H. P. Lovecraft, a frequent contributor to Weird Tales, became one of his favorite writers. The first of Lovecraft's stories he had read was "Pickman's Model", in Weird Tales for October 1927.Robert Bloch. Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorised Autobiography NY: Tor Books, 1993, p. 49. Bloch wrote: "In school I was forced to squirm my way through the works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Lowell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 'Pickman's Model', the ghouls ate all three. Now that, I decided, was poetic justice." As a teenager, Bloch wrote a fan letter to Lovecraft (1933), asking where he could find copies of earlier stories of Lovecraft's that Bloch had missed.Robert Bloch. Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorised Autobiography NY: Tor Books, 1993, pp. 64-65. Lovecraft lent them to him. Lovecraft also gave Bloch advice on his early fiction-writing efforts, asking whether Bloch had written any weird work and, if so, whether he might see samples of it. Bloch took up Lovecraft's offer in late April 1933, sending him two short items, "The Gallows" and another work whose title is unknown.S. T. Joshi, "A Literary Tutelage: Robert Bloch and H. P. Lovecraft". Studies in Weird Fiction No 16 (Winter 1995): 13-25; in Joshi's The Evolution of the Weird Tale. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2004, pp. 107-23; in Joshi's Lovecraft and a World in Transition: Collected Essays on H. P. Lovecraft. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2014, 548-565.
H. P. Lovecraft, a frequent contributor to Weird Tales, became one of his favorite writers. The first of Lovecraft's stories he had read was "Pickman's Model", in Weird Tales for October 1927.Robert Bloch. Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorised Autobiography NY: Tor Books, 1993, p. 49. Bloch wrote: "In school I was forced to squirm my way through the works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Lowell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 'Pickman's Model', the ghouls ate all three. Now that, I decided was poetic justice." As a teenager, Bloch wrote a fan letter to Lovecraft (1933), asking where he could find copies of earlier stories of Lovecraft's that Bloch had missed.Robert Bloch. Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorised Autobiography NY: Tor Books, 1993, pp. 64-65. Lovecraft lent them to him. Lovecraft also gave Bloch advice on his early fiction-writing efforts, asking whether Bloch had written any weird work and, if so, whether he might see samples of it. Bloch took up Lovecraft's offer in late April 1933, sending him two short items, "The Gallows" and another work whose title is unknown.S. T. Joshi, "A Literary Tutelage: Robert Bloch and H. P. Lovecraft". Studies in Weird Fiction No 16 (Winter 1995): 13-25; in Joshi's The Evolution of the Weird Tale. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2004, pp. 107-23; in Joshi's Lovecraft and a World in Transition: Collected Essays on H. P. Lovecraft. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2014, 548-565.