Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner, Astronomy Articles for

   Seventeen known articles, published in 1906; rpt. First Writings: Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner (Necronomicon Press, 1976; rev. ed. 1986).

   The articles appeared as follows: “The Heavens for August” (July 27); “The Skies of September” (August 31); “Is Mars an Inhabited World?” (September 7); “Is There Life on the Moon?” (September 14); “An Interesting Phenomenon” (September 21); “October Heavens” (September 28); “Are There Undiscovered Planets?” (October 5); “Can the Moon Be Reached by Man?” (October 12); “The Moon” (October 19); [untitled] (October 26); “The Sun” (November 2); “The Leonids” (November 9); “Comets” (November 16); “December Skies” (November 30); “The Fixed Stars” (December 7); “Clusters-Nebulae” (December 21); “January Heavens” (December 28).

   These are—aside from HPL’s letter to the editor of the Providence Sunday Journal(June 3, 1906)— the earliest published works by HPL, although contemporaneous with the astronomy articles for the [Providence] Tribune(1906–08), which commenced only a few days after the first of the Gleaner articles. The paper was a rural weekly published in the village of Phenix, R.I. (a community now incorporated into the town of West Warwick); HPL remarks of it: “The name ‘Phillips’ is a magic word in Western Rhode Island, & the Gleanerwas more than willing to print & feature anything from Whipple V.Phillips’ grandson” ( SL1.40). The articles range from surveys of the celestial phenomena for the coming month to discussions of provocative questions regarding the heavens: HPL here maintains that Percival Lowell’s belief in the artificiality of the Martian “canals” is “not only possible, but probable,” although in later columns he heaped ridicule upon the idea; he claims that the most plausible way to get to the moon would be to send off a projectile by electrical repulsion. Some of the columns are revised versions of articles first “published” in HPL’s hectographed paper, The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy HPL remarks ( SL1.40) that the articles continued through 1907 and 1908; but no issues of the paper have been found after December 28, 1906. Evidence suggests, however, that the paper continued until at least the end of 1907 and probably into 1908, so that a whole series of articles by HPL may be lost.