A landscape of inspiration and dread

By Timothy Page

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937), the Providence-born master of cosmic horror, is renowned for his tales of ancient entities and incomprehensible universes that challenge human sanity. While his fiction often draws from New England’s shadowy history and folklore, his brief visits to Vermont in 1927 and 1928 provided a unique and profound influence, blending the state’s rugged, timeless terrain with extraterrestrial terror. These sojourns, amid the aftermath of the devastating 1927 floods, ignited Lovecraft’s imagination, leading to one of his most acclaimed works, “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1931). Drawing from Lovecraft’s own writings, letters, essays, and contemporary accounts, as well as biographical and historical sources, this article examines these visits and their enduring impact on his literary output.¹

The 1927 Visit: Discovery of an Untamed Realm

Lovecraft’s first encounter with Vermont occurred in August 1927, invited by Arthur Henry Goodenough (1871–1936), a local poet and farmer from West Brattleboro who admired Lovecraft’s stories published in Weird Tales.² Goodenough, residing at his ancestral farmhouse on Goodenough Road in Guilford, hosted Lovecraft and introduced him to the region’s rural isolation and archaic charm.³ During this stay, Lovecraft also met painter Bert Gilman Akley (1871–1946) at his nearby farmstead on Akley Road, a reclusive artist whose rustic lifestyle left a lasting impression.⁴

This trip came shortly after the catastrophic Vermont floods of November 3, 1927, which caused widespread destruction, claiming over 80 lives and damaging countless communities.⁵ Although Lovecraft did not witness the floods firsthand, reports of bizarre debris in swollen rivers like the Winooski, West, and Passumpsic fueled local folklore and later informed his fiction.⁶ The floods’ remnants, combined with Vermont’s “wild hills west of Brattleboro,” evoked a sense of primordial mystery for Lovecraft, who had previously lived a reclusive life in urban Providence and a brief, unhappy period in New York City (1924–1926).⁷

In his essay “Vermont—A First Impression,” composed on September 29, 1927, Lovecraft captured his awe: “The nearness and intimacy of the little domed hills become almost breath-taking—their steepness and abruptness hold nothing in common with the humdrum, standardized world we know, and we cannot help but feeling that the outlines have some strange and almost forgotten meaning.”⁸ He described Vermont as “an unspoiled, ancestral New England … [where] the continuous native life keeps alive strange ancient memories … and seldom-mentioned beliefs.”⁹ First published in Driftwind magazine in March 1928, the essay reflects his admiration for the state’s unindustrialized vistas, contrasting them with the “decayed” southern New England.¹⁰ Lovecraft’s primary account here serves as a direct window into his initial enchantment, hinting at the eerie undertones that would infuse his later horror.¹¹

The 1928 Visit: Immersion and Creative Ignition

Lovecraft returned to Vermont in June 1928 for a two-week stay, hosted by Vrest Orton (1897–1986), a young publisher and columnist from Brattleboro whom he had met through New York’s Kalem Club literary circle.¹² Orton, who had recently founded the Stephen Daye Press, invited Lovecraft to his family home in Old Guilford and later to the rented Dixon House in Townshend.¹³ The pair explored Windham County, witnessing the lingering scars of the 1927 flood—swollen rivers and desolate valleys—that amplified the region’s sense of ancient isolation.¹⁴ Lovecraft participated in manual labor, such as redirecting a stream bed, and engaged in an “escaped cow chase” with Orton’s young neighbors, the Lee boys, evoking scenes later mirrored in his stories.¹⁵

In postcards to his aunts Lillian Clark and Annie Gamwell during the visit, Lovecraft expressed his delight: on June 12, he described arriving in Brattleboro and the “marvelous” drive to Guilford; by June 15, he noted the “exquisite” scenery and visits to Goodenough and Akley; on June 18, he recounted a literary convention at Goodenough’s home with local notables like poet Walter John Coates.¹⁶ He declined Orton’s job offer due to climate concerns but praised the area’s timeless quality in letters, stating it brought him “close to those basic & surviving wellsprings of early American life.”¹⁷

