W. Paul Cook

William Paul Cook (August 31, 1881 – January 22, 1948) was a printer, publisher, and editor in the amateur press movement. He was a friend and colleague of H. P. Lovecraft, encouraging his writing and publishing some of his first weird fiction.
Born in Mount Tabor, Vermont, Cook joined the United Amateur Press Association in 1901 and began publishing the Monadnock Monthly, a highly regarded amateur literary journal. In 1907, he was appointed the UAPA's official editor, though he resigned before serving his full term.An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, "Cook, W[illiam] Paul (1881-1948)," S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (Hippocampus Press, 2004). After marrying Adeline Emmeline Smith in Connecticut in 1912, he moved to Athol, Massachusetts, the next year.The Barre Montpelier Times Argus, "A Hobby and a Discovery," by A. C. Hutchison, January 9, 2005. 
Cook started publishing The Vagrant in 1915, which would continue to come out somewhat sporadically until 1927. He had a day job at the local newspaper, which allowed him to print The Vagrant and other amateur publications on its press; he got to know Lovecraft in 1917 when he agreed to print Lovecraft's journal The Conservative.
Cook and Lovecraft struck up a friendship; Cook read Lovecraft's juvenilia, publishing "The Beast in the Cave" in the June 1918 issue of The Vagrant, and encouraged him to resume writing fiction. Cook published "Dagon", which may be considered the first Cthulhu Mythos story, in the November 1919 issue. (The story was accompanied by a short piece by Cook, "Howard P. Lovecraft's Fiction", which has been called "the first critical article on HPL's stories." "The Statement of Randolph Carter", the first appearance of Lovecraft's recurring autobiographical character Randolph Carter, appeared in May 1920. Other Lovecraft stories that appeared first in The Vagrant include "The Tomb" (March 1922) and (with Winifred V. Jackson) "The Green Meadow" (Spring 1927).
During this time Cook served as official editor of the National Amateur Press Association from 1918 to 1919, and as its president from 1919 to 1920. Lovecraft, Cook, Jackson, and two others founded The United Co-Operative in December 1918, which published Lovecraft and Jackson's collaboration "The Crawling Chaos" in its third and final issue (April 1921).ZineWiki, "The United Co-Operative".
Cook solicited Lovecraft to write a study of weird fiction that became Supernatural Horror in Literature; it was published in the only issue of Cook's journal The Recluse (1927).The H. P. Lovecraft Archive, "Data Page for 'Supernatural Horror in Literature'".
In 1928, after "The Shunned House" was rejected by Weird Tales, Cook printed it as a chapbook; most of the 300 copies were not bound, however, until they were finished by Arkham House in 1959-61.
Lovecraft's stay with Cook in Athol in the summer of 1928 helped inspire "The Dunwich Horror". Lovecraft later traveled with Cook, to Boston, Newburyport, and Haverhill in 1931; to Newburyport (to see a solar eclipse) in 1932; and to Boston, Salem, and Marblehead in 1934.An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, "Travels, Lovecraft's," S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (Hippocampus Press, 2004).
After Lovecraft's death, Cook wrote In Memoriam: Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Driftwind Press, 1941), which An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia called "still perhaps the best memoir of HPL."
==Selected Bibiography==
*In Memoriam: Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Recollections, Appreciations, Estimates (1941)
==References==
Category:Deceased (Real World)
Category:Lovecraft Circle Authors
Category:Non-Fiction Authors