Robert Harrison Blake

Robert Harrison Blake is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. The character is the creation of H. P. Lovecraft and appears in his short story "The Haunter of the Dark" (1935).

In Lovecraft's tale, Robert Blake is a young author and painter from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He comes to Providence, Rhode Island and moves into an apartment on College Street. While there, he completes five short stories: "The Burrower Beneath", "The Feaster from the Stars", "In the Vale of Pnath", "Shaggai", and "The Stairs in the Crypt". He becomes obsessed with a deserted church on Federal Hill across the street from his residence. He later learns of a cult that was once active there, the Church of Starry Wisdom. His investigation of this cult inevitably leads to his death.

Lovecraft based Robert Blake on one of his correspondents, the teenage Robert Bloch who had just begun his career as a writer of horror and science fiction. In the story, Lovecraft even had Blake residing at Bloch's real-life address at the time: 620 E. Knapp Street, Milwaukee.

The development of the Robert Blake character has a notable backstory. The character first appeared as the unnamed narrator of Bloch's "The Shambler from the Stars" (1935). Before he wrote the tale, Bloch thought it would be amusing to kill off a character based on Lovecraft. Lovecraft consented to the idea and gave his permission in the form of a satirical letter, signed by Lovecraft himself and "attested" by several of his creations: Abdul Alhazred, Gespard du Nord, Frederich von Juntz, and the "Tcho-Tcho Lama of Leng" (possibly referring to the High Priest Not to Be Described). The body of the letter appears as follows:

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