Extent of the Empire of the Culhua Mexico Book Review

American anthropologist

Robert Hayward Barlow
Built-in	May 18, 1918 Leavenworth, Kansas
Died	January ii, 1951(1951-01-02) (aged 32) Azcapotzalco, Mexico Urban center
Cause of death	Barbiturate overdose (suicide)
Occupation	Author; anthropologist

Robert Hayward Barlow (May 18, 1918 – January 1 or 2, 1951^[1]) was an American writer, avant-garde poet, anthropologist and historian of early on United mexican states, and expert in the Nahuatl language. He was a correspondent and friend of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and was appointed by Lovecraft the executor of his literary estate.^[2]

Born at a fourth dimension when his father, Lieutenant Colonel Everett Darius Barlow, was serving with the American Forces in France, Barlow spent much of his youth at Fort Benning, Georgia, where his father was stationed but also moved from army mail to army mail in his earliest years. As a result, he never received much formal schooling simply he was a brilliant youth and pursued his education on his own.^[3] Around 1932 Col. Barlow received a medical discharge, retired on disability from the ground forces and settled his wife (Bernice Barlow) and son in the modest town of DeLand, in fundamental Florida where he built a lakeside homestead.

Family difficulties later forced Robert H. Barlow to move to Washington, D.C., where, in 1934, as the son of a retired army officeholder, he received treatment for over-strained optics at an ground forces facility before returning to DeLand in 1935. In 1936, he received training at the Kansas City Art Institute, where Thomas Hart Benton was i of his teachers, and after at San Francisco Inferior College. Barlow settled for a time with the Beck family in Lakeport, California, where he helped publish H. P. Lovecraft'south Commonplace Volume and several other items from Beck'southward Futile Press. From Lakeport was mailed the second and final consequence of his legendary amateur mag Leaves, which he and Lovecraft had planned together before the latter's decease.

Following a suggestion from an interested counselor and friend, Barbara Mayer, that Barlow make the study of Mexico'south antiquities his goal, he went to United mexican states in 1940-41, studied at the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas, and upon his return to California received the B.A. degree at the University of California in 1942. Returning to United mexican states as a permanent resident, he joined the staff of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. In 1944 he received a Rockefeller Foundation and in 1946-48 a Guggenheim Fellowship. He became head of the Department of Anthropology at Mexico City Higher, which position he held at the time of his passing on January ii, 1951.

According to boyfriend anthropologist Charles Due east. Dibble, "In the brief span of a decade, Barlow gave Middle American research an impetus and perspective of enduring result. His contributions in Mexican archaeology, classical and modernistic Nahuatl, Mexican colonial history, and what he preferred to call "Bilderhandschriften" are of lasting importance." Dibble compared Barlow's zeal for searching for and deciphering little known or dimly recalled codices and colonial manuscripts to that of Zelia Nuttall.^[4] Barlow has been referred to equally "the T. E. Lawrence of Mexico."^[five]

Life and career [edit]

Lovecraft associate [edit]

Barlow had been a friend of writers H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard since he was xiii. He collaborated with Lovecraft on at least half-dozen stories ("The Slaying of the Monster" (1933); "The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast" (1933); the spoof "The Battle That Ended the Century" (1934); "Till A' the Seas" (1935); an unfinished parody, "Collapsing Cosmoses" (1935); and "The Night Bounding main" (1936)), and Lovecraft made several extended visits to the immature Barlow at his home in DeLand, Florida.

H. P. Lovecraft, photographed by Barlow in June 1934

Barlow attempted to bind and distribute Lovecraft's story "The Shunned House" (1928) but bound only a few copies (Arkham House distributed some bound versions of the original Barlow project as late as the 1970s).

Barlow aided significantly in the preservation of Lovecraft's manuscripts by typing texts in exchange for autographed manuscripts.

