Terrace Park on Congdon Street. Lovecraft was a regular visitor to the park, with its statue of Roger Williams, the nonconformist proponent of religious freedom who started what became Rhode Island. The magnificent view of the State House and downtown gave Lovecraft inspiration. “The vast marble dome of the State House stood out in massive silhouette,” Lovecraft wrote, “its crowning statue haloed fantastically by a break in one of the tinted stratus clouds that barred the flaming sky.”

Not far from the park is the house at 10 Barnes Street where Lovecraft was his most productive, from 1926 until 1933, writing his legendary story “The Call of Cthulhu”; “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” a novella; and more. The burst of energy seemed related to his return to Providence from New York.

Lovecraft had wide-ranging tastes and loved to say what he hated. The 1885 Fleur - de-Lys, seen as an early and important example of Arts and Crafts architecture in the United States, is back down the hill on Thomas Street. It was an example of something Lovecraft despised. But that didn’t keep him from using it in his fiction, Ms. Zurier pointed out, as it became the home of Henry Anthony Wilcox, a character in “The Call of Cthulhu.” He wrote, “Wilcox still lived alone in the Fleur-de-Lys Building … a hideous Victorian imitation of 17th-century Breton architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely colonial houses on the ancient hill, and under the very shadow of the finest Georgian steeple in America.”

That steeple across the street is of the First Baptist Church in America, built in 1775; Lovecraft liked it despite his lack of interest in religion and despite being kicked out of the Sunday school as a child. You wouldn’t know it for the brightness of the church now, but in Lovecraft’s day it was a gloomy place and was crumbling, which appealed to him. Lovecraft sneaked in once with friends, intending to play “Yes, We Have No Bananas” on the church’s organ, but the organ was locked.

Some Lovecraft sites are a little beyond an easy walk, so I rode with Mr. Hobbs of Lovecraft Arts & Sciences.

As a preteen, Lovecraft was smitten with astronomy. He got a telescope and made many visits to Brown University’s Ladd Observatory, built in 1891 and still open to the public. “It was a place where Lovecraft’s precocious nature was allowed to develop,” Mr. Hobbs said. “It’s also where he started to consider the cosmos.”

We visited a green, nondescript house at 598 Angell Street, where Lovecraft lived from 1904 to 1924 and wrote some of his early stories, working to develop his craft. He also lived there through the hospitalizations and death of both his parents.

While preservation has saved three of Lovecraft’s residences in Providence, the house where he was born, at 454 Angell Street, is no more. It was demolished in the early 1960s and replaced with an apartment building, though a stone marker of his birth has recently been installed at the site. “You can imagine how heartbroken Lovecraft would be,” Mr. Hobbs said. But he looked around and, seeing a coffee shop and a bookstore, smiled and said, “He would have liked those.”

Mr. Hobbs and I went into Swan Point Cemetery, the beautiful place where Lovecraft is buried along with many of Providence’s best-known citizens, including 23 state governors. Because he died nearly broke, he was buried in a family plot, unmarked for many years until admirers paid for a stone.

Lovecraft’s is one of the most visited graves in the cemetery and workers at the gate often meet foreign tourists who struggle with English except to say “Lovecraft.” Offerings frequently adorn his grave, and the day we visited, there were pennies (a visitor said it’s connected to Lovecraft dying penniless), a plant and notes, including one marked with a lipstick kiss. As Mr. Hobbs talked about the regular procession of visitors, a car drove up and two men, off-duty police detectives, got out for a look. One of them said he was a Lovecraft fan and had always been curious to see the grave.

Lovecraft, like his Providence, has that effect on people. This, after all, is the legacy of a man who wrote a line that became his epitaph: “I am Providence.”

Where to Stay

Providence has had a boom in accommodations, particularly downtown. For something different there, the Dean has staked its claim as state-of-the-art cool. Fun touches include a karaoke lounge (122 Fountain Street, 401-455-3326;thedeanhotel.com; weekday rates from $149).

A pleasant spot on College Hill, in a building that Lovecraft wrote about, is the Old Court Bed & Breakfast, with 10 eclectic rooms (144 Benefit Street, 401-751-2002;oldcourt.com; weekday rates from $155).

Where to Eat

Providence has become a great restaurant city, and one highlight for dinner is Local 121, in a beautifully restored space (121 Washington Street, 401-274-2121; local121.com ).

Another is New Rivers, a cozy, romantic spot that specializes in locally grown or made food (7 Steeple Street, 401-751-0350; newriversrestaurant.com).

For a simple breakfast or lunch, near Benefit Street and College Hill, Cafe Choklad has a comforting assortment of pastries, soups and sandwiches (2 Thomas Street, 401-383-4764).

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A Suitcase Full of Books

A Literary Travel Blog

DIY H. P. Lovecraft Tour in Providence, Rhode Island

October 17, 2021 by A Suitcase Full of Books 1 Comment

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, known as the “father of weird fiction” and the “greatest author of imaginative fiction since Poe ”, and most well known for his horror character Cthulhu, lived most of his life in Providence, Rhode Island. He often used recognizable features of Providence in his writings, so you can spend a day in Providence checking out the city that eeked into his stories and poems. Lovecraft’s writings were not well known or appreciated during his lifetime, and still today the city barely shows its appreciation for its most famous author. Perhaps because his writings are considered very racist and xenephobic today… However, whether you’re a Lovecraft fan or have never read any Lovecraft before, spend a day taking this DIY H. P. Lovecraft tour in Providence, RI. You’ll walk in the footsteps of this weird author and perhaps learn something new along the way!

The Lovecraft Arts and Sciences bookstore calls Providence the “birthplace of weird.” They may have to fight it out with Austin, TX whose motto is “keep Austin weird” , nonetheless, the bookstore should be your first stop.

Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Bookstore

Recognizing that Lovecraft’s sentimentalities towards those not of high class, white, European descent were less than desirable, there is still a space for his writings to be celebrated for the place they hold in literary history, and that space is the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Bookstore . This small shop, located inside The Arcade, sells more than just books by and about H. P. Lovecraft. The shelves contain novels full of the weird and unexplained “sciences”, horrors, and mystery. This includes, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, and subjects like mysticism and tarot.

