R. H. Barlow

R. H. Barlow
Birth Date	May 18, 1918
Birthplace	Leavenworth, Kansas
Death Date	January 2, 1951 (Aged 32)
Deathplace	Azcapotzalco, Mexico City

Robert Hayward Barlow (May 18, 1918 – January 1 or 2, 1951) was an American author, avant-garde poet, anthropologist and historian of early Mexico, 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.

Born at a time 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. Around 1932, Col. Barlow received a medical discharge and settled his wife (Sarah Barlow) and son in the small town of DeLand, Florida. Family difficulties later forced Robert H. Barlow to move to Washington, D.C., and Kansas. He received training at the Kansas City Art Institute, and subsequently at San Francisco Junior College.

He went to Mexico 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 Mexico as a permanent resident, he joined the staff of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. In 1944, he received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, and in 1946-48 a Guggenheim Fellowship. He became head of the Department of Anthropology at Mexico City College, a position he held at the time of his death by suicide on January 2, 1951.

According to fellow anthropologist Charles E. Dibble, "In the brief span of a decade, Barlow gave Middle American research an impetus and perspective of enduring consequence. His contributions in Mexican archaeology, classical and modern 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.

Life and career

Lovecraft associate

Barlow had been a friend of writers H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard since he was 13. He collaborated with Lovecraft on six stories (among them "The Battle that Ended the Century", "The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast", "Till A' the Seas" and "The Night Ocean"), and Lovecraft made several extended visits to the young Barlow at his home in DeLand, Florida.

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 autograph manuscripts.

At his death, Lovecraft's will named Barlow his literary executor. Barlow came to Providence, Rhode Island, shortly thereafter, donating most of the manuscripts and some printed matter to the John Hay Library of Brown University.

Barlow transcribed Lovecraft's novella The Shadow Out of Time and had the manuscript still in his possession when he secured a teaching position at Mexico City College. When he later became Chairman of the Department of Anthropology, he met June Ripley, a post-graduate student studying the Nahuatl language, Barlow's specialty. The two apparently became friends, and Barlow entrusted the manuscript to Ripley before his suicide. She remained in Mexico for seven more years, then taught at several places in the United States before retiring in 1993. She died December 28, 1994, and the long-lost Lovecraft manuscript was found by Ripley's sister-in-law Lucille Shreve. The manuscript, written in pencil in a child's notebook, was donated by Nelson and Lucille Shreve to the Lovecraft collection of John Hay Library.

Author, publisher

Barlow was interested in printing, and after he became involved in the early fan scene for fantasy and science fiction, published several important journals: The Dragon-Fly (two issues - Oct 15, 1935 and May 15, 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 under that imprint published two important works by members of the Lovecraft Circle: The Goblin Tower (the first verse collection by Frank Belknap Long; Lovecraft helped Barlow set the type for this), and "The Cats of Ulthar", a story by Lovecraft. [2]

Barlow's fiction career was interrupted in 1937 by a variety of circumstances, including the death of his friend and mentor Lovecraft, and his own uprooting from Florida because of family troubles. In 1938, he edited Lovecraft's Notes and Commonplace Book, and in 1939 edited After Sunset (John Howell, 1939), a collection of the best poems written by George Sterling in the last years before Sterling's suicide in 1926.

In 1943, Barlow lent assistance to the first bibliography of Lovecraft (by 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 also contributed the introduction for the 1944 Arkham House volume Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales, by his fellow Floridian and Weird Tales author Henry S. Whitehead.

Sculptor

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

Anthropologist

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 culture. He taught classes at Mexico City College, mostly American students funded by the post-war G.I. Bill. The famous writer William S. Burroughs studied the Mayan Codices under Barlow in the first half of 1950, and went on at least one field trip with him to the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan. The Mayan symbolism and political structure he found there 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 Mexico. 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 Mexico, the United States, and Europe. Concern for minutiae led to such works of detail as "The 18th Century Relaciones Geograficas".

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

Suicide

Barlow had written as early as 1944 that he had "a subtle feeling that my curious and uneasy life is not destined to prolong itself". He killed himself at his home in Azcapotzalco, D.F, Mexico, on the first or second of January, 1951, apparently fearing the exposure of his homosexuality by a disgruntled student. On that afternoon, he locked himself in his room, took twenty-six capsules of seconal, leaving pinned upon his door in Mayan pictographs, "Do not disturb me. I want to sleep a long time."

