“Mysteries of the Heavens Revealed by Astronomy“

   Series of astronomy columns for the Asheville[N.C.] Gazette-News(February 16–May 17, 1915). The series, as published, consists of thirteen sections, some subdivided into two parts: I. “The Sky and Its Contents” (February 16); II. “The Solar System” (February 20); III. “The Sun” (February 23); IV. “The Inferior Planets” (February 27); V. “Eclipses” (March 2); VI. “The Earth and Its Moon” (March 6); VII. “Mars and the Asteroids” (March 9); VIII. “The Outer Planets” (March 13 and 27); IX. “Comets and Meteors” (March 16 and 30); X. “The Stars” (March 20 and 23); XI. “Clusters and Nebulae” (April 13 and 16); XII. “The Constellations” (April 27 and May 1); XIII. “Telescopes and Observatories” (May 11 and 17). However, the first installment announced the series as consisting of fourteen sections, so it appears that section XIV and, probably, the final segment of XIII are lost. Librarians at the Asheville Public Library report that several issues following May 17 are missing, and it is likely that the missing segments appeared here. In the first installment HPL describes the series as “designed for persons having no previous knowledge of astronomy. Only the simplest and most interesting parts of the subject have here been included.” HPL’s boyhood friend Chester P.Munroe (at this time working in Asheville) probably arranged to have HPL write the articles for the local paper, although there is no documentary evidence to support this assertion. Late in life HPL unearthed the articles and remarked: “…their obsoleteness completely bowled me over. The progress of the science in the last twenty or thirty years had left me utterly behind…” ( SL5.422).