Barlow came to Providence immediately upon receiving a telegram from Lovecraft's aunt Annie Gamwell almost Lovecraft's death. Lovecraft's "Instructions In Case Of Expiry", a dissever document from his will, appointed Barlow his literary executor. Lovecraft biographer Due south.T. Joshi says that this document was never probated but that Ms. Gamwell created a formal contract confirming that Barlow was to have all of Lovecraft's manuscripts and notebooks, to publish as he saw fit, earnings from said publication to go to Ms. Gamwell with a iii% committee for himself.^[two] Barlow donated most of the manuscripts and some printed matter to the John Hay Library of Dark-brown University.^[6]

Barlow transcribed Lovecraft's story "The Shadow Out of Time" and had the manuscript nevertheless in his possession when he secured a teaching position at Mexico City Higher. When he later became Chairman of the Section of Anthropology, he met June Ripley, a postgraduate student studying the Nahuatl language, Barlow'southward specialty. The two apparently became friends and Barlow entrusted the manuscript to Ripley before his suicide. She remained in Mexico for vii more than years, then taught at several places in the U.s.a. earlier retiring in 1993. She died on December 28, 1994, and the long-lost Lovecraft manuscript was found by Ripley's sis-in-constabulary Lucille Shreve. The manuscript, written in pencil in a child's notebook, was donated by Nelson and Lucille Shreve to the Lovecraft drove of John Hay Library.^[seven] ^[viii] ^[9]

[edit]

Barlow was interested in printing and after becoming involved in the early on 'fan' scene relating to fantasy and science fiction, published several important journals - The Dragon-Fly (two bug - October 15, 1935, and May fifteen, 1936); and Leaves (two issues - Summer 1937; Winter 1938/39). [1]. He was also proprietor of his imprint, the Dragon-Fly Press (Cassia, Florida) and nether that imprint published two of import works past members of the Lovecraft Circle - The Goblin Belfry (the offset verse collection by Frank Belknap Long – Lovecraft helped Barlow set the type for this) and "The Cats of Ulthar", a story past H. P. Lovecraft.^[ten]

Barlow'south fiction career was interrupted in 1937 by a diversity of circumstances, including the expiry of his friend and mentor Lovecraft, and his own uprooting from Florida considering of family unit troubles. In 1938 he edited Lovecraft's Notes and Commonplace Book and in 1939 edited After Sunset (John Howell, 1939), a drove of the best poems written by George Sterling in the concluding years before Sterling'southward suicide in 1926.

In 1943, Barlow lent assistance to the first bibliography of Lovecraft (past Francis T. Laney and William H. Evans). His poignant memoir of Lovecraft, "The Wind That is in the Grass" can be found in Marginalia (Arkham House, 1944). Barlow likewise contributed the introduction for the 1944 Arkham House book Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales by his fellow Floridian and Weird Tales author Henry S. Whitehead.

Sculptor [edit]

Barlow was highly regarded every bit a sculptor, before his movement into anthropology, and in one letter (to Clark Ashton Smith, May 16, 1937) he complained that people took this piece of work more seriously than his writings. Only it appears that none of his sculptural work has survived.

Anthropologist [edit]

Barlow moved permanently to Mexico around 1943, where he taught at several colleges, and in 1948 became chairman of the anthropology department at Mexico City College and a distinguished anthropologist of Indigenous Mesoamerican civilization. He taught classes at Mexico Metropolis College, to mostly American students who were mostly at that place under funding from the postal service-state of war G.I. Bill. The famous writer William S. Burroughs, who lived in Mexico from 1950 to 1952, studied the Mayan Codices nether Barlow in the first half of 1950. Burroughs went on at least one field trip with him to the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan.^{[ citation needed ]} The Mayan symbolism and political structure he constitute at that place later featured heavily in Burroughs' fiction.

At the same time Barlow cooperated with Prof. Salvador Mateos Higuera in a descriptive study of Mexican codices. Within a brief three years he had cooperated with George T. Smisor to plan and edit Tlalocan, a journal of source materials on native cultures of United mexican states. Beginning in 1943 with the appearance of Tlalocan his productivity attained added momentum and his articles appeared with increasing frequency in the scholarly journals of United mexican states, The states and Europe. Concern for minutiae led to such works of item every bit "The 18th Century Relaciones Geograficas".^[iv]

He travelled to the Yucatán to written report the Mayans, and to western Guerrero, where he studied the Tepuztecs. He founded two scholarly journals, and published effectually a hundred and fifty manufactures, pamphlets, and books.

In 1950 he published Mexihkatl itonalama ("The Mexican's agenda"), a Nahuatl-language paper. His piece of work in Mesoamerican anthropology is of pioneering significance, and his nerveless anthropological papers are in the process of publication in Mexico. At this time Barlow was too continuing his work a poet, writing both formalist verse and experimental verse of the Activist school pioneered past Lawrence Hart.