The store also hosts “weird” literary and arts events and activities around Providence, including an annual convention, NecronomiCon .

Lovecraft Walking Tour

If you ask for a Lovecraft walking tour map at Lovecraft Arts and Sciences they may be able to produce a Lovecraft College Hill Walking Tour map, however, you can also order a Literary Providence tour map online ahead of your visit. ( Although the website says it can be found in several local bookstores, I found this to be untrue.)

Not having planned ahead, I acquired the Lovecraft College Hill Walking Tour map at the bookstore. The tour takes you from the bookstore to the residential streets around Brown University and identifies many buildings that either Lovecraft lived in or wrote about. A surprising number of the local residences make appearances either as themselves or as fictionalized versions of themselves in Lovecraft’s stories and poems. For example, Lovecraft’s final home in Providence appears as the home of a character in his short story The Haunter of the Dark . Another house, the Jenckes-Pratt House, appears as itself, described as a “little white farmhouse” in Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Interestingly, none of the former houses in which Lovecraft lived have become Lovecraft house museums, and beside that, his former residences have other historical names on them but no mention of him! For example, the Lovecraft’s final home  is noted by a plaque on the house to be the Samuel B. Mumford house.

There are only two plaques with Lovecraft’s name on them found throughout the tour, one on a memorial dedicated to H. P. Lovecraft, and the other denoting H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Square, which is just a 4 way street stop.

Whether you take the Lovecraft Walking Tour or the Literary Providence tour, you’ll find that Lovecraft wasn’t the only morbid writer to walk these streets. Edgar Allan Poe spent time in Providence as well, and you’ll pass locations Lovecraft would have loved because of his esteem for Poe. Lovecraft called Poe his “God of Fiction”. One such site is the Providence Athenaeum where Poe spent much of his time, until his fiance at the time broke his heart by ending their relationship there!

I’ve been told Providence is not safe to walk around at night, and that it recently surpassed NYC as the “murder capitol of the world’. But on a nice sunny day, such as I had while walking through the streets that Lovecraft crafted into his horror stories, the place seemed rather harmless. The most I thought I was at risk of was sunburn and/or heatstroke.

Lovecraft Grave Site

The last stop of the day, the grave of H. P. Lovecraft is a bit of a drive from College Hill. Lovecraft, his parents, and his mother’s family, the Phillips’, are buried in Swan Point Cemetery. Look for the grave with the pens and pencils left in front of it.

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Are you a Lovecraft fan? Have you been to Providence, R. I.? Are you a fan of “weird” arts and sciences?

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About A Suitcase Full of Books

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Annie Boochever says

October 17, 2021 at 12:29 pm

HI Sara, Thanks for the tour! Never heard of Lovecraft before. What an interesting character. Thanks for expanding my knowledge of strange authors…. All the best – Annie Boochever

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H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour of Providence

I have undertaken many self-guided Lovecraft-centric perambulations in Providence, and I recently expanded my dossier on the subject thanks to pointers received at the scholarly HPL conference held in the city in 2013. The notes that follow are the culmination of those researches and explorations.

If the avid Lovecraftian were to follow these addresses in succession as they appear below (presumably, with the aid of a smartphone's GPS), he shall find them laid out in a rationalized circumnavigatory trajectory, terminating roughly where it started. It's a multi-hour affair with a considerable amount of walking, so be prepared.

Providence Station

The present Amtrak station isn't the same physical building to which Lovecraft would have returned from his (rare) exploits abroad (and by that I of course mean exotic locales such as Vermont), but coming to Providence Station by train—in my case from Boston—still has a certain flavor of the Lovecraftian past about it.

Well—the train sped on, & I experienced silent convulsions of joy in returning step by step to a waking & tri-dimensional life. New Haven—New London—& then quaint Mystic, with its colonial hillside & landlocked cove. Then at last a still subtler magick fill’d the air—nobler roofs & steeples, with the train rushing airily above them on its lofty viaduct—Westerly—in His Majesty’s Province of RHODE-ISLAND & PROVIDENCE-PLANTATIONS! GOD SAVE THE KING!! Intoxication follow’d—Kingston—East Greenwich with its steep Georgian alleys climbing up from the railway—Apponaug & its ancient roofs—Auburn—just outside the city limits—I fumble with bags & wraps in a desperate effort to appear calm—THEN—a delirious marble dome outside the window—a hissing of air brakes—a slackening of speed—surges of ecstasy & dropping of clouds from my eyes & mind—HOME—UNION STATION—PROVIDENCE!!!! —HPL: Letter to Frank Belknap Long, 1 May 1926

Providence Biltmore

11 Dorrance St

NecronomiCon 2013 was largely held here, featuring talks by the most eminent living Lovecraft scholars (with only the conspicuous exception of HPL's greatest hagiographer, Michel Houellebecq).

At the high square where Broad, Weybosset, and Empire Streets join, he saw before and below him in the fire of sunset the pleasant, remembered houses and domes and steeples of the old town; and his head swam curiously as the vehicle rolled down the terminal behind the Biltmore, bringing into view the great dome and soft, roof-pierced greenery of the ancient hill across the river, and the tall colonial spire of the First Baptist Church limned pink in the magic evening light against the fresh springtime verdure of its precipitous background. Old Providence! It was this place and the mysterious forces of its long, continuous history which had brought him into being, and which had drawn him back toward marvels and secrets whose boundaries no prophet might fix. Here lay the arcana, wondrous or dreadful as the case might be, for which all his years of travel and application had been preparing him. A taxicab whirled him through Post Office Square with its glimpse of the river, the old Market House, and the head of the bay, and up the steep curved slope of Waterman Street to Prospect, where the vast gleaming dome and sunset-flushed Ionic columns of the Christian Science Church beckoned northward. Then eight squares past the fine old estates his childish eyes had known, and the quaint brick sidewalks so often trodden by his youthful feet. And at last the little white overtaken farmhouse on the right, on the left the classic Adam porch and stately bayed facade of the great brick house where he was born. It was twilight, and Charles Dexter Ward had come home. —HPL: "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

Providence Athenaeum

251 Benefit St.

This was a favorite reading spot of HPL and his greatest source of inspiration, Edgar Allen Poe.

