The Kalem Club was an informal group that coalesced around American author Howard Phillips Lovecraft during his stay in New York City in the mid-1920s.
It was given its name, in February 1925, from the fact that its members' surnames happened to all begin with the letters K, L, or M, adopted phonetically to spell "Kalem". Lovecraft, however, never called it by that name in his correspondence, referring to it instead as "the gang" or "The Boys."[1] In late 1925, Wilfred B. Talman and Vrest Orton became members, but the name didn't change; these alphabetical outliers attended only "sporadically."[1]
The club initially met on Thursdays, but switched to Wednesdays to accommodate a night class Frank Belknap Long was taking at New York University. When Lovecraft hosted the club, he would serve coffee in a 49-cent aluminum pail from a local deli, and "various desserts on his best china."[1]
The club later had a split between "McNeil" and "Leeds" factions, after Everett McNeil and Arthur Leeds had a falling out over a small loan the latter had made to the former. Several members did not attend the meetings held in McNeil's Hell's Kitchen apartment, because they found McNeil "tiresome," but Lovecraft attended both meetings.[1]
The club did not long survive Lovecraft's move back to Providence in 1926.
Members[]
Kalem Club, by Stephen Fabian (Pulptime)
- George Willard Kirk
- Rheinhart Kleiner
- Arthur Leeds
- Frank Belknap Long
- H. P. Lovecraft
- Samuel Loveman
- Henry Everett McNeil
- James F. Morton
- Wilfred Blanch Talman
- Vrest Orton
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, "Kalem Club," by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (Hippocampus Press, 2004).