Suicide [edit]

Barlow had written as early on as 1944 that he had "a subtle feeling that my curious and uneasy life is not destined to prolong itself".^[11] He killed himself at his dwelling in Azcapotzalco, D.F, United mexican states, on the get-go or second of January, 1951, obviously fearing the exposure of his homosexuality by a disgruntled pupil.^[12] ^[13] On that afternoon, he locked himself in his room, took 26 capsules of Seconal, leaving pinned upon his door in Mayan pictographs "Practice non disturb me. I want to sleep a long time."^[14]

William S. Burroughs, then studying Spanish, the Mexican codices and the Mayan linguistic communication under Barlow, briefly described his expiry in a alphabetic character to Allen Ginsberg, dated January 11: "A queer Professor from Thou.C., Mo., head of the Anthropology dept. hither at G.C.C. [Mexico Urban center College] where I collect my $75 per month, knocked himself off a few days ago with overdose of goof assurance. Vomit all over the bed. I can't see this suicide kick."^[xv]

Bibliography [edit]

Books by Barlow [edit]

Poems for a Contest. Sacramento, CA: The Fugitive Printing, 1942. (verse). For these poems Barlow received the 26th honour of the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize in Poesy. The entire contents of the volume are reprinted in Eyes of the God (2002).
View from a Loma. Azcapotzalco [no publisher given], 1947 (poetry). The entire contents of the volume are reprinted in Optics of the God (2002).
The Extent of the Empire of the Culhua Mexico [Ibero-Americana 28]. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949.

Posthumous publications [edit]

Collapsing Cosmoses (with H. P. Lovecraft. West Warwick RI: Necronomicon Press, 1977. F&SF Fragments series; 500 copies only. This piece is reprinted in The Battle That Ended the Century and Collapsing Cosmoses (1992) and also nerveless in Eyes of the God (2002).
Annals of the Jinns. Original series of stories in The Fantasy Fan (1933–35) and The Phantagraph; collected, West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1978. Foreword "Robert H. Barlow and H. P. Lovecraft: A Reflection" by Kenneth W. Faig, Jr. Contains ten of the tales. (The 11th Annal, "An Episode in the Jungle", was unpublished until nerveless in Eyes of the God (2002)). Note: A rewritten version of "Annal" V, "The Tomb of the God", appears in Lin Carter, ed, Kingdoms of Sorcery; Carter rewrote it from a one-half-legible re-create, all he could detect at the time.
A Dim-Remembered Story West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1980. Preface by H. P. Lovecraft. The tale is included in Eyes of the God (2002)
The Dark Ocean (with H. P. Lovecraft). West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Printing, 1978, 1982; 3rd pr 1989. The tale is included in Eyes of the God (2002).
Crypt of Cthulhu No. 60 (1988) is a special issue devoted to Robert H. Barlow. It contains 9 stories by Barlow (all save "A Fragment" nerveless later in Eyes of the God (2002)), together with two essays: "R. H. Barlow and the Recognition of Lovecraft" by South. T. Joshi, and "Robert H. Barlow equally H. P. Lovecraft's Literary executor: An Appreciation" by Kenneth W. Faig. Faig's essay is reprinted in his The Unknown Lovecraft. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2009.
The Battle That Ended the Century & Collapsing Cosmoses (with H. P. Lovecraft) West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1992. This edition includes a corrected glossary of names. Both pieces are collected in The Eyes of the God (2002), where Battle is now footnoted with full annotations identifying the persons parodied.
On Lovecraft and Life. West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1992. Intro by S. T. Joshi. Contains two texts - firstly, a restored text of Barlow'southward periodical of Lovecraft's 1934 visit as "Memories of Lovecraft" (originally published equally "The Barlow Journal in August Derleth'south Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft (1959) and afterward in the Derleth-edited Lovecraft compilation The Dark Alliance & Other Pieces (1966); both Derleth printings were heavily abridged). Secondly, Barlow's fragmentary "Autobiography" (approx 1938- Summertime 1940).
The Hoard of the Magician-Beast and I Other (with H. P. Lovecraft). West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1994. Intro by S. T. Joshi. The "other" is the story "The Slaying of the Monster". Includes the facsimile manuscripts of both stories, showing Lovecraft'due south mitt in each. Both tales are included (text only, not facsimile mss) in The Eyes of the God (2002).
Eyes of the God: The Weird Fiction and Poetry of Robert H. Barlow. Edited by Southward. T. Joshi, Douglas A. Anderson and David Eastward. Schultz. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2002. A comprehensive collection that excludes simply Barlow'due south non-fiction (such as published letters, essays, etc). It includes two previously unpublished tales, "The Bright Valley" and "The Fidelity of Ghu", and likewise the previously unpublished 11th tale of Annals of the Jinns ("An Episode in the Jungle").