...our old Athenaeum, where Poe spent many an hour, and wrote his name at the bottom of one of his unsigned poems in a magazine... —HPL: Letter to James F. Morton, 3 May 1923

Unlike at the (otherwise rather more impressive) Boston Athenæum , photography is permitted here, and anyone can roam the stacks freely. Only to withdraw books is a membership required.

List Art Center

64 College Street

HPL's final home, the Mumford House (now at 65 Prospect St), was located here. No doubt he would, rightly or wrongly, find the modernist List building that replaced it utterly abhorrent.

John Hay Library

20 Prospect Street

The largest collection of Lovecraft's manuscripts and papers is held here.

Lovecraft Memorial

On the grounds of the Hay Library

Van Wickle Gates

Across from the Hay Library

Lovecraft Birthplace

454 Angell Street

I have always had a deep & persistent notion that life doesn’t amount to very much, & that it would have been better if one had never been born. I have doubted whether anything in existence be worth the sacrifice of simple placidity & freedom from strong emotion, & have thus vegetated along very quietly, more of an epicurean in the strict historical sense than a hedonist of the Cyrenaic kind—which most moderns seem to be. And I still think my phlegmatic way & detached, cosmic attitude have gained me more than they have lost me. Doubtless my position is highly inartistic—but I don't let that worry me. I can summon up enough ghouls & lemures to amuse my idle hours—& it’s all the better if they don’t harrow me up as they used to do in my nervous nightmares—which were most marked when I was six years old. But I digress. —Selected Letters of H.P. Lovecraft , pp 242-243.

There is now a Starbucks across the street, an excellent spot to pause for mid-stroll refreshment and meditation on the foregoing facts.

Lovecraft House (Adolescence and Early Adulthood)

598 Angell Street

This was Lovecraft's home from late childhood until his departure for New York in 1924.

In a 1920 letter he revisits his childhood at length. The little railway set whose cars were made of packing-cases, the coach house where he had set up his puppet theater. And later, the garden he had designed, laying out each of its paths. It was irrigated by a system of canals that were his own handiwork, its ledges enclosed a small lawn at the center of which stood a sundial. It was, he said, "the paradise of my adolescent years." Then comes this passage that concludes the letter: " 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

30 Orchard Avenue

St Martin's Episcopal Church

50 Orchard Ave

Ladd Observatory

210 Doyle Street

Perhaps no single location is more significant to the development of cosmicism .

The late Prof. Upton of Brown, a friend of the family, gave me the freedom of the college obseratory, (Ladd Observatory) & I came & went there at will on my bicycle. Ladd Observatory tops a considerable eminence about a mile from the house. I used to walk up Doyle Avenue with my wheel, but when returning would have a glorious coast down it. —HPL Letter to Reinhardt Kleiner (16 November 1916)

Beginning at the age of 13 and through his teenage years, Lovecraft self-published his own astronomical journal, which featured a hand-penned illustration of Ladd Observatory on its cover.

10 Barnes St.

"The Call of Cthulhu" and most of the other Great Texts (to use Houellebecq's term) would have been written during HPL's tenure here (1926-1933).

Prospect Terrace

48 Congdon St

This used to be a favorite contemplative and reading spot of HPL. I enjoy imagining him sitting on these benches, overlooking the city, dreaming up "horrors unnameable and unaccountable that leer down from the external universes."

The nurse used to stop and sit on the benches of Prospect Terrace to chat with policemen; and one of the child’s first memories was of the great westward sea of hazy roofs and domes and steeples and far hills which he saw one winter afternoon from that great railed embankment, all violet and mystic against a fevered, apocalyptic sunset of reds and golds and purples and curious greens. —HPL, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

The Mumford House

65 Prospect Street

This the physical where Lovecraft lived during his illness and death. The house has been moved from its location at that time (on College Street around the back of the Hay Library).

…the upper floor of a venerable dwelling in a grassy court off College Street - on the crest of the great eastward hill near the Brown University campus and behind the marble John Hay Library. —HPL, "The Haunter in the Dark"

H.P. Lovecraft Square

Corner of Angell and Prospect Streets

Colonial Apartments

175 Benefit Street

Now a RISD dormitory, HPL sneered at this building during its construction in 1929: "a wretched ultra-modern apartment-house with all urban sophistications"( Selected Letters, Vol 2 , pba355).

Lovecraft Funeral Location

187 Benefit Street

Formerly the Horace B Knowles Funeral Home, now a dormitory.

Providence Art Club

11 Thomas Street

Even the Providence Art Club, anxious to preserve its conservatism, had found [the sensitive artist Henry Wilcox] quite hopeless. —HPL, "The Call of Cthulhu"

An exhibition of Lovecraftian art was held here during NecronomiCon 2013.

Fleur de Lys Studio

7 Thomas Street

Used as the home of Wilcox in "The Call," it bears many bas-reliefs similar to those associated to Wilcox in the text.

First Baptist Church in America

75 North Main Street

The first objective of our trip was that supreme landmark of Providence, the First Baptist Church, finish’d in 1775. This is my maternal ancestral church, but I had not been in the main auditorium since 1895, or in the building at all since 1907, when I gave an illustrated astronomical lecture in the vestry to the Boy’s Club. We found this fane as pleasing within as without, the panelling and the carving above the doors being especially notable as specimens of Georgian workmanship. We ascended to the organ loft, and I endeavour’d to play  Yes, We Have no Bananas , but was balk’d by lack of power, since the machine is not a self-starter.  —HPL, Letter to Samuel Loveman, 5 January 1924

Eminent Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi also gave the NecronomiCon keynote from the pulpit here in 2013.

