Good Old Mac: Henry Everett McNeil, 1862—1929

The 'ground zero' of modern horror was the notorious slum of Hell's Kitchen, New York, in the 1920s. There H.P. Lovecraft and his circle met regularly, in the flat of the simple old bachelor who had brought them together. This curious boy-man was Henry Everett McNeil, and he was Lovecraft's good friend. In his walking tours of New York's secret slums, McNeil opened new doors in Lovecraft's macabre imagination and may have been the model for "He". This is the first book on McNeil and his career. An in-depth scholarly biographical essay of 13,000 words uncovers: his origins and war record; McNeil's work as a scriptwriter for the earliest western genre movies; his work as a staff writer for Vitagraph and then for Edison's movie division; and his turbulent publishing career. The book also tries to answer the riddle of why McNeil was apparently so poor, when he was a best-selling author and a reviewer of books for The New York Times. The essay is accompanied by a selection of McNeil's works.