Is Carter in The Unnamable our friend Randolph?

[lynnfredricks]

I was just re-reading The Unnamable last night, and I always assumed this Carter is also Randolph Carter. Does anyone know if HPL confirmed this himself in his various letters?

 

[Ningauble]

I was just re-reading The Unnamable last night, and I always assumed this Carter is also Randolph Carter. Does anyone know if HPL confirmed this himself in his various letters?

Yes. There is a reference in “The Silver Key” (IIRC) indicating this.

 

[lynnfredricks]

Yes. There is a reference in “The Silver Key” (IIRC) indicating this.

Maybe I am missing it. The events of "The Statement of Randolph Carter" are certainly in "The Silver Key". We know both Carters are writers, and there is a close association with Arkham. Are you thinking it is this:

"Then he went back to Arkham, the terrible witch-haunted old town of his forefathers in New England, and had experiences in the dark, amidst the hoary willows and tottering gambrel roofs, which made him seal forever certain pages in the diary of a wild-minded ancestor."

And this being the ancestor who was scarred up in The Unnamable?

 

[Ningauble]

Maybe I am missing it. The events of "The Statement of Randolph Carter" are certainly in "The Silver Key". We know both Carters are writers, and there is a close association with Arkham. Are you thinking it is this:

"Then he went back to Arkham, the terrible witch-haunted old town of his forefathers in New England, and had experiences in the dark, amidst the hoary willows and tottering gambrel roofs, which made him seal forever certain pages in the diary of a wild-minded ancestor."

And this being the ancestor who was scarred up in The Unnamable?

Yes. The diary is the one he is talking about in "The Unnamable".

 

[lynnfredricks]

Yes. The diary is the one he is talking about in "The Unnamable".

That's what I thought. My guess is this isn't Edmund Carter, though it could be (after fleeing Salem).