William S. Burroughs, then studying Spanish, the Mexican codices and the Mayan language under Barlow, briefly described his death in a letter to Allen Ginsberg, dated January 11: "A queer Professor from K.C., Mo., head of the Anthropology dept. here at M.C.C. [Mexico City College] where I collect my $75 per month, knocked himself off a few days ago with overdose of goof balls. Vomit all over the bed. I can't see this suicide kick."

Bibliography

Books by Barlow

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

Posthumous publications

• 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 collected 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 10 of the tales. (The 11th Annal, "An Episode in the Jungle", was unpublished until collected 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 half-legible copy, all he could find 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 Night Ocean (with H.P. Lovecraft). West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 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 nine stories by Barlow (all save "A Fragment" collected later in Eyes of the God (2002)), together with two essays: "R.H. Barlow and the Recognition of Lovecraft" by S. T. Joshi, and "Robert H. Barlow as 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's journal of Lovecraft's 1934 visit as "Memories of Lovecraft" (originally published as "The Barlow Journal" in August Derleth's Some Notes on H.P. Lovecraft (1959) and subsequently in the Derleth-edited Lovecraft compilation The Dark Brotherhood & Other Pieces (1966); both Derleth printings were heavily abridged). Secondly, Barlow's fragmentary "Autobiography" (approx 1938- Summer 1940).
• The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast and One 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 facsmile manuscripts of both stories, showing Lovecraft's hand 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 S. T. Joshi, Douglas A. Anderson and David E. Schultz. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2002. A comprehensive collection which excludes only Barlow's non-fiction (such as published letters, essays etc). It includes two previously unpublished tales, "The Bright Valley" and "The Fidelity of Ghu"; and also the previously unpublished 11th tale of Annals of the Jinns ("An Episode in the Jungle").

Books edited by Barlow

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

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

• Hart, Lawrence (ed). Accent on Barlow: A Comemmorative [sic] Anthology. San Rafael, CA: Lawrence Hart, 1962. Includes 39 poems by Barlow, one translation by Barlow of a poem by B. Ortiz de Montellano; together with poems by 15 other writers, and an appreciation of Barlow by Rosalie Moore and Lawrence Hart.
• Connors, Scott (ed). The Journal of the H.P. Lovecraft Society No 2 (1979). Entire issue devoted to Kenneth W. Faig's essay "R.H. Barlow". (The essay is reprinted in Faig's The Unknown Lovecraft. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2009).
• Berruti, Massimo. Dim-Remembered Stories: A Critical Study of R.H. Barlow NY: Hippocampus Press, 2012.

References

• Abrams, H. Leon (1983). Insights Into the Creative Genius of Robert Hayward Barlow Universidad de las Americas, A.C., p. 17–23.
• Abrams, H. Leon (1981). Robert Hayward Barlow: An Annotated Bibliography with Commentary Museum of Anthropology, Univ of Northern Colorado, p. 32 in all.
• Hart, Lawrence (May 1951). A Note on Robert Barlow unspecified pub., p. 115–16.
• Smisor, George T. (1952). R. H. Barlow and Tlalocan unspecified pub., p. 97–102.
• Burroughs, William S. (1993). The Letters of William S. Burroughs: Volume I, 1945–1959 Penguin Books.
• Dibble, Charles E. (April 1951). Robert Hayward Barlow - 1918–1951 unspecified pub.
• Joshi, S. T. & Schultz, David E. "Robert H. Barlow". An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia Wesport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, p. 15–16.
• Joshi, S. T. & Schultz, David E. (2007) O Fortunate Floridian: H. P. Lovecraft's Letters to Robert H. Barlow Tampa, Florida: University of Tampa Press.
• McQuown, Norman A. (1951). Robert Hamilton [sic] Barlow, 1918–1951 unspecified pub.
• Mooser, Claire (1968). A Study of Robert Barlow: The T. E. Lawrence of Mexico unspecified pub., p. 5–12.
• Ramos, Cesar Lizardi (1951). El Historiador Robert H. Barlow unspecified pub., p. 223–224.
• Students and faculty mourn passing of Professor Barlow (January 18, 1951)
• Wetzel, George (1976). Lovecraft's Literary Executor unspecified pub., p. 3–41. Rpt. Fantasy Commentator 4, No 1 (Winter 1978-79): 34-43.
• Jordan, Stephen J. (Fall 2001) (Fall 2001). H. P. Lovecraft in Florida unspecified pub., p. 14–21.

External links

• NNDB