St John's Church (and churchyard)

271 North Main Street

Poe knew of this place, & is said to have wandered among its whispering willows during his visits here 90 years ago. Last August I shewed this place to two guests, & we all sat down on an altar-tomb & wrote rhymed acrostics on the name of Edgar Allan Poe… —HPL, Letter to Frank Utpatel, 15 February 1937

Lovecraft Grave Site

Swan Point Cemetery, 585 Blackstone Boulevard (best reached by bicycle or car)

Reports are that it isn't permissible to take photographs or grave rubbings here and that groundskeepers will sometimes intervene to prevent such undertakings.

General notes

Providence seems only just recently, at last, to have embraced its Lovecraftian heritage. Bookshops can be found selling volumes of Lovecraft scholarship and criticism. A square has been named after HPL. RISD and the city teamed up to put on a Lovecraft-inspired Waterfire.

No one would have been more shocked by this, but ultimately I'm not sure that Lovecraft himself would have cared all that much. He knew that a glimmer of human posterity, especially of the literary and fashionable kind, was meaningless when viewed against the vast indifference of the cosmos—and that nothing, certainly not the approbation of one's fellow man, can validate or emancipate a human life.

So go to Providence and walk in HPL's footsteps, or don't. In the end, it really doesn't matter. The best consolation we can hope for in life is some small measure of commiseration and camaraderie with our fellow primates struggling with the same human predicament, and at least in this respect Lovecraft offers us more than most—a friend in cosmic horror, a buddy in existential despair, a fellow-traveler on the via dolorosa that we preternaturally sensitive and afflicted walk. You'll find such companionship in his stories, in his letters certainly, and if you look for it, perhaps also to some lesser degree on the path I have laid down above.

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H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour returns to Providence

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For the past 13 years, Providence native and cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft has been the subject of a popular annual walking tour and film series conducted by the RI Historical Society presented as part of the Flickers’ Vortex Sci-Fi, Fantasy Horror Film Festival (Vortex). This year’s hybrid Festival runs October 17-25, 2020. 

With the popularity of HBO’s “Lovecraft Country,” the seasonal return of the H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour could not be timelier. The life and work of Providence’s best-known fantasy and horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, will provide the backdrop for the tour, which will be led by the Rhode Island Historical Society. Lovecraft’s “Providence stories” (written between 1924 and 1935) are the inspiration behind the walk. Lovecraft wrote eloquently, and in great detail, about such landmarks as Prospect Terrace, the First Baptist Church, and Benefit Street houses.  Participants will see the site of his former home, as well as locales mentioned in  The Case of Charles Dexter Ward ,  The Haunter of the Dark, The Shunned House,  and  The Call of Cthulhu . 

The Tour will take place over four afternoons this year, on Saturday, October 17th, Sunday, October 18th, Saturday, October 24th, and Sunday, October 25 th . All tours will begin at Noon and follow Rhode Island Department of Health and CDC guidelines. Attendees are expected to maintain social distancing from their guide during the tour, as well as wear masks while on the street and in public. Following the tour, which lasts for approximately 90 minutes, participants will be treated to a virtual ticket to see premiere films inspired by Lovecraft. 

Tickets for the walking tour are $22 per person, can be purchased in advance online at http://www.film-festival.org/HPLovecraft.php, and includes a virtual ticket to the film screenings. “This walking tour is a wonderful opportunity for fans of H.P. Lovecraft to connect with the man behind the writer, and for others to discover his genius,” said Shawn Drywa, Vortex Program Director. 

“Lovecraft’s horror writing continues to resonate with audiences from across the globe and provide inspiration for some of the most chilling and terrifying stories in the sci-fi, fantasy and horror genres,” commented Shawn Quirk, RIIFF Program Director. “His work has become the corner stone in weird fiction and has influenced countless writers and artists in today’s popular culture.  His frightfully uncanny literature set right here in Providence serves as our essential historical link between Edgar Allen Poe and Steven King.” 

This year’s Festival is sponsored in part by the Rhode Island Film & Television Office.

Tickets and more info here .

I Am Providence: HP Lovecraft Walking Tour

H.P. Lovecraft: "I Am Providence" Walking Tour

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H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour: Popular Annual Tour will explore Lovecraft’s favorite Providence haunts

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 9:07 AM

Providence native and cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft will be the subject of the popular annual walking tour and film series during the annual FLICKERS: RI International Horror Film Festival (RIIHFF), October 27 - 30, 2011. The life and work of Providence's best-known fantasy and horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, will provide the backdrop for the tour, which will be lead by the Rhode Island Historical Society. Lovecraft's "Providence stories" (written between 1924 and 1935) are the inspiration behind the walk. Lovecraft wrote eloquently, and in great detail, about such landmarks as Prospect Terrace, the First Baptist Church, and Benefit Street houses. Participants will see the site of his former home, as well as locales mentioned in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Haunter of the Dark, The Shunned House, and The Call of Cthulhu. The tour begins promptly at 12:00 noon, Sunday, October 30th and lasts for 90 minutes. Immediately following at 2:30 p.m., participants will be treated to premiere films inspired by Lovecraft: "THE CURSE OF YIG," directed by Paul von Stoetzel and "THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS," directed by Sean Branney. The screenings will take place at the Providence Public Library Theatre, 150 Empire Street, Providence. "Lovecraft's horror writing still resonates with audiences today and continues to provide inspiration for some of the most chilling and terrifying stories in the genre," commented J. Scott Oberacker, Programming Director at Flickers: Rhode Island International Film Festival. "This walking tour is a wonderful opportunity for his fans to connect with the man behind the writer, and for others to discover his genius." The H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour costs $18 per person, and includes a ticket to the final screenings of the Horror Festival. The Walking Tour can be purchased in advance by calling the RIIFF offices at 401.861.4445 or ordered directly online at http://www.film-festival.org/HPLovecraft11.php

EVENT DETAILS: • H.P. LOVECRAFT WALKING TOUR, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30TH p.m. The life and work of Providence's best-known fantasy and horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, provide the backdrop for this walking tour. The tour lasts 90 minutes. The tour departs from the John Brown House at 52 Power Street, Providence at 12 noon. Cost: Tickets are $18 per person, include a ticket to the Horror Festival and can be purchased online. The Walking Tour can be purchased in advance by calling the RIIFF offices at 401.861.4445 or ordered directly online at http://www.film-festival.org/HPLovecraft11.php

