On Lovecraft's early defence of "Weird" fiction
>"Scorning the plea [...] for more "probable" stories, Lovecraft declaims: "If, in fact, man is unable to create living beings out of inorganic matter, to hypnotise beasts of the forest to do his will, to swing from tree to tree with the apes of the African jungle, to restore to life the mummified corpses of the Pharoahs and the Incas, or to explore the atmosphere of Venus and the deserts of Mars, permit us, at least, in fancy, to witness these miracles, and to satisfy that craving for the unknown, the weird, and the impossible which exists in every active human brain."
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On Lovecraft's angry letters to a literary magazine
>"Lovecraft's tirade was not inspired merely by unwonted dominance of [romance author Fred] Jackson in the pages of Argosy [...] noting a little dryly that "There is a numerous set of people whose chief literary delight is obtained in the following of imaginary nymphs and swains through the labyrinthine paths of amorous adventure"; [...] it is a fact, maintains Lovecraft, that Jackson is simply a bad writer: "Apart from the mere choice of subject, let me venture to describe the Jacksonine type of tale as trivial, effeminate, and, in places, course. [...] Into the breasts of his characters, and appearing to dominate them to the exclusion of reason, he places the delicate passions and emotions proper to negroes or anthropoid apes.""
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On a summary of the years Lovecraft's early 20s
>"Lovecraft had no job, was only toying with chemistry and astronomy, was living with a mother who was steadily losing her mental stability, was writing random undistinguished bits of verse about his native region, and was devouring the Munsey magazines but had no thought of contributing any fiction to them or to any other market. But [Fred] Jackson's work so irritated Lovecraft that he emerged from his hermitry at least to the extent of bombarding letters to the magazines in question."
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