You did well to remove the entry. Wikipedia is no place for romanticization, though countless other entries seem to suggest otherwise.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I borrowed a copy of de Camp's HPL bio. from the
> local library a few years ago, and it had several
> amusing notations in the text from one of the
> previous readers. And in the margin beside a
> statement that HPL's wife Sonia tried to make
> Lovecraft eat "bran muffins", the annotator wrote,
> "Sonia knew!" -i.e., she knew something was off
> with his digestion and was trying to help him.
> Kind of interesting.
>
> It's rather eerie, too, that Lovecraft's youthful
> nightmares involved Night Gaunts lifting him out
> of bed and "tickling his stomach".....

It is highly unlikely that his cancer had begun that far back; thirteen years (give or take a bit) is a very unusual length of time to survive once it has taken hold. As for the Night-gaunts... HPL himself called attention to that connection (bad digestion) in one of his letters, as I recall....

DarkReader Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You did well to remove the entry.

Alas! somebody has since reinstated it, with the "Howard's death caused Lovecraft's cancer" part as before but with a more pointed formulation about how Smith lost his audience with Lovecraft's death and therefore stopped writing. What the latter claim is doing in the article on Howard is anybody's guess.

I'd like to add a few comments to this very interesting thread. First, I agree that it seems unlikely anyone actually believed that Howard's death caused Lovecraft to die of cancer.
Of course, Lin Carter started all this speculation regarding the abrupt ending of Smith's fiction career in his introductions to the CAS collections published by Ballantine books for their celebrated "Adult Fantasy" series. It seems to have been a conscious (and successful) effort by Carter to generate more interest in Smith.
It has already been mentioned that there were many reasons Smith ceased writing fiction for the pulps; another contributing factor was the eye strain he began to experience around this time. This also led him to send tear sheets to August Derleth rather than to prepare typed manuscripts for his Arkham House collections. He also mentions in a letter to August Derleth in 1941 "I have been away from Auburn much of the time during the last 2 and 2/3 years, and have done more living than writing. Had got to the point where it was absolutely necessary." Clearly, the deaths of his parents and also the deaths of Lovecraft and Howard all in the space of a few short years did affect him both profoundly and adversely. But it is equally certain that Robert E. Howard's death affected him the least in this regard.
Just wanted to add my two cents . . .
-Ron (AKA Mr. Footnote)

WELL-from what ive read,it has a few issues.

1-it can only consider the end of a carreer in a short period of three members of the Lovecraft Circle- argueabely the most known and respected members today.

2-concerning HPL and REH part,as a sub-issue of the 1th article,I think he could be implying not that REH's suicide CAUSED the Tumour PER SE,however that the mental strain could have aditionaly weakened HPL's physical strength and so indirectly,his imunity, either accelerating the progress of the disease-and it could be even said, though im not a specialist at all, that such a weakening of constitution could possibly contribute to the reason the disease managed to become much bigger then it would have been, had his health not been damaged,but this later part is only a theoretical hypothesis.

Taken from the thread "Details of Clark Ashton Smith's life."

> Kyberean Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > "the Smith's knew little to nothings of
> > commercially canned food"
> >
> > However easier canned food may have made life,
> I'd say it's a good thing overall that they did not.
> I am no doctor, but I have little doubt that
> Lovecraft's short life was in large measure due
> to his wretched "canned food diet".

Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> On p. 628 of H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, Joshi
> notes:
>
> "Interestingly enough, in view of the amount of
> canned food Lovecraft ate, studies have shown that
> modern food additives and preservatives may
> actually inhibit intestinal cancer. It is not that
> the preservatives in the canned food Lovecraft ate
> caused his cancer, but that their possible absence
> may have done so."
>
> Yrs
> Martin


Beans are good for the bowels, and unless there were toxic chemicals included in the cans, I don't think this food was harmful. I am more convinced that a lack of vegetables and fruit and other fibers, along with all that icecream, led to, or quickened Lovecraft's intestinal problems. Too much milk products, especially fat creamy ones, tend to clog up the finely textured walls of the intestines. Which in the long run may end in cancer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23 Nov 08 | 03:59PM by Knygatin.

I have no idea what sort of research Joshi is referring to, but the issue in any case is far from being settled. In any event, Joshi also states that much of the canned food that Lovecraft ate was very old, and quite possibly spoiled.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23 Nov 08 | 04:12PM by Kyberean.

That's what you get for being a penny pincher who doesn't like healthy sea food .

But in all seriousness, can old food actualy kill you , if it's not mouldy ?

Dear folk, Re canned food - The canning process actually using metal cans was relatively new in Lovecraft's time.
In my early childhood, everyone "canned" the produce of their gardens in Ball quart jars - many still did not trust metal cans because there had been incidences reported of people getting damaged cans which had admitted bacteria - also the quality of the metal and the compounds used in making it was quite different than today - in the beginning it really was tin - tin is easily malleable, easily punctured, and the compression process for the lids was much inferior to the process used today. Also, the preservatives in use today were not commonly used in the early days - it was many years before "canned" food in actual cans was universally accepted -- one wonders what H.P. would have done with early margarine which came with flexible bag and a yellow capsule which had to be broken and then kneaded into the white substance to make it look like butter - a war time phenomenon I remember well -- My wife and I in the early years of our marriage lived on a small farm and canned or froze everything we ate - only buying flour and paper products, spices and condiments - everything was home grown and home-made - the most fun thing was listening for the "pop" when the lid on the jar sealed - and you kept count! Each batch in the boiling water was 6 quart jars or 9 pints. When we sold the farm we had over 400 empty jars - we even butchered our own beef and hogs - chickens and ducks, and I shot and we actually ate a raccon ( I shot 20, one to eat was too much work and almost as greasy as bear meat!), we also took a deer each year from BLM land (put out a salt block in a favorite location, then when you are ready for venison, just park yourself upwind, and wait) -- what I am describing for you is also very much how Clark's family lived, only all their canning was done on a wood stove -- as a by-note, Clark had been a crack shot, though he no longer owned a gun.