Sonia Haft Greene Lovecraft Davis (March 16, 1883 – December 26, 1972) was an American one-time
pulp fiction
''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Vin ...
writer and amateur publisher, businesswoman and
milliner
Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter.
Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of ...
who bankrolled several
fanzines
A fanzine (blend of '' fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share ...
in the early twentieth century. She is noted for her thirteen-year marriage to American
weird fiction
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horr ...
writer
H. P. Lovecraft. She was a president of the
United Amateur Press Association.
Life and work
Some of Greene's biographical details are unclear – she was born as either Sonia Haft Shafirkin or as Sonia Shaferkin Haft, in either
Ichnia
Ichnia (, ) is a town in Pryluky Raion, Chernihiv Oblast of Ukraine, located on the Ichenka River. It hosts the administration of Ichnia urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population is
Etymology
There is evidence that in ancient tim ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
or
Konotop
Konotop ( uk, Конотоп ) is a city in Sumy Oblast in northeastern Ukraine. Konotop serves as the administrative center of Konotop Raion. Konotop is located about 129 km from Sumy, the oblast administrative center. It is host to K ...
, Chernigov Province, to Simyon and Racille (Haft) Shafirkin. It is known that she came from a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family. Her father apparently died when she was a child in 1888, and her mother emigrated to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, leaving Sonia and her brother in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
at the Baron
Maurice de Hirsch
Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth (german: Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth; french: Maurice, baron de Hirsch de Gereuth; 9 December 1831 – 21 April 1896), commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, was a German Jewish financier and phila ...
School. Sonia joined her mother in the United States in 1892, after her mother remarried to a shopkeeper named Samuel Morris.
At the age of sixteen, on December 24, 1899, Sonia married Samuel Greene, a Russian whose name may have originally been Samuel Seckendorff, who was ten years her senior. The following year she gave birth to a son, who died at three months of age. Her daughter, Florence Carol (later
Carol Weld) was born on March 19, 1902. According to Lovecraft's correspondent Alfred Galpin Samuel Greene was "a man of brutal character". The marriage was turbulent, and Samuel Greene died in 1916, apparently by his own hand.
Greene was independently middle class, unusual for women of that time.
[S. T. Joshi, ''H.P. Lovecraft: A Life''.] She worked as a
milliner
Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter.
Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of ...
at a department store and traveled frequently for her job.
[Sonia H. Davis, ''The Private Life of H.P. Lovecraft''] Her salary enabled her to rent a house for herself and her daughter in
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park to the north, East Flatbush to the east, Midwood to the south, ...
, which at the time was an affluent suburb. She donated money to several amateur press publications, and traveled to amateur press conventions.
Greene's daughter Florence became a successful journalist under the name of Carol Weld. The two women had a tense relationship, and were eventually estranged. Greene did not mention her daughter in her volume, ''The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft,'' an autobiographical work which details only the period of her relationship and marriage with Lovecraft.
Relationship with H. P. Lovecraft
![H](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/H._P._Lovecraft_and_Sonia_Greene%2C_5_July_1921.png)
Greene met Howard P. Lovecraft in 1921 at an amateur press convention in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. She was introduced to the world of amateur journalism four years earlier by Lovecraft's colleague
James Ferdinand Morton, Jr. The October after meeting him, she issued ''The Rainbow'', a fanzine described by Reinhardt Kleiner as "a large and handsome affair, illustrated with half-tone reproductions of photographs of well-known amateurs of the day and containing excellent contributions by many of them." Lovecraft reviewed Greene's magazine at some length in ''The National Amateur'' (March 1922). A facsimile edition of the magazine was issued by
Necronomicon Press
Necronomicon Press is an American small press publishing house specializing in fiction, poetry and literary criticism relating to the horror and fantasy genres. It is run by Marc A. Michaud.
Necronomicon Press was founded in 1976, originall ...
in 1977.
Greene's best-known story is "
The Horror at Martin's Beach," revised and edited by
H. P. Lovecraft and retitled as ''The Invisible Monster'' when published in ''
Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, pri ...
'' (November 1923).
Lovecraft completed his story "
Under the Pyramids" in February 1924, but lost his typescript of the story at Union Station in Providence, Rhode Island when he was on his way to New York to marry Greene, who helped him for most of their honeymoon in Philadelphia retyping the manuscript.
Greene also penned the story "
Four O'Clock" (suggested by Lovecraft, but not revised by him) which was first printed in ''
Something About Cats and Other Pieces
''Something About Cats and Other Pieces'' is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories, poetry and essays by American author H. P. Lovecraft. 2,995 copies were released in 1949 and was the fourth collection of Lovecraft' ...
'', a collection that also includes "The Invisible Monster" and her memoir "Lovecraft as I Knew Him".
After their marriage in St. Paul's Chapel in Manhattan on March 3, 1924 (Greene was then aged 40 and Lovecraft 33), Greene and Lovecraft relocated to
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
and moved into her apartment. Soon the couple were facing financial difficulties. Greene lost her hat shop and suffered poor health. Lovecraft could not find work to support them both, so his wife moved to
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
for employment. Lovecraft lived by himself in the
Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn and came to dislike New York life intensely. In the last year or so of their marriage, Greene lived on the road, traveling for her job. She sent Lovecraft a weekly allowance that helped him pay for a tiny apartment in the then-working class
Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, ...
