Edwin M. Lillibridge is a fictional character who appears in H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Haunter of the Dark". He is an "inquisitive reporter" who disappears while investigating the Church of Starry Wisdom in Providence in 1893. Much of the backstory of the Church and the Shining Trapezohedron is conveyed to the reader through the vehicle of his posthumous notes.
Overview[]
Lillibridge was a reporter for the Providence Telegram (a real paper, published between 1880 and 1906).[1] His skeleton was found in the Starry Wisdom Church near the Trapezohedron by Robert Blake, who noted the "peculiar state" of the bones: Some were "strangely yellowed, with vague suggestions of charring," while "a few seemed oddly dissolved at the ends." Lillibridge's skull had "a charred aperture in the top as if some powerful acid had eaten through the solid bone."
The notes found by Blake indicated that the reporter had been "in quest of a newspaper sensation which no one else had been bold enough to attempt." They showed that Lillibridge researched the history of Enoch Bowen and the rise and fall of the Starry Wisdom cult, making reference to the Shining Trapezohedron and the Haunter of the Dark.
References[]
- ↑ The Providence Telegram at the Library of Congress