“Commercial Blurbs“

   Series of five advertising articles written in 1925 (general title coined by R.H.Barlow). First published in LS(Spring 1988); rpt. MW.

   The five articles are as follows: “Beauty in Crystal” (on the Corning Glass Works, Corning, N.Y.); “The Charm of Fine Woodwork” (on the Curtis Companies, Clifton, IA); “Personality in Clocks” (on the Colonial Manufacturing Company, Zealand, MI); “A Real Colonial Heritage” (on the Erskine-Danforth Corporation, New York, N.Y.); and “A True Home of Literature” (on the Alexander Hamilton Book Shop, Paterson, N.J.). The articles were written in early 1925 for a trade magazine conceived by one Yesley (a friend of Arthur Leeds): authors would write the advertising copy (based on press notices or advertising matter supplied by the company) and have it published in the magazine; salesmen would then take the issue to the companies in question and urge them to buy a quantity of the magazines for advertising purposes, whereupon the author would get 10% of the net sales. But the venture never materialized, so far as can be ascertained, and HPL’s articles apparently were never published. HPL clearly sought out “high-toned” establishments to write about, and his articles — seemingly stiff and formal — are presumably meant to suggest the aristocratic quality of the products manufactured or sold by the companies about which he is writing.