Books edited by Barlow [edit]

H. P. Lovecraft. The Notes & Commonplace Book Employed past the Belatedly H. P. Lovecraft Including His Suggestions for Story-Writing, Analyses of the Weird Story, and a List of Certain Basic Underlying Horros, &c, &c, Designed to Stimulate the Imagination. Lakeport, CA: The Futile Press, 1938; rpt West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1978.
George Sterling, Later on Sunset (verse). San Francisco: John Howell, Publisher, 1939.

Journals edited by Barlow [edit]

Mesoamerican Notes (1949)
Tlalocan

Books and journals about Barlow (see references for articles and further reading) [edit]

Hart, Lawrence (ed.), Accent on Barlow: A Comemmorative [sic] Anthology. San Rafael, CA: Lawrence Hart, 1962. Includes 39 poems past Barlow, one translation by Barlow of a poem by B. Ortiz de Montellano, together with poems by fifteen other writers, and an appreciation of Barlow by Rosalie Moore and Lawrence Hart.
Connors, Scott (ed.), The Periodical of the H. P. Lovecraft Society No 2 (1979). Entire issue devoted to Kenneth Due west. Faig's essay "R. H. Barlow". (The essay is reprinted in Faig's The Unknown Lovecraft. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2009.)
Crypt of Cthulhu 8 (1: Hallowmas 1988). Whole of number sixty. 64 pp. Special Robert H. Barlow outcome. Contains reprints of ten deficient Barlow stories from the amateur press, plus two essays - Kenneth W. Faig, Jr, "Robert H. Barlow as H. P. Lovecraft's Literary Executor" and S. T. Joshi, "R. H. Barlow and the Recognition of Lovecraft".
Berruti, Massimo. Dim-Remembered Stories: A Disquisitional Study of R. H. Barlow, NY: Hippocampus Press, 2012.
Paul La Farge. The Nighttime Sea, NY: Penguin, 2017. Fiction. The novel centers on a young writer'southward quest to find Barlow, whom he believes is still alive.

Notes [edit]

^ Joshi & Schultz (2007): p. 20.
^ ^a ^b S.T. Joshi, I Am Providence: The Life & Times of H.P. Lovecraft. Hippocampus, 2010.
^ Kenneth W. Faig, Jr "Robert H. Barlow and H. P. Lovecraft: A Reflection" in Robert H. Barlow, Annals of the Jinns Westward Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Printing, 1978, p. two
^ ^a ^b Charles E. Dibble. "Robert Hayward Barlow - 1918–1951". American Antiquity 16 (4): 347.
^ Mooser, 1968.
^ Paul La Farge (March 9, 2017). "The Complicated Friendship of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Barlow, One of His Biggest Fans". The New Yorker . Retrieved March eleven, 2017.
^ "The Shadow Out of Time", Brown Academy Library.
^ "Mysterious Lovecraft Manuscript", Brown University Library.
^ "H.P. Lovecraft Collection", Brown University Library.
^ "AOK SC Publications". library.umbc.edu.
^ Joshi & Schultz (2007): p. 408.
^ Joshi & Schultz (2007): p. yy.
^ L. Sprague de Camp (1975). Lovecraft: a Biography . p. 432. ISBN0-385-00578-4. ... he was existence blackmailed for his relations with Mexican youths.
^ Lawrence Hart. Accent on Barlow: A Comemmorative [sic] Album, San Rafael, CA, p. 9, 1962; quoted in Leon H. Abrams, Jr, Katunob 16 (1981), Greeley Co: Museum of Anthropology, University of Northward Colorado, 1981, p. 13.
^ Burroughs (1993): pp. 77–78.

