On sale December 15, 2025
by David Goudsward
(Available in paperback and hardcover)
The Sunshine State was a favorite vacation spot of H.P. Lovecraft. Where did he visit? What did he see? How might his Florida haunts have inspired his eclectic prose? David Goudsward traces the author’s footsteps across the southern tropics.
H.P. Lovecraft, the legendary author of horror fiction, gained a reputation for being a recluse. Contrary to that image, the author traveled extensively. His three visits to Florida are typical of his careful planning and limited finances. He would forego eating to afford postcards and postage to share his latest discovery or the newest location where he could bask in the sun while writing his letters.
Before his death in 1937, Lovecraft’s aversion to cold led him to admit that moving to St. Augustine was becoming more likely — despite his well-known declaration “I am Providence.” Each visit to the Sunshine State reinvigorated him, but Lovecraft was not a typical snowbird. His observations of Floridian flora and fauna appear in copious correspondence to Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert Bloch — and in stories such as The Shadow Out of Time.
In Adventurous Liberation, David Goudsward explores the locations and people Lovecraft encountered in Florida, situating them in historical and geographical context. Also included are biographical sketches of the pivotal figures in these trips, such as Henry S. Whitehead, his Gulf Coast host, on the verge of transitioning from the pulps into the glossy magazines; and the most significant Floridian host, Robert H. Barlow, the teen who roiled the Lovecraft circle by being appointed Lovecraft’s literary executor.
Advance praise for Adventurous Liberation:
“Adventurous Liberation is a microscopic deep-dive into the southernmost extent of Lovecraft country. Florida is the furthest HPL traveled from Providence, the ends of his little world, and those adventures and the people he met there had a profound impact on his life, fiction, and legacy.” —Bobby Derie, author of L’affaire Barlow and The Man Who Collected Lovecraft, et al.
“Drawing on exhaustive research, Goudsward uncovers a far more fully formed Lovecraft than his common conception as ‘the Old Gentleman from Providence,’ a more mature Lovecraft that thrived in the sun-drenched climes stretching across Florida. Both highly entertaining and equally sepulchral, had Lovecraft chosen his future biographers, Goudsward would have topped the list.” —Bill Darmon, director of Strange Magick: Lovecraft and Crowley in New Hampshire
“Adventurous Liberation captures Lovecraft’s travels away from his beloved Providence, Rhode Island, finding the author of weird fiction heading south to Florida in the 1930s to visit such intriguing figures as Henry S. Whitehead, Robert H. Barlow, and others. Goudsward’s painstaking research utilizes such primary documents as Lovecraft’s correspondence and other sources to create a narrative of travel for the reader as Lovecraft may have experienced it firsthand.”
— Marcos Legaria, author of L’affaire Barlow and The Man Who Collected Lovecraft