Lovecraft’s correspondence with Woodburn Harris, a Vermont resident from Vergennes, further reveals his fascination. In letters from 1929, he described the “dark, mysteriously forested slope[s]” and “black-wooded precipices,” blending personal awe with philosophical musings.¹⁸ These primary letters underscore how Vermont’s “unvisited woods” and “inaccessible slopes” evoked “strange ancient memories” for him.¹⁹ Sites like the Goodenough farmhouse, Akley home, and Townshend Post Office echoed in his fiction as emblems of rural seclusion.²⁰

Literary Resonance: Vermont’s Hills in Cosmic Horror

These visits directly inspired “The Whisperer in Darkness,” a novella blending science fiction and horror, set in rural Vermont amid the 1927 floods.²¹ The story opens with “the historic and unprecedented Vermont floods of November 3, 1927,” where “organic shapes not quite like any they had ever seen before” float in rivers like the Winooski near Montpelier and West River beyond Newfane.²² Protagonist Albert N. Wilmarth debates a hidden alien race in “the deep woods of the highest peaks, and the dark valleys where streams trickle from unknown sources.”²³ The remote farmhouse, modeled after Goodenough’s, and character Henry Wentworth Akeley, an amalgam inspired by Bert Akley, Paul Cook, and Lovecraft himself, heighten the dread: “The dense, unvisited woods on those inaccessible slopes seemed to harbour alien and incredible things.”²⁴ Real Vermont locations like Townshend, Newfane, and Dark Mountain ground the tale, while the floods and Native American folklore add authenticity.²⁵

Lovecraft integrated passages from “Vermont—A First Impression” into the story, transforming admiration into horror. He aimed “not just to be weird, but primarily to crystallise a powerful imaginative impression given me by a certain [Vermont] landscape.”²⁶ The 1930 discovery of Pluto, equated with his fictional Yuggoth, enhanced the cosmic elements.²⁷ Elements of Vermont also influenced “The Dunwich Horror” (1928), with its terrain a “synthesis of the picturesquely retrograding Wilbraham country … with certain characteristics of southern Vermont.”²⁸

Legacy: Echoes in the Green Mountains

Lovecraft’s Vermont experiences marked a turning point, infusing his mythos with tangible settings far from his urban roots. True to his reclusive nature, he vowed never to return, resolving in “The Whisperer in Darkness”: “When I left Brattleboro, I resolved never to go back to Vermont.”²⁹ Today, sites like Goodenough Farm (preserved by the Goodenough Farmstead Trust), Akley Road, and flood-marked rivers draw enthusiasts.³⁰ The 2009 film adaptation by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society filmed in Brattleboro and nearby areas, honoring the landscape’s role.³¹ Lovecraft’s Vermont legacy endures in collections at the University of Vermont and events like the 2006 “Lovecraft in Vermont” festival in Rutland.³²

Footnotes

1. H. P. Lovecraft, Wikipedia entry.
2. “The Whisperer in Darkness,” Wikipedia.
3. Arthur Goodenough, Penny’s Poetry Pages Wiki.
4. Lovecraft and Vermont, Tentaclii blog.
5. “The Whisperer in Darkness” by H. P. Lovecraft, hplovecraft.com.
6. The Whisperer in Darkness, Wikipedia.
7. H. P. Lovecraft, Wikipedia.
8. Local History: H.P. Lovecraft visits Brattleboro, reformer.com.
9. Vermont, The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki.
10. Miscellaneous Writings, hplovecraft.com.
11. Brown Digital Repository, Item bdr:425539.
12. Dark Mountain: H. P. Lovecraft and the ‘Vermont Horror’, vermonthistory.org PDF.
13. HPLHS Voluminous podcast, hplhs.org.
14. The horror of it all—H.P. Lovecraft’s Vermont, suncommunitynews.com.
15. “Lovecraft in Vermont” festival, rutlandherald.com.
16. HPLHS Voluminous podcast excerpts.
17. Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft, archive.org.
18. Letters to Woodburn Harris and Others, hippocampuspress.com.
19. The Whisperer in Darkness excerpts, hplovecraft.com.
20. Local History article, reformer.com.
21. The Whisperer in Darkness, Project Gutenberg Australia.
22. The Whisperer in Darkness excerpts.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Dark Mountain article.
26. Con’t from Dark Mountain.
27. Local History article.
28. Lovecraft and Vermont, Tentaclii.
29. The Whisperer in Darkness excerpts.
30. Lovecraft and Vermont, Tentaclii.
31. Local History article.
32. “Lovecraft in Vermont” festival.