Howard Phillips Lovecraft (; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird and [fiction], who is known for his creation of what became known as the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life in New England.
His writings form the basis of the Cthulhu Mythos, which has inspired a large body of pastiches across several mediums drawing on Lovecraft's characters, setting and themes, constituting a wider subgenre known as Lovecraftian horror. ==Biography== === Early life and family tragedies === Lovecraft was born in his family home on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island.
Susie's family was of substantial means at the time of their marriage, her father, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, being involved in business ventures. In April 1893, after a psychotic episode in a Chicago hotel, Winfield was committed to Butler Hospital in Providence.
It was in this period that Lovecraft was introduced to some of his earliest literary influences such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by Gustave Doré, One Thousand and One Nights, a gift from his mother, Thomas Bulfinch's Age of Fable and Ovid's Metamorphoses. While there is no indication that Lovecraft was particularly close to his grandmother Robie, her death in 1896 had a profound effect.
In 1896, he was introduced to Greco-Roman myths and became "a genuine pagan". This came to an end in 1902, when Lovecraft was introduced to space.
Winfield spent five years in Butler before dying in 1898.
The written recollections of his peers described him as both withdrawn yet openly welcoming to anyone who shared his current fascination with astronomy, inviting anyone to look through the telescope he prized. By 1900, Whipple's various business concerns were suffering a downturn and slowly reducing his family's wealth.
He also examined the anatomy books available to him in the family library, learning the specifics of human reproduction that had yet to be explained to him, and found that it "virtually killed my interest in the subject". In 1902, according to Lovecraft's own correspondence, astronomy became a guiding influence on his world view.
In 1896, he was introduced to Greco-Roman myths and became "a genuine pagan". This came to an end in 1902, when Lovecraft was introduced to space.
In the spring of 1904, Whipple's largest business venture suffered a catastrophic failure.
Aside from a pause in 1904, he also resumed publishing the Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy as well as starting the Scientific Gazette, which dealt mostly with chemistry.
It was also during this period that Lovecraft produced the first of the types of fiction he would later be known for, namely "The Beast in the Cave" and "The Alchemist". It was in 1908, prior to his high school graduation, that Lovecraft suffered another health crisis of some sort, though this instance was seemingly more severe than any prior.
In another letter concerning the events of 1908, he notes, "I was and am prey to intense headaches, insomnia, and general nervous weakness which prevents my continuous application to any thing." Though Lovecraft maintained that he was to attend Brown University after high school, he never graduated and never attended school again.
Brobst further ventured that Lovecraft's 1908 breakdown was attributed to a "hysteroid seizure", a term that today usually denotes atypical depression.
In another letter concerning the events of 1908, Lovecraft stated that he "could hardly bear to see or speak to anyone, & liked to shut out the world by pulling down dark shades & using artificial light". === Earliest recognition === Few of Lovecraft and Susie's activities from late 1908 to 1913 are recorded.
In this period he also wrote racist poetry such as "New-England Fallen" and "On the Creation of Niggers"; there is no indication that either were ever published in his lifetime. In 1911, Lovecraft's letters to editors began appearing in pulp and weird-fiction magazines, most notably Argosy.
Lovecraft's first poem that was not self-published appeared in a local newspaper in 1912.
In his 1912 poem "On the Creation of Niggers", Lovecraft describes black people not as human but as "beast[s] ...
The copyright for Lovecraft's works would have been inherited by the only surviving heir named in his 1912 will, his aunt Annie Gamwell.
In 1913, he wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that ultimately led to his involvement in pulp fiction.
In another letter concerning the events of 1908, Lovecraft stated that he "could hardly bear to see or speak to anyone, & liked to shut out the world by pulling down dark shades & using artificial light". === Earliest recognition === Few of Lovecraft and Susie's activities from late 1908 to 1913 are recorded.
A 1913 letter critical of Fred Jackson, a prominent writer for Argosy, started Lovecraft down a path that would greatly affect his life.
Daas invited Russell and Lovecraft to the organization and both accepted, Lovecraft in April 1914. === Rejuvenation and tragedy === Lovecraft immersed himself in the world of amateur journalism for most of the following decade.
He thought of amateur journalism as training and practice for a professional career. Lovecraft was appointed chairman of the Department of Public Criticism of the UAPA in late 1914.
Lovecraft became pessimistic when he entered amateur journalism in 1914.
government's and the American public's reluctance to join the war to protect England, which he viewed as America's homeland. In 1916, Lovecraft published his early short story "The Alchemist" in the main UAPA journal, a departure from his usual verse.
In 1917, as Lovecraft related to Kleiner, Lovecraft made an aborted attempt to enlist in the army.