References [edit]

Abrams, H. Leon (1983). "Insights Into the Creative Genius of Robert Hayward Barlow". Notas Mesoamericanas. Cholula, Mexico.: Universidad de las Americas, A.C. (9): 16–23. This essay includes reprints of five of Barlow's poems with Mesoamerican themes - "Of the Names of the Zapotec Kings", "Stela of a Mayan Penitent", "The Conquered", "The Chichimecs", and "Tepuzteca, Tepehua".
Abrams, H. Leon (1981). "Robert Hayward Barlow: An Annotated Bibliography with Commentary". Katunob Occasional Publication in Mesoamerican Anthropology. Greeley Co: Museum of Anthropology, University of Northern Colorado (16): 32 in all. Note: pp. xix–32 is a chronological checklist of Barlow'southward works including some published posthumously; pp. 1–xviii contains biographical information in the form of reprints of two essays on Barlow - George T. Smisor, "R. H. Barlow and 'Tlalocan'" (from Tlalocan Vol 3, 97–102, 1949–57) and (in Castilian) Fernando Horcasitas, "Para la Historia de la Revista 'Tlalocan' (1943-1976)" from Tlalacan Vol VII, 11-13, 15-16, 1977; plus a reprint of Lawrence Hart's introduction to Accent on Barlow: A Commemorative Anthology, 1962) and notes on the Activist poetry movement past both Lawrence Hart and his wife Jeanne McGahey Hart.
Barlow, Robert H. (1978). "Kenneth W. Faig, Jr, "Robert H. Barlow and H. P. Lovecraft: A Reflection"". Annals of the Jinns. [Necronomicon Press.
Bernal, Ignacio (1950). "Robert H. Barlow (1918-1950)". B.B.A.A. Boletín Bibliográfico de Antropología Americana. 13 (1): 301–304. JSTOR 40972967.
Bernal, Ignacio (1950). "Robert R. Barlow [sic] (1918-1950)". B.B.A.A. Boletín Bibliográfico de Antropología Americana. 13 (2): 249–251. JSTOR 40973121. Notation: Bibliography of his anthropological works, 1947-1950.
Burroughs, William S. (1993). Oliver Harris (ed.). The Letters of William S. Burroughs: Volume I, 1945–1959 . Penguin. ISBN0-14-009452-0.
Dibble, Charles Eastward. (April 1951). "Robert Hayward Barlow - 1918–1951". American Artifact. sixteen (iv): 347. doi:ten.1017/S0002731600008581.
Hart, Lawrence (May 1951). "A Note on Robert Barlow". Poetry (78): 115–16. :Smisor, George T. (1952). "R. H. Barlow and Tlalocan". Tlalocan. three (2): 97–102. doi:10.19130/iifl.tlalocan.1952.359.
Jordan, Stephen J. (Fall 2001). "H. P. Lovecraft in Florida". Lovecraft Studies (42–43): 32–45.
Joshi, Due south.T.; Schultz, David Due east. (2001). "Robert H. Barlow". An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press. pp. 15–sixteen.
Joshi, S.T.; Schultz, David E., eds. (2007). O Fortunate Floridian: H. P. Lovecraft's Messages to R. H. Barlow. Tampa, Florida: University of Tampa Press. ISBN978-ane-59732-034-4.
McQuown, Norman A. (1951). "Robert Hamilton [sic] Barlow, 1918–1951". American Anthropologist. 53 (iv): 543. doi:10.1525/aa.1951.53.4.02a00070.
Mooser, Claire (1968). "A Study of Robert Barlow: The T. E. Lawrence of United mexican states". United mexican states Quarterly Review. 3 (2): v–12.
Ramos, Cesar Lizardi (1951). "El Historiador Robert H. Barlow". The Americas. 8 (2): 223–224. doi:10.1017/S0003161500033721.
"R. H. Barlow". Boletín Bibliográfico de Antropología Americana (1937-1948). x: 278–282. 1947. JSTOR 40977799. Annotation: Bibliography of his anthropological works, 1942-1947.
"Students and faculty mourn passing of Professor Barlow" (PDF). Mexico City Collegian. January 18, 1951. p. 3.
Wetzel, George (1976). "Lovecraft'southward Literary Executor". Continuity. 3 (1): 3–41. Rpt. Fantasy Commentator 4, No one (Winter 1978-79): 34-43.

External links [edit]

Works by R. H. Barlow at Projection Gutenberg
Works by or almost R. H. Barlow at Cyberspace Archive

diazmold1943.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._H._Barlow