Although undated, this is from October 1931 and is the first letter from Barlow, a member of the Lovecraft circle and an important early fan, to REH.

He mentions HPL (and that at HPL’s request he is forwarding the HPL manuscript originally enclosed with this letter to REH). The manuscript he references is “The Mountains of Madness,” which HPL asked Barlow to send on to REH in a letter dated September 25, 1931.

REH mentions this Barlow letter in an October 1931 letter to his friend Tevis Clyde Smith as follows: “This morning I took out a big registered envelope with a ‘War Department’ letter-head. I had visions of me shouldering a Springfield already, but it was from a gentleman named Barlow, at Fort Benning, Georgia, asking me for my autograph, for which purpose he enclosed a blank sheet of paper and a stamped self-addressed envelope. He also enclosed a 115 page ms. which he said Lovecraft had instructed him to forward me. It’s the Antarctic story which Farnsworth rejected, and which Lovecraft promised to let me read in the original.” The letter also references REH’s “King of the Night” (the first Bran Mak Morn story, and one in which Kull makes an appearance) which appeared in the November 1930 issue of Weird Tales.

Signed by Barlow.

Thanks to Doug Ellis of the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention for providing a digital copy of the letter and the information. Visit http://www.windycitypulpandpaper.com/ for more details.