H. P. Lovecraft

Lore & Background

Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the only child of Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Lovecraft. After his father was institutionalized in 1893, he lived affluently until his family's wealth dissipated after the death of his grandfather. He then lived with his mother with reduced financial security until she too was institutionalized in 1919. He began to write essays for the United Amateur Press Association and in 1913 wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that led to his involvement in pulp fiction. Marrying Sonia Greene in 1924, Lovecraft moved to New York City and became a central figure in the 'Lovecraft Circle'. His time in New York took a toll on his mental state and financial conditions, and he returned to Providence in 1926, remaining active as a writer for 11 years until his death at age 46. During this final period he produced some of his most popular works, including The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time.

Reader's Guide

Lovecraft's literary corpus is rooted in cosmicism, his personal philosophy and the main theme of his fiction, which posits that humanity is an insignificant part of the cosmos. He incorporated fantasy and science fiction elements into his stories, representing the fragility of anthropocentrism. His works were largely set in a fictionalized version of New England, and civilizational decline plays a major role. Lovecraft's early political views were conservative and traditionalist; he held racist views for much of his adult life. After the Great Depression, his political views became more socialist while remaining elitist and aristocratic. Throughout his adult life, he was never able to support himself from his earnings as an author and editor. He was virtually unknown during his lifetime and was almost exclusively published in pulp magazines before his death. A scholarly revival of his work began in the 1970s, and he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors of supernatural horror fiction. Many direct adaptations and spiritual successors followed, forming the basis of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Did You Know?

• Lovecraft maintained that his father fell into a paralytic state due to insomnia and overwork, but his death certificate listed general paresis, a term synonymous with late-stage syphilis.
• Lovecraft's earliest known literary works were original poems and stories, not restylings of the Odyssey.
• The periodical 'The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy' was a handwritten manuscript, not printed using the hectograph method.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Disintegration is quite painless, I assure you." — H. P. Lovecraft "The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!" — H. P. Lovecraft "Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon." — H. P. Lovecraft "I screamed aloud that I was not afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We swore to one another that the city was exactly the same, and still alive..." — H. P. Lovecraft