I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft

by S.T. Joshi

I last Wednesday [January 14] compleated the following work, design’d solely for my own perusal and for the crystallisation of my recollections, in 136 pages of this crabbed cacography . . .”[124] The work in question was: A DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN OF QUEBECK, IN New-France, Lately added to His Britannick Majesty’s Dominions. It was the longest single work he would ever write. After a very comprehensive history of the region, there is a study of Quebec architecture (with appropriate drawings of distinctive features of roofs, windows, and the like), a detailed hand-drawn map of the principal sites, and a detailed walking tour of both the town itself and “suburban pilgrimages.” That Lovecraft could have absorbed enough of the town in three days to have written even the travelogue portion (the historical section was clearly learned later through much reading) is a sufficient indication of what those three crowded days must have been like. The Quebec travelogue also lay in manuscript until long after Lovecraft’s death. In spite of Lovecraft’s comment to Morton, it is pretty clear that no one other than its author ever saw it during his lifetime, and it was published only in 1976.