83 Park Street, Suite 1, Providence, RI 02903 United States • 401.861.4445 (f) 401.490.6735 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: http://www.RIFilmFest.org

ABOUT FLICKERS: RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: The FLICKERS: Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) has secured its place in the global community as the portal for the best in international independent cinema, earning the respect of domestic and foreign filmmakers, filmgoers and trend-watchers. This confluence of art and commerce brought together world-class celebrities, award-winning filmmakers, new talent and audience members in record numbers last year. Ranked as one of the top-12 festivals in the United States, RIIFF is one of 65 festivals worldwide that is a qualifying festival for the Academy Awards through its partnership with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. For more information on the festival, please visit www.RIFilmFest.org. For more information about the FLICKERS: Rhode Island International Film Festival, running Aug. 7-12, 2012 at The Vets (formerly Veterans Memorial Auditorium), please visit our website at www.RIFilmFest.org or call us at 401.861.4445.

April 24, 2024

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HP Lovecraft Walking Tour returns in October

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Providence native and cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft will be the subject of the popular annual walking tour and film series during the annual Flickers’ Vortex Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror Film Festival (Vortex).

The festival runs Oct. 16-24. Due to popular demand, the Lovecraft Tour returns for four very special days – Saturday, Oct. 16, Sunday, Oct. 17, Saturday, Oct. 23, and Sunday, Oct. 24. All tours will begin at noon.

The life and work of Providence’s best-known fantasy and horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, will provide the backdrop for the tour, which will be led by the Rhode Island Historical Society. Lovecraft’s “Providence stories” (written between 1924 and 1935) are the inspiration behind the walk. Lovecraft wrote eloquently, and in great detail, about such landmarks as Prospect Terrace, the First Baptist Church, and Benefit Street houses. Participants will see the site of his former home, as well as locales mentioned in “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” “The Haunter of the Dark,” “The Shunned House,” and “The Call of Cthulhu.”

Following the tour, which lasts for approximately 90 minutes, participants will be treated to an online ticket to see virtual premiere films inspired by Lovecraft.

“Lovecraft’s horror writing continues to resonate with audiences today and provides inspiration for some of the most chilling and terrifying stories in the genre,” commented Shawn Drywa, the Vortex director. “His work has become part of our popular culture and a major source of academic study.”

Tickets for the walking tour and screening are $22 per person and can be purchased online at film-festival.org/HPLovecraft.php. The cost includes a ticket to the film screenings.

Tickets for the Walking Tour can also be purchased in advance by calling the RIIFF offices at 861-4445.

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H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour & Film Screening

The life and work of Providence's best-known fantasy and horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, provide the backdrop for this walking tour.

The acknowledged genius of occult and horror fiction, Lovecraft's "Providence stories" (written between 1924 and 1935) provide the basis for this walk. Lovecraft wrote eloquently, and in great detail, about such landmarks as Prospect Terrace, the First Baptist Church, and Benefit Street houses.

See the site of his former home, as well as the sights mentioned in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Haunter of the Dark, The Shunned House, and The Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft's own words offer a most amazing literary, historical, and architectural walking tour.

The tour lasts 90 minutes. The post-tour screening will run approx. 90 min.

Cost: Tickets are $22 per person, and includes a ticket to the  Vortex Horror Festival

Tour: Noon - 1:30pm; Film 2:00- 3:00pm

The tour departs from the John Brown House at 52 Power Street, Providence.

Event Times

There are no upcoming dates scheduled for this event.

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The Rhode Island Historical Society

H. P. Lovecraft Walking Tour & Film Screening

Where: The John Brown House Museum

The life and work of Providence’s best-known fantasy and horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, provide the backdrop for this walking tour. Acknowledged genius of occult and horror fiction, Lovecraft’s “Providence stories” (written between 1924 and 1935) provide the basis for this walk. Lovecraft wrote eloquently, and in great detail, about such landmarks as Prospect Terrace, the First Baptist Church, and Benefit Street houses. See the site of his former home, as well as the sights mentioned in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Haunter of the Dark, The Shunned House, and The Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft’s own words offer a most amazing literary, historical, and architectural walking tour.

The tour lasts 90 minutes.

Cost: Tickets are $22 per person,  and includes a ticket to a special curated virtual screening of films inspired by Lovecraft. Tickets must be purchased in advance through the Vortex Film Festival (see link below).

Guests are encouraged to book tickets with those whom they have been in close contact during COVID-19 isolation (including immediate housemates and adjacent friends and families). Tours will be treated as primarily private bookings with a maximum of 10 attendees total, to adhere to state stipulations. Attendees are expected to maintain social distancing from their guide while on tour, as well as wear masks while on the street and in public.

Film Screenings:   Participants will receive a special password to special film screenings that have been inspired by Lovecraft’s writings.

**What to Bring** 

• Wear an appropriate face mask that covers both your nose and mouth.

• Dress according to the weather and wearing comfortable shoes as you will be outside for the entire tour, which lasts approximately 90 minutes.

• Bring a beverage with you in case you need to step aside to take a sip.

**Check in information**

• Due to COVID-19, guests will be asked to attest to their health before the tour begins. To preview the questions that you will be asked, visit  https://bit.ly/3iGJouz .

**What to Expect**

• Attendees are expected to maintain social distancing from their guide while on tour, as well as wear masks while on the street and in public.

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Boris Pasternak's museum house

Pasternak’s “important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition" was honored with a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. For many readers outside Russia, Pasternak is known mainly as the author of the touching historical novel Doctor Zhivago written in 1957. The novel as a whole communicates the haphazard, uncertain and chaotic quality of life caused by the Russian Revolution and the heroic case of quiet humanism demonstrated by a single person.

