The Black Beast

Henry St. Clair Whitehead (March 5, 1882 - November 23, 1932) was an American writer of horror fiction and fantasy [1] Henry S. Whitehead was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on March 5, 1882, and graduated from Harvard University in 1904 (in the same class as Franklin D. Roosevelt).[2] He later attended Berkeley Divinity School, and was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1912. He served as acting archdeacon of the Virgin Islands from 1921 to 1929. [1] While there, living on the island of St. Croix, Whitehead gathered the material he was to use in his tales of the supernatural. A correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft, Whitehead published stories from 1924 onward in Adventure, Black Mask, Strange Tales,[2] and especially Weird Tales; in his introduction to Jumbee, R. H. Barlow would later describe Whitehead as a member of "the serious Weird Tales school".[2] Whitehead's supernatural fiction was partially modelled on the work of Edward Lucas White and William Hope Hodgson. [2] In later life, Whitehead lived in Dunedin, Florida, as rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd and a leader of a boys group there. H. P. Lovecraft was a particular friend of Whitehead's, visiting him at his Dunedin home for several weeks in 1931. Lovecraft said of him: "He has nothing of the musty cleric about him; but dresses in sports clothes, swears like a he-man on occasion, and is an utter stranger to bigotry or priggishness of any sort." Lovecraft expressed admiration for Whitehead's work, described his story "The Passing of a God" as "perhaps representing the peak of his creative genius". [1] Stefan Dziemianowicz describes Whitehead's West Indian tales as "virtually unmatched for the vividness with which they convey the awe and mystery of their exotic locale".[2] source: WIkipedia