A Look At H.P. Lovecraft's Bizarre Love Life
The otherworldly fiction of H.P. Lovecraft is known for twisted stories that encompass strange realms and unexplainable phenomena. Fittingly, his romantic life is similarly perplexing.
Throughout his adult life, Lovecraft overcame his apparent aversion to physical affection and kissed just one woman: Sonia Greene, a fellow fiction writer and Jewish immigrant. Despite Lovecraft's well-documented racism and hatred toward those outside of his Anglo-Saxon lineage, the macabre horror writer found an unexplainable love for Greene.
According to Wired, the pair met at an amateur press convention and married in 1924 after a two-year courtship. Although Lovecraft remained fearful of immigrants, the pair's bond carried them forward for a short time. At the peak of their relationship, they got by on their shared love of amateur writing and waxing philosophical. But Greene's increased time on the road for her work (she was a milliner — a designer of hats) and Lovecraft's poverty appeared to pave the way for their divorce in 1926.
Little is known about the couple's relationship
Much like the spectral creatures of Lovecraft's fiction, little is known about his bond with Greene. After the pair split, Wired claimed Greene (pictured above) burned all of the letters that might have shed more light on their mysterious relationship. Yet the importance of Lovecraft's letters would resurface in the coming years.
After remarrying, Lovecraft's former flame, who had become Sonia Davis, penned The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft in 1985. But according to Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein, Greene was forced to remove all quotations of Lovecraft's letters from the memoir — her largest literary work before her death.
Despite this alleged removal, the book revealed tidbits of information about the pair's relationship that gives it some clarity. According to Greene, the pair loved going to the theater and enjoyed dinner out with each other, and Lovecraft stood by her side in the hospital while she was sick. Still, aside from this, the book does little to offer real insight into the pair's domestic life, leaving the day-to-day reality of their time together an enigma.