Pasternak’s translations of Georgian poets favored by Joseph Stalin probably saved his life during the purges of the 1930’s. However, the individualistic Pasternak was not suited to the Soviet artistic climate when art was required to have a clear socialism-inspired agenda and so Russian publishers were unwilling to print Pasternak’s novel. In fact, Doctor Zhivago first appeared in Italy in 1957.

Pasternak won his Nobel Prize the following year. Despite Pasternak politely declining his Nobel Prize quoting: “because of the significance given to this award in the society to which I belong”, the award nevertheless spread his fame well beyond Russia. He ended his life in virtual exile in an artist's community in Peredelkino village. His last poems are devoted to love, to freedom and to reconciliation with God.

Pasternak was rehabilitated posthumously in 1987. In 1988, after being banned for three decades, "Doctor Zhivago" was published in the USSR. In 1989 Pasternak's son accepted his father's Nobel medal in Stockholm.

Pastenak loved his house in Peredelkino, the house and surrounding nature featuring in his poetry. The poet considered the cycle of poems "Peredelkino", which he completed in the spring of 1941, to be his best work. The poet spent the first difficult months of the war in Peredelkino; he completed the novel "Doctor Zhivago" here, wrote the Lara poems and translated Shakespeare and Goethe. It was in this house that he learned he was to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on October 23rd 1958. He died here on May 30 1960.

The house in Peredelkino only acquired the status of a museum in 1990, thirty years after the poet's death and a century after his birth. The museum has fully preserved the environment and atmosphere of the house where Boris Pasternak lived and worked. The director of the museum is Elena Pasternak, grandaughter of Boris Pasternak.

Pasternak’s grave can be found in Peredelkino cemetery which is situated 20 minutes walk from the poet’s house.

Tour duration: 6-7 hours

Tour cost: English -  150 USD, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese - 180 USD

Additional expenses: car - 150 USD, or train - 10 USD

Send us a request!

Scriabin Association

Founded to celebrate scriabin, scriabinism and scriabinists….

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Scriabin: A short biography by Simon Nicholls

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Scriabin was born on Christmas Day (Old Style) 1871 [1] in Moscow into a family in which the males were predominantly military men. His mother, Lyubov’ Scriabina , née Shchetinina, however, was a gifted and successful pianist who played concerts including her own compositions. Ten days after the birth she was diagnosed as having a lung infection and was sent to Italy, where she died of tuberculosis in the following year. Scriabin’s father, who had been studying law, resumed his studies, which he had broken off to get married. After graduating and studying foreign languages he joined the diplomatic service; eventually this took him to Turkey.

The child was looked after by his grandmother Elizaveta and his aunt Lyubov’ . At the age of three he was already able to pick out melodies at the piano with one finger. It was about this time that Lyubov’ asked to be allowed to renounce her own prospect of a family life and to devote herself to the care of the child, ‘ Shurin’ka ’ as he was known. By 1877 Shurin’ka was playing by ear with both hands. In 1879 he was given a toy theatre, for which he composed tragic plays and made scenery. In the same year, Anton Rubinstein , who had known Shurin’ka’s mother and admired her playing, heard the boy play. His advice was not to bother the child with demands but to let him go at his own pace, to compose and play when he wished.

In 1882 Shurin’ka joined the cadet corps, having been prepared for the entrance exams by his aunt. He was excused arms-bearing exercises but was good at gymnastics, and popular because of his musical abilities. It was in the corps that he first played to an audience, a Mendelssohn Venetian Gondola Song and a Bach gavotte, again by ear. The following year he started formal piano lessons with Georgii Konyus, who noted the child’s weak tone-production. In this year, however, Shurin’ka composed a skilful Canon in D minor  dedicated to Konyus.

In 1883 Shurin’ka also suffered from measles (or German measles) complicated by dropsy. A common description of him for most of his life was ‘pale, fragile’…  –  he was short and slight in physique.

In 1885 Scriabin, whom we will now refer to by his surname, started piano lessons with Nikolai Zverev , whose reputation as a teacher was built on preparing students for the Conservatoire. Among the students in Zverev’s class was Rachmaninov. Zverev’s students often lived in, but Scriabin was a ‘day boy’. At the same time Scriabin started lessons in theory and harmony with Sergei Taneev, who noted his extraordinary aural abilities. Composition was now a constant activity for Scriabin.

Scriabin commenced study at Moscow conservatoire in 1888, studying piano with Vassily Safonov and, later, composition with Anton Arensky . Attendance at the cadet corps continued until 1889. In 1891 A. N. met and fell in love with Natalya Sekerina , to whom he wrote numerous letters from then until 1895, when she turned down his proposal of marriage. By her own account, this was despite their mutual love and because of feelings of inadequacy. Parental disapproval probably also played a major part.

1891 was also the year in which Scriabin developed a repetitive strain injury in his right arm or hand (probably both) from over-practice in the vacation, striving to emulate his brilliant classmate Joseph Lhévinne . He may well have been predisposed to this injury by an earlier accident at the age of fourteen, when he was driven into by a horse-drawn vehicle while crossing the road and fractured his right collar-bone. The injury developed again in 1893. It was also in 1891 that relations between Scriabin and Arensky broke down and that Scriabin ceased to attend composition classes. This led to Scriabin’s graduating from the Conservatoire in 1892 with what was known as the small gold medal, the great gold medal being awarded for successful study in both piano and composition. In that year, however, the first of Scriabin’s compositions to be published (without payment to the composer) appeared in the imprint of Jurgenson publishing house, and in the summer Scriabin travelled to St. Petersburg, Vyborg and Finland.

The following year, under doctors’ instructions, Scriabin spent some time in Samara, taking a cure involving the drinking of kumis, a fermented mares’ milk which was highly regarded at the time for medicinal properties, and later in Gurzuf in the Crimea. The famous Prelude and Nocturne for left hand op. 9 were composed at about this time.