. Greene slept there one or two days out of the month. During this time, Lovecraft claimed in letters that he was so poor that he lived for three days on one loaf of bread, one can of cold beans, and a hunk of cheese. A few years later, Lovecraft (who had returned to live in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
) and his wife, still living separately, agreed to an amicable divorce, which was never fully completed.
In the 1930s Greene wrote a play called ''Alcestis'', the Prologue for which was written in Lovecraft's hand. It was unpublished until the mid-1980s, when it was issued in a facsimile holograph edition of 200 copies by R. Alain Everts' The Strange Company as by H.P. Lovecraft and Sonia Greene. Lovecraft scholar
S. T. Joshi, however, considers that the play is likely entirely Greene's work. The manuscript of ''Alcestis'' is among Greene's papers at the
John Hay Library
The John Hay Library (known colloquially as the Hay) is the second oldest library on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is located on Prospect Street opposite the Van Wickle Gates. After its constructio ...
.
Later years
After her marriage to Lovecraft ended, in 1933 Greene moved to
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. In 1936 she married a Dr. Nathaniel Abraham Davis of Los Angeles. She did not hear of Lovecraft's death until 1945, eight years after his death in 1937. Her marriage to Lovecraft was never legally ended because Lovecraft, although he assured her the divorce had been filed, failed to sign the final decree, so Greene's union with Davis was technically
bigamous
In cultures where monogamy is mandated, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. A legal or de facto separation of the couple does not alter their marital status as married persons. I ...
. Greene was informed of this late in life and it disturbed her considerably.
[S. T. Joshi, ''H.P. Lovecraft: A Life'', p.455.] Her third husband died in 1946.
Greene later resided at Diana Lynn Lodge, a home for the elderly which is still in operation in
Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles
Sunland-Tujunga is a Los Angeles city neighborhood within the Crescenta Valley and Verdugo Mountains. Sunland and Tujunga began as separate settlements and today are linked through a single police station, branch library, neighborhood council ...
, and died there in 1972, aged 89.
Works
Poems
* "To Florence"
* "Mors Omnibus Comunis (Written in a Hospital)". In ''The Rainbow'' 1, No 1 (Oct 1921). Facsimile ed, Necronomicon Press, 1977.
Stories
* "
The Horror at Martin's Beach". Revised by H.P. Lovecraft and published (as "The Invisible Monster") in''
Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, pri ...
''November 1969)
* "
Four O'Clock" Written in 1922 (not published until 1949 in''
Something About Cats and Other Pieces
''Something About Cats and Other Pieces'' is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories, poetry and essays by American author H. P. Lovecraft. 2,995 copies were released in 1949 and was the fourth collection of Lovecraft' ...
'').
Plays
* ''Alcestis'' (not published until 1985 by R. Alain Everts' The Strange Company, 200 copies only).
Memoir
* ''The Private Life of H.P. Lovecraft'' (written under the name Sonia H. Davis)
Essays/editorials
From ''The Rainbow'':
* "Amateurdom and the Editor"
* "Recruiting"
* "Opinion"
* "Commercialism"
* "Amateur Aphorisms"
* "A Game of Chess"
* "Heins versus Houtain"
From ''The Oracle'':
* "Fact vs. Opinion" (an editorial against censoring pornography)
Editor/investor
* ''The Organ of the United Amateur Press Association'' (amateur publication/fanzine)
* ''The Rainbow'' (amateur publication/fanzine)
Notes
References
Sources
* ''The Private Life of H.P. Lovecraft'', by Sonia Greene (
Necronomicon Press
Necronomicon Press is an American small press publishing house specializing in fiction, poetry and literary criticism relating to the horror and fantasy genres. It is run by Marc A. Michaud.
Necronomicon Press was founded in 1976, originall ...
, 1985, 1992) (). Italian translation: ''Vita privata di H.P. Lovecraft : documenti e testimonianze per una biografia'' Sonia Davis, Fritz Leiber, Samuel Loveman e altri ; traduzione e cura di Claudio De Nardi.Trento : Reverdito Editore, c1987.
* ''H.P. Lovecraft: A Life'', by
S. T. Joshi (Necronomicon Press, 1996) ()
*
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp (; November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and works of non-fiction, including biog ...
. "Sonia and HPL" in Wilfred B. Talman, ''The Normal Lovecraft''. Saddle River, NJ: Gerry de la Ree, 1973.
* Gerry de la Ree. "When Sonia Sizzled" in Wilfred B. Talman, ''The Normal Lovecraft''. Saddle River, NJ: Gerry de la Ree, 1973.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greene, Sonia
1883 births
1972 deaths
People from Chernihiv Oblast
Ukrainian Jews
American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
H. P. Lovecraft
Writers from Sunnyvale, California
Cthulhu Mythos writers
People from Flatbush, Brooklyn
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United Kingdom
Women science fiction and fantasy writers
American milliners