Free Through Dark Angles: Works Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft by Don Webb

Call of Cthulhu” (1926). Perhaps Julia’s rather simple style, reflecting her fifth-grade education, was too limiting for Lovecraft, or perhaps the whole notion struck him as artistically dishonest. Given Lovecraft’s penchant for recording even the smallest details of his moods and life in his letters it seems remarkable that Julia’s diary was never mentioned.
    Inevitably that class of literalist thinker that assumes that all Lovecraft’s stories are some sort of mystic channelings have claimed that the diary of Julia Phillips is the work of a kindred soul—likewise expressing the “mysteries of the Aeon.” Perhaps Lovecraft himself, who had played with the artistic notion of art and dream coming from some sort of Otherness, was attracted to and then repulsed by the contents of this diary for that seeming. Again, unless further documentation comes to light we shall never know.
    Here is what we do know about Julia Phillips. She was the third of six children to be born to Rodger Allen and Susan Williams Phillips. Born in 1891, she was a year younger than Lovecraft. Her father was a greengrocer and her mother supplemented the family’s income with sewing, a skill young Julia excelled at. Her sickly youth kept her a homebody while her two brothers joined the merchant marine and her three better-adjusted (and apparently better-looking) sisters found husbands. When her parents died she went to live with her eldest sister, Velma, and alternated between manic periods of religiosity and depressed periods of terrible lethargy. At first she was the merely eccentric aunt, whose finical contribution was greatly valued. As time wore on, she became worrisome to her sister and brother-in-law. In 1924 Julia tried to kill herself with rat poison after months of the darkest depression. The family had her committed to Butler. She remained in Butler until 1927. For the majority of her stay she was a model patient. She repaired the garments of other patients, took part in the sing-alongs, and greeted her family in a sane and cheery tone during their infrequent visits. The entries prior to her commitment were made in pen; the hospital only allowed a No. 1 pencil during Julia’s stay.
    The last dated entry in Julia’s diary was August 7, the day the “Peace Bridge” was opened between Fort Erie, Ontario, and Buffalo, New York: “Perhaps mankind has learned to live in Peace—God bless Prince Edward and Prince Albert and Governor Smith.” In late August 1927 Julia began obsessing on a hurricane that hit the Atlantic shore of Canada. She complained that authorities were unaware of the danger the sea stood for. She warned (somewhat prophetically) of an upcoming Pacific earthquake. In early September most of her freedom of movement in the hospital grounds was curtailed when she either shaved off or otherwise removed most of her hair. It was at this time that Julia involved herself in what limited art therapy Butler offered. She painted five canvases of “disturbing maritime scenes.” These seem to have been sold at the annual art show; sadly little is known of them save that she used the (at that time) radical technique of grattage, which had been introduced to the art world by Max Ernst. Exactly how an undereducated American woman would invent the same art technique that a German surrealist had created for his series of paintings of “enchantment and terror” is more than a bit of a mystery. Perhaps the art instructor had kept abreast of the European art scene. It is likely that during this time, the “channeled” portion of the diary was written.
    On September 14, an underwater earthquake in Japan killed 108 people. The next day a “Mr. Kenneth S. Gilman” paid a visit to Miss Julia. All Miss Julia’s visitors had been the family members of former sewing clients, and it was assumed that he belonged in this category. He paid three visits and, winning the confidence of the staff, took Julia on a carriage ride. They never