1894 saw Scriabin’s debut as composer-pianist in a concert in St Petersburg attended by Mitrofan Belyayev (Belaieff is the French transliteration and the name of the publishing house, which will be given below in quotes), who became Scriabin’s publisher, mentor and patron. The first Sonata op. 6 and the twelve Etudes op. 8 were published in 1895, a year when Scriabin took a long tour in Germany, Switzerland and Italy; impressions gained on this trip went into a number of the Twenty-four Preludes op. 11. In the autumn Scriabin became acquainted with Prince Sergei Trubetskoy, who became an influence in the development of the composer’s  philosophical outlook.

Scriabin’s first concerts abroad took place in 1896: Paris, Brussels, Berlin, the Hague, Amsterdam and Cologne. In August of the following year he married the fine pianist Vera Isakovich . The Piano Concerto op. 20 received its premiere a month later, with Scriabin playing the solo part and Safonov conducting. In the following year the Twenty-four Preludes were published.

The Scriabins travelled to Paris and gave a joint concert of Aleksandr Nikolaevich’s works in the Salle Erard on Jan 19 th 1898. Their first child, Rimma, was born two months after their return from Paris, in July.

In this year the Second and Third Piano Sonatas, opp. 19 and 23, and Scriabin’s short symphonic poem, Mechty (Daydreams) op. 24 were published by ‘Belaieff’, and Rimsky-Korsakov conducted the first performance of Mechty. Scriabin took up an appointment teaching in Moscow Conservatoire, which continued until the end of 1902. His interest in philosophy began to grow at this period.

In 1900 the Scriabins’ second daughter, Elena, was born. A tour to Berlin and Paris was undertaken, and the first performance of the First Symphony op. 26 took place under Anatoly Lyadov in St. Petersburg, the choral finale being omitted. Scriabin became involved in the circle of philosophers in Moscow. An important page of notes, recounting an inner victory over despair, renouncing religious faith and affirming self-reliance, dates from about this time.

1901 saw the Moscow premiere of the First Symphony and, in November, the completion of the Second Symphony op. 29. Work also commenced on the Fourth Sonata op. 30. The Scriabins’ second daughter, Maria, was born; their son Lev followed in 1902. In January of the same year Scriabin read the libretto of a projected opera to Emilii Rozenov, and in November he made the acquaintance of Tatyana Schloezer .

The summer of 1903 was spent in the country, at Obolenskoe, where Scriabin, who owed Belaiev money, worked at piano pieces  (opp. 31–42), finished the Fourth Sonata op. 30 and started work on the Third Symphony, ‘Divine Poem’ , op. 43. Belaiev died that December.

In February 1904 Scriabin moved to Switzerland; the family joined him in Geneva in March. They moved to Vésenaz in late February or early March and Tatyana Schloezer moved to Belle-Rive, nearby, shortly afterwards. Much of the year was taken up with the orchestration of the Third Symphony , sent to the publishers in November, and with the composition of the piano pieces opp. 44-47.

In September the Second International Philosophical Congress took place in Geneva. From Scriabin’s notes in the detailed report of the conference, a large volume which shows the dominance of idealist thought at that period, we know that Scriabin took a close interest in it, and his name appears in the list of subscribers. There is no conclusive proof that he attended this conference, but it is very likely that he did. In the summer a notebook was filled by Scriabin with pencilled philosophical speculations on the nature of consciousness, and with an early prose draft of the verse for the Poem of Ecstasy. In November Scriabin travelled to Paris in order to arrange a performance of the Symphony no. 3 . Tatyana Schloezer joined him there in November. Scriabin and Vera Ivanovna agreed to separate in December, but there was never a divorce.

A second philosophical notebook, the first part of which is written in an ecstatic style sometimes suggestive of Nietzsche, but also showing the influence of the Russian poet Bal’mont , was written in 1904-5.

In 1905 the Third Symphony received its first performance, in Paris, and two letters from Scriabin to Tatyana Schloezer written on  April  22 and 25 (Old Style) recount the composer’s awakening interest in the Theosophical system of H. P. Blavatsky . Scriabin commenced work on the composition of the Poem of Ecstasy op. 54 in this year. Scriabin and Schloezer moved to Bogliasco, Italy, some time before  June 4 (Old Style), and their daughter Ariadna was born there. Scriabin’s daughter with Vera Ivanovna, Rimma, died in July. At the end of the year Scriabin and the board of the ‘Belaieff’ publishing house had a disagreement: the board wished to reduce Scriabin’s fees, and the annual prizes and awards previously given by Belyayev himself were discontinued. In 1906, however, the ‘Belaieff’ board awarded Scriabin the Glinka prize for his Third Symphony.

In this year (1906) Scriabin printed privately the final version of the verses for the Poem of Ecstasy. The four piano pieces of op. 51 were composed.

There is a further extensive notebook containing attempts to formulate theories of consciousness and its relation to physical phenomena, together with a rough version of the verses for the Poem of Ecstasy , nearly complete, dating from 1905-1906.

Scriabin and Tatyana Schloezer travelled to Brussels in 1906. Scriabin commenced an American tour in December; in March 1907 it was prematurely brought to an end because of scandal involving Scriabin’s non-marital relationship with Tatyana Schloezer, who had joined him in the States.

In the aftermath of this disaster Scriabin and Schloezer travelled to Paris. At a meeting with the board of the ‘Belaieff’ publishing house it was agreed that ‘Belaieff’ should publish the Poem of Ecstasy, but Scriabin did not this year receive the prize for it that he had come to expect. Scriabin tried self-publishing; the three piano pieces of op. 52 were privately printed in Leipzig at his expense. Scriabin and Schloezer travelled to Beatenberg, Switzerland, where work continued on the Poem of Ecstasy, which was finished in November in Lausanne, to where they had moved in September. A few days after the completion of the Poem , the Piano sonata no. 5   op. 53 was begun, and finished in seven days (November 25 – December 1, Old Style).

Scriabin’s first piano roll recordings, for the firm of Hupfeld, were made in January 1908. In February a son was born, Yulian. At the beginning of June the conductor and virtuoso bass-player Sergei (Serge) Kussevitsky (Koussevitzky) visited Lausanne with his wealthy wife, offering Scriabin concerts in Moscow and St Petersburg. Kussevitsky’s ‘Russian Music Publishing company’ took over the publishing of the Three pieces op. 52, the Fifth Sonata op. 53 and opp. 58-64. In November the Sonata no.5 and the Poem of Ecstasy received their first performances, the sonata played by Mark Meichik in Moscow, the orchestral work by the Russian Symphony Orchestra Society of New York conducted by Modest Altschuler. The Glinka Prize for 1908 was awarded to the Poem of Ecstasy.

