H.P. Lovecraft's Pen & Ink

[WhiteStarPens]

Better light... The cream colour of the Basildon Bond is more subtle than I remember.

[yazeh]

Not bad at all. What ink is that? 

 

[JayHomeBody]

So uh.... I saw this post on reddit from u/Cult-O-Cthulhu. 

 

[WhiteStarPens]

1 hour ago, yazeh said:

Not bad at all. What ink is that? 

 

Diamine Aurora Borealis, the closest match to the original annotations I've found so far.

[JayHomeBody]

24 minutes ago, WhiteStarPens said:

Diamine Aurora Borealis, the closest match to the original annotations I've found so far.

I JUST got this and I'm so excited to try it!

[Detman101]

2 hours ago, JayHomeBody said:

So uh.... I saw this post on reddit from u/Cult-O-Cthulhu. 

 

Buying this De Atramentis Pearlescent Heliogen Green - Gold as soon as february hits!
Vanness Pens stocks it. May as well pick up that bottle of P.E. Smoky Quartz from them as well...

 

[WhiteStarPens]

Mine arrived this morning and I'm very pleased with it. A fitting colour for HPL and well behaved too.

1 hour ago, JayHomeBody said:

I JUST got this and I'm so excited to try it!

 

[JayHomeBody]

34 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

Buying this De Atramentis Pearlescent Heliogen Green - Gold as soon as february hits!
Vanness Pens stocks it. May as well pick up that bottle of P.E. Smoky Quartz from them as well...

 

Awesome! I'm gonna have to save up for a bottle, I'm super excited! 

[inkstainedruth]

On 1/23/2021 at 9:40 AM, BigBlot said:

He's not quite a Writer of the Purple Page

I haven't really read any Lovecraft (horror is more my brother's thing) but I'm laughing because I HAVE read Zane Gray's Riders of the Purple Sage (or, as I described it afterwards, "Riders of the Purple Prose".

No, I don't normally read Westerns -- but when we first moved back to Pittsburgh and were house-hunting, we were renting a house from some friends who were out of the country and didn't want their house sitting empty.  One of them had left the book in the bathroom and I idly picked it up to read.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Detman101]

20 hours ago, JayHomeBody said:

Awesome! I'm gonna have to save up for a bottle, I'm super excited! 

Sounds great!
We will be happier in 2021 with these inks!

[Aelfattrum]

Some relevant links:

* On Lovecraft's Pen (a blog post): https://tentaclii.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/on-lovecrafts-pen/

* An old "local" FPN thread:

 

I suppose Lovecraft could have used Diamine ink, it would have been around (though I don't know the history of their colour range), and he might have preferred an English ink. Maybe also Herbin's Perle Noire (for the black)?

 

(On purple prose: Lovecraft's friend Clark Ashton Smith was more famous for "purple prose", though I tend to quite enjoy this style.)

[interrogation1]

Very late to this game, but I was working on an old Arnold sac fountain pen nib and decided to use an old ink with it. Perhaps HPL was using Sheaffer's Skrip Blue? The ink was available in his era, and the bottle travels well. This was written during his frequent traveling phase. Over time it might fade out, and it's possible the photo is not color corrected either. My bottle from the early 70s is still doing great and the ink is fine with that slight turquoise hint, though the color isn't corrected in my photos either. Sorry for the mess here, I was trying to find all the scratchy places on the nib. 

I would also thank those in this thread for pointing me to my current favorite ink, the GvFC Deep Sea Green? 

 

Either way, for those interested in the thousands of letters HPL wrote, May I recommend checking in with the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society and Hippocampus Press? 

[XYZZY]

@interrogation1 

[interrogation1]

@WhiteStarPens

Further research has me convinced that the ink in the sample you provided was Sheaffer's Skrip Blue. I've seen the same haloing with rescued bottles of the ink, but more importantly, he does talk about it in at least some letters to his friend, James F. Morton. However, it was actually a more expensive ink than I thought, as seen in his comments from a letter to Morton in 1933 that also talk about his pens: 

 

"As for fountain pens – I still can't get a decent point for the Parker Edkins gave me . . . . but shall try again. I'm now dipping a Woolworth pen in Carter's Kongo Black. I'll give Parker's "Quink" a try later on. Just now (in the Waterman at present forming my best pen) I'm using Sheaffer's "Skrip" with very good results. The trouble is that it costs fifteen cents for a bottle much smaller than a dime bottle of Carter's Kongo. That's why – at home – I use Kongo & revert to dipping – saving the Skrip for next summer, when I do my writing on the wooded riverbank away from dipping facilities." 

 

In an earlier letter to Morton he did write: 

 

"...Edkins uses Sheaffer's Skrip (so does my aunt)–which is probably the best of all, although it costs more than the dime-per-2 oz.-bottle Waterman & Kongo." 

 

The note and drawing to Barlow you provided was written 11 May 1934, which is a little over a week after he had arrived in Deland to visit with Barlow for the first time. He ended up staying for nearly 7 weeks, so the note was something he drew and handed to Barlow personally, rather than mailed. I would say this helps the further indicate the use of Skrip Blue, which I can say is still available and flows well. 

 

I hope that helps? 

[Horseflesh]

This is such a fun thread!

[InesF]

This is a highly informative and well researched thread - I'm loving it! Thank you @WhiteStarPens and @interrogation1.

This helps me out a lot for an already scheduled 2023 upcoming Monthly Literature Challenge! 

[interrogation1]

@InesF - how did the literature challenge go? 

[InesF]

On 7/4/2023 at 7:38 PM, interrogation1 said:

@InesF - how did the literature challenge go? 

(sorry for late reply)

 

It was this Challenge from January 2023.