Sonia Greene facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sonia Greene
Born	March 16, 1883 Ichnia, Russian Empire
Died	December 26, 1972(1972-12-26) (aged 89) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Writer, publisher
Language	English
Genre	Pulp fiction
Spouse	Samuel Greene ​ ​ (m. 1899; died 1916)​ H. P. Lovecraft ​ ​ (m. 1924; died 1937)​ Nathaniel Davis ​ ​ (m. 1936; died 1946)​
Children	2

Sonia Haft Greene Lovecraft Davis (born March 16, 1883 – died December 26, 1972) was an American writer, publisher, and businesswoman. She also worked as a milliner, which means she made and sold hats. Sonia helped fund several fan magazines, called fanzines, in the early 1900s. She is well-known for her thirteen-year marriage to the famous American writer H. P. Lovecraft. She also served as the president of the United Amateur Press Association.

Sonia Greene's Early Life and Career

Some details about Sonia Greene's early life are not completely clear. She was born as Sonia Haft Shafirkin or Sonia Shaferkin Haft. Her birthplace was either Ichnia, Ukraine, or Konotop, in the Russian Empire. Her parents were Simyon and Racille (Haft) Shafirkin. Sonia came from a Jewish family.

Her father passed away in 1888 when she was a child. Her mother then moved to the United States. Sonia and her brother stayed in Liverpool for a while, attending the Baron Maurice de Hirsch School. Sonia joined her mother in the United States in 1892. Her mother had remarried a shopkeeper named Samuel Morris.

On December 24, 1899, when she was sixteen, Sonia married Samuel Greene. He was from Russia and was ten years older than her. The next year, she gave birth to a son who sadly passed away when he was three months old. Her daughter, Florence Carol (who later became Carol Weld), was born on March 19, 1902. Sonia's marriage to Samuel Greene was difficult. Samuel Greene died in 1916.

Becoming an Independent Woman

Sonia Greene was unusual for women of her time because she was financially independent. She worked as a milliner at a department store. Her job often required her to travel. With her earnings, she was able to rent a house for herself and her daughter in Flatbush, Brooklyn. At that time, Flatbush was a wealthy area.

Sonia also gave money to several amateur press publications. She traveled to conventions for amateur journalists. Her daughter, Florence, grew up to become a successful journalist named Carol Weld. However, Sonia and Florence had a difficult relationship and eventually grew apart. Sonia did not mention her daughter in her book, The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft. This book only talks about her time with Lovecraft.

Relationship with H. P. Lovecraft

Lovecraft and Sonia Greene on July 5, 1921

Sonia Greene met Howard P. Lovecraft in 1921 at a convention for amateur journalists in Boston. She had been introduced to the world of amateur journalism four years earlier by Lovecraft's friend James Ferdinand Morton, Jr..

In October after meeting Lovecraft, Sonia started her own fanzine called The Rainbow. It was a large and impressive magazine. It included photos of well-known amateur writers and great articles from many of them. Lovecraft himself wrote a long review of Sonia's magazine in The National Amateur in March 1922.

Sonia's Writings

Sonia Greene's most famous story is "The Horror at Martin's Beach." H. P. Lovecraft helped her revise and edit it. It was then published as The Invisible Monster in Weird Tales magazine in November 1923.

Lovecraft finished his story "Under the Pyramids" in February 1924. However, he lost his typed copy of the story at Union Station in Providence, Rhode Island. He was on his way to New York to marry Sonia Greene. Sonia helped him retype the entire story during most of their honeymoon in Philadelphia.

Sonia also wrote a story called "Four O'Clock." Lovecraft suggested the idea for this story, but he did not revise it. It was first published in Something About Cats and Other Pieces. This collection also includes "The Invisible Monster" and her personal story "Lovecraft as I Knew Him."

Marriage and Challenges

Sonia and Lovecraft got married on March 3, 1924, at St. Paul's Chapel in Manhattan. Sonia was 40 years old, and Lovecraft was 33. After their wedding, they moved into Sonia's apartment in Brooklyn.

Soon, the couple faced money problems. Sonia lost her hat shop and also had health issues. Lovecraft could not find work to support them both. Because of this, Sonia moved to Cleveland to find a job. Lovecraft stayed by himself in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn. He really disliked living in New York.

In the last year or so of their marriage, Sonia traveled a lot for her job. She sent Lovecraft a weekly allowance. This money helped him pay for a small apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Sonia would only stay there one or two days a month. During this time, Lovecraft wrote in letters that he was so poor he sometimes lived for three days on just one loaf of bread, a can of cold beans, and a piece of cheese.

A few years later, Lovecraft moved back to Providence, Rhode Island. He and Sonia were still living apart. They agreed to get a divorce, but it was never fully completed.

In the 1930s, Sonia Greene wrote a play called Alcestis. Lovecraft wrote the introduction for it. The play was not published until the mid-1980s. Some people thought Lovecraft might have written parts of it. However, a Lovecraft expert named S. T. Joshi believes the play was likely written entirely by Sonia. The original manuscript of Alcestis is kept at the John Hay Library.

Later Years

After her marriage to Lovecraft ended, Sonia Greene moved to California in 1933. In 1936, she married Dr. Nathaniel Abraham Davis in Los Angeles. She did not find out about Lovecraft's death until 1945, eight years after he passed away in 1937.

Because Lovecraft never signed the final divorce papers, Sonia's marriage to Davis was not fully legal. She learned about this later in her life, and it upset her a lot. Her third husband, Nathaniel Davis, died in 1946.

Sonia Greene later lived at Diana Lynn Lodge, a home for older people in Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles. She passed away there in 1972, at the age of 89.

Sonia Greene's Works

Poems

• "To Florence"
• "Mors Omnibus Comunis (Written in a Hospital)". This poem appeared in The Rainbow in October 1921.

Stories

• "The Horror at Martin's Beach". This story was revised by H.P. Lovecraft and published as "The Invisible Monster" in Weird Tales in November 1969.
• "Four O'Clock". Written in 1922, this story was published in 1949 in Something About Cats and Other Pieces.

Plays

• Alcestis. This play was not published until 1985.

Memoir

• The Private Life of H.P. Lovecraft. Sonia wrote this book under the name Sonia H. Davis.

Essays and Editorials

From The Rainbow:

• "Amateurdom and the Editor"
• "Recruiting"
• "Opinion"
• "Commercialism"
• "Amateur Aphorisms"
• "A Game of Chess"
• "Heins versus Houtain"

Editor and Investor

• The Organ of the United Amateur Press Association (an amateur publication/fanzine)
• The Rainbow (an amateur publication/fanzine)

See also

In Spanish: Sonia Greene para niños