TSOU -- "The Festival" & Marblehead
Donovan Loucks
Lovecraft's "The Festival" is set in his fictional Kingsport, which he
admittedly based on Marblehead, Massachusetts. Marblehead was one of
Lovecraft's favorite towns, and he often mentioned that he'd be happy to
live there if he couldn't live in Providence. I can't blame him either--
Marblehead is a wonderful little town and I'm looking forward to staying
there two nights this coming week! Three points of interest from "The
Festival" are mentioned in the Marblehead portion of my "Lovecraftian
Sites in New England" pages, and photographs of all three are included.
These can be seen at:
http://www.primenet.com/~dloucks/hpl/creation/sitemass.htm#Marblehead
The three points are the Old Burial Hill ("where black gravestones stuck
ghoulishly through the snow like the decayed fingernails of a gigantic
corpse"), The Bowen House ("the home of my people"), and St. Michael's
Episcopal Church ("partly a churchyard with spectral shafts"). Here's a
printing of the Marblehead section of my page, for those of you who may
not have web access:
Marblehead
Lovecraft commented often in his letters that Marblehead was one of
his favorite towns, saying that he'd live there if he didn't already
live in Providence. The city of Marblehead has a home page where you
can go on a virtual tour of the town, as well as find out about the
community and its businesses. Also, Richard V. Booth used to provide a
Visitor's Guide to Marblehead. His On-Line Marketing page still has a
number of New England related references.
Old Burial Hill
[Photo]
"Over all the rest of the scene tower'd a hill on which the rude
forefathers of the hamlet were laid to rest; and which was in
consequence nam'd Old Burying Hill....And atop all was the peak; Old
Burying Hill, where the dark headstones clawed up thro' the virgin
snow like the decay'd fingernails of some gigantick corpse." (Letter
to Reinhardt Kleiner, January 11, 1923)
"Beside the road at its crest a still higher summit rose, bleak and
wind-swept, and I saw that it was a burying-ground where black
gravestones stuck ghoulishly through the snow like the decayed
fingernails of a gigantic corpse." ("The Festival")
This cemetery was established in 1638, being one of the oldest
graveyards in New England. "Six hundred revolutionary heroes and
several early pastors were interred at the top of the hill."
_________________________________________________________________
Bowen House, 1 Mugford Street
[Photo]
"...I hastened through Back Street to Circle Court, and across the
fresh snow on the one full flagstone pavement in the town, to where
Green Lane leads off behind the Market House....the seventh house on
the left in Green Lane, with an ancient peaked roof and jutting second
story, all built before 1650. There were lights inside the house when
I came upon it, and I saw from the diamond window-panes that it must
have been kept very close to its antique state. The upper part
overhung the narrow grass-grown street and nearly met the over-hanging
part of the house opposite so that I was almost in a tunnel, with the
low stone doorstep wholly free from snow. There was no sidealk, but
many houses had high doors reached by double flights of steps with
iron railings. It was an odd scene, and because I was strange to New
England I had never known its like before. Though it pleased me, I
would have relished it better if there had been footprints in the
snow, and people in the streets, and a few windows without drawn
curtains." ("The Festival")
This particular building was built in 1695 by William Waters. It can
be seen in the left background of the photograph of the Old Town House
in the Marblehead Virtual Tour.
_________________________________________________________________
St. Michael's Episcopal Church
[Photo]
"There was an open space around the church; partly a churchyard with
spectral shafts, and partly a half-paved square swept nearly bare of
snow by the wind, and lined with unwholesomely archaic houses having
peaked roofs and overhanging gables. Death-fires danced over the
tombs, revealing gruesome vistas, though queerly failing to cast any
shadows. Past the churchyard, where there were no houses, I could see
over the hill's summit and watch the glimmer of stars on the harbour,
though the town was invisible in the dark. Only once in a while a
lanthorn bobbed horribly through serpentine alleys on its way to
overtake the throng that was now slipping speechlessly into the
church". ("The Festival")
"And St. Michael's churchyard, where at twilight hideous shadows lurk
amongst the dense willows of the far corner, and caper a ghoulish
danse macabre on the tops of the old slate slabs as soon as the moon
goes down!" (Letter to Frank Belknap Long, June 23, 1923)
"Beware St. Toad's cracked chimes!" ("Fungi from Yuggoth")
This church was erected in 1714 with materials brought from England.
When the news of the Declaration of Independence reached Marblehead,
the church's bell was run until it cracked. It was then recast by Paul
Revere himself and is still used. The church still has a tiny cemetery
on its east side. On the side of a nearby building is a sign that
indicates that Summer Street was "Formerly Frog Lane".
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Donovan K. Loucks Phoenix, Arizona dlo...@primenet.com |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The H. P. Lovecraft Archive: http://www.primenet.com/~dloucks/hpl |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.horror.cthulhu FAQ: |
| ftp://ftp.primenet.com/users/d/dloucks/alt.horror.cthulhu |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+