In 1925 Lovecraft’s aunt Lillian gave him some idea of what he did as a new-born infant, and he responded to her remarks: “So I threw my arms about, eh, as if excited at the prospect of entering a new world? How naive! I might have known it would only be a bore. Perhaps, though, I was merely dreaming of a weird tale—in which case the enthusiasm was more pardonable.”[9] Neither Lovecraft’s cynicism nor his interest in weird fiction developed quite this early, but both, as we shall see, were of early growth and long standing.