1909 saw the return of Scriabin and Schloezer to Moscow. Concerts of Scriabin’s compositions took place in St Petersburg ( Poem of Ecstasy , and later a recital by Scriabin), and Moscow (Scriabin played the Waltz op. 38, pieces from opp. 52 and 57, two preludes and the Fifth Sonata in January, and in a February concert in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatoire he repeated the Sonata in a ‘Scriabin evening’ which also included performances of the Divine Poem and the Poem of Ecstasy conducted by Emil Cooper.) A short piece of great significance for Scriabin’s musical language, the Feuillet d’album op.58, was composed in this year, and work was started on Prometheus.  Scriabin met Vyacheslav Ivanov , the philosopher and poet, at an evening arranged for the composer by the magazine Apollon. This friendship was to have a significant influence on Scriabin’s aesthetic and outlook.

On a personal level this was a time of difficulties with old friends who were not able to accept Scriabin’s ménage with Tatyana Schloezer, and Scriabin, Schloezer and their children moved to Brussels in March, staying until January 1910, when they returned finally to Moscow. Here, according to a letter from Tatyana Schloezer to the pianist Mariya Nemenova-Lunts, Scriabin composed “a great deal, again new, again infinitely beautiful! He is feeling elation and a flood of creative energy…” This must refer to work on Prometheus. In Brussels Scriabin met a number of Theosophists, among them being Jean Delville, who designed the symbolic cover for the score of Prometheus.

A tragic note was sounded by the death of Scriabin’s son with Vera Ivanovna, Lev, in 1910. In the same year Scriabin recorded a few pieces on piano rolls for the firm of Welte.

Life continued with the birth of another daughter, Marina, in 1911, with successful concert performances, including the première of Prometheus in St Petersburg, conducted by Kussevitsky, in March 1911 and intensive compositional work: the Piano sonatas nos. 6 and 7 opp. 62 and 64 were composed in 1911-12; the Sonatas no. 8 op. 66, no.9 op. 68 and no. 10 op. 70 were finished by June 7 1913 (Old Style), the Eighth being the last to be composed. After a dispute with Kussevitzky, Scriabin reverted to his first publisher Jurgenson, and the Three Etudes op. 65 and all subsequent works were published by that firm.

Scriabin was obliged to give concert tours in provincial towns and cities to support his family. It was perhaps in these years that Scriabin really established his reputation as a unique interpreter of his own music, though controversy continued over the characteristic qualities of his playing.

At this time Scriabin was increasingly concerned with being able to turn to his long-cherished project, the Mystery , whose origins can be seen in the choral finale to the Symphony no. 1 and in the unfinished opera project, and which ‘became more minutely crystallized’, Alfred Swan states, in the time spent in Brussels. It had now assumed such gigantic proportions that Scriabin had recourse to a projected work for voices and orchestra which he named Preliminary Action . The music of some of the 5 Preludes op. 74 and of the Flammes sombres in op. 73 (both composed in 1914) relates to the sketches which remain of this work, which Scriabin had in his head, stating that he only needed to write it down – he played long stretches of it to friends at that time. The libretto was written in Summer 1914, after Scriabin’s highly successful visit to London, during which he performed his Piano concerto and Prometheus in the Queen’s Hall with Henry Wood and gave two recitals in the Wigmore Hall (then the Bechstein Hall). But it was during that visit that an infected boil on Scriabin’s upper lip gave him great pain. The infection returned in April 1915 after Scriabin had given concerts in Moscow, Petrograd (the new non-Germanic name for St Petersburg), Kharkov, Kiev and what turned out to be the final concert, again in Petrograd.  In the course of an agonising few days, and despite desperate attempts at treatment, septicaemia set in; Scriabin died in great agony and delirium.

The funeral was such a huge affair that tickets had to be issued. There are two postludes to this tale, one tragic, the other heartwarming. In 1919, while Tatyana Schloezer was staying with her children in Kiev, her son Yulian Scriabin , who showed extraordinary talent and musical ability, accidentally drowned. Tatyana, it may be said, never fully recovered from this second blow. But the heartwarming episode had happened earlier. Scriabin died without being able to leave his family enough money to pay for the funeral or to live on; and the lease on the flat in Bolshoi Nikolopeskovskii pereulok (now the Scriabin Museum in Moscow) ran out on the same day that he died. Many efforts were made to raise money for the widow and her family. Sergei Rachmaninov , who had long considered Scriabin to have gone off on a ‘wrong path’ compositionally, went on a concert tour playing only works of Scriabin – all profits to go to the Scriabin family. Humanity and altruism took precedence over aesthetic differences between two great artists.

Note: In compiling these notes I have made use principally of the chronology in Skryabin by Sergei Fedyakin (Moscow 2004). But I have also made reference to the following:

Myzykalnyi Sovremennik (Musical Contemporary) 4-5, Dec. 1915-Jan. 1916. Handbook to the Piano Works of A. Scriabin , M. Montagu-Nathan, London and Brighton, 1916. Scriabin , Alfred J. Swan, London 1923. A. N. Skryabin. Sbornik k 25-letiyu so dnya smerti (Anthology for the 25th anniversary of his death) Moscow/Leningrad, 1940. Letopis’ zhizni i tvorchestva A. N. Skryabina (Chronicle of the life and work of Skryabin), M. P. Pryashnikova and O. M. Tompakova, Moscow, 1983. A. N. Skryabin , Valentina Rubtsova, Moscow 1989.

[1] Until January 1st 1918 Russia followed the Julian calendar (“Old Style”). At the period under discussion, this varied from the Gregorian calendar used in the West (“New Style”)  by twelve  days up to Feb 16 1900 Old Style and thirteen days thereafter.

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