"Dagon" though, is considered Lovecraft's first work that embraced the concepts and themes that his writing would later be known for. In 1918, Lovecraft's term as president of the UAPA elapsed, and he took his former post as chairman of the Department of Public Criticism.
After his failed attempt to go to World War I, he attempted to enroll in the Rhode Island National Guard but was disqualified on medical grounds. In the winter of 1918–1919, Susie, exhibiting symptoms of a "nervous breakdown" of some sort, went to live with her elder sister Lillian.
In 1919, Lovecraft published another short story, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep".
Whatever the causes, in March 1919 they resulted in Susie being committed to Butler Hospital, like her husband before her.
Lovecraft periodically visited Susie and walked the large grounds with her. Late 1919 saw Lovecraft become more outgoing.
The influence of Dunsany is readily apparent in his 1919 output, later be to coined Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, with stories like "The White Ship", "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", and "The Statement of Randolph Carter".
In early 1920, at an amateur writer convention, he met Frank Belknap Long, who would end up being Lovecraft's most influential and closest confidant for the rest of his life.
In early 1920 followed "The Cats of Ulthar" and "Celephaïs". It was later in 1920 that Lovecraft began publishing the earliest stories that fit into the Cthulhu Mythos.
The poem "Nyarlathotep" and the short story "The Crawling Chaos", in collaboration with Winifred Virginia Jackson, were written in late 1920.
Starting in the 1920s, Lovecraft became familiar with the work of the German conservative-revolutionary theorist Oswald Spengler, whose pessimistic thesis of the decadence of the modern West formed a crucial element in Lovecraft's overall anti-modern worldview.
Following in early 1921 came "The Nameless City", the first story that falls definitively within the Cthulhu Mythos.
In it is found one of Lovecraft's most enduring bits of writing, a couplet recited by his creation Abdul Alhazred, "That is not dead which can eternal lie; And with strange aeons even death may die." On May 24, 1921, Susie died in Butler Hospital, due to complications from a gall bladder surgery five days earlier.
His viewpoints on religion are outlined in his 1922 essay "A Confession of Unfaith".
Morton in 1923, Lovecraft specifically pointed to Albert Einstein's theory on relativity as throwing the world into chaos and making the cosmos a jest; in a letter to Woodburn Harris in 1929, he speculated that technological comforts risk the collapse of science.
Lovecraft and Greene married on March 3, 1924, and relocated to her Brooklyn apartment at 793 Flatbush Avenue; she thought he needed to leave Providence to flourish and was willing to support him financially.
Established informally some years before Lovecraft arrived in New York, the core Kalem Club members were boys' adventure novelist Henry Everett McNeil, the lawyer and anarchist writer James Ferdinand Morton Jr., and the poet Reinhardt Kleiner. On New Year's Day of 1925, Sonia moved to Cleveland for a job opportunity, and Lovecraft left Flatbush for a small first-floor apartment on 169 Clinton Street "at the edge of Red Hook"—a location which came to discomfort him greatly.
In August 1925, he wrote "The Horror at Red Hook" and "He", in the latter of which the narrator says "My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration [...] I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me." It was at around this time he wrote the outline for "The Call of Cthulhu", with its theme of the insignificance of all humanity.
He had lost approximately of body weight by 1926, when he left for Providence. ===Return to Providence=== Back in Providence, Lovecraft lived in a "spacious brown Victorian wooden house" at 10 Barnes Street until 1933.
In theory, I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist. In 1926, famed magician and escapist Harry Houdini asked Lovecraft to ghostwrite a treatise exploring the topic of superstition.
Regarding the United States, all works published before 1926 are public domain.
Works Lovecraft published during his lifetime between 1926 and 1937 will indisputably be out of copyright as they enter the public domain annually between 2022 and 2033 (pre-1978 works do not use the life+70 rule in the US). Lovecraft had specified that the young R.
However, since April 1926 at the latest, Lovecraft had reserved to himself all second printing rights to stories published in Weird Tales.
This realization led him to shed his personal ignorance of then-current political and economic developments after 1927.
While it is unclear how consistently he voted, he voted for Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election.
Morton in 1923, Lovecraft specifically pointed to Albert Einstein's theory on relativity as throwing the world into chaos and making the cosmos a jest; in a letter to Woodburn Harris in 1929, he speculated that technological comforts risk the collapse of science.
By the 1930s, writer and publisher Herman Charles Koenig would be one of the last to become involved with the Kalem Club. Not long after the marriage, Greene lost her business and her assets disappeared in a bank failure; she also became ill.
Rhode Island as a whole remained politically conservative and Republican into the 1930s.
Instead, it was caused by the increase in socialism's political capital during the 1930s.
By the 1930s, Lovecraft's views on ethnicity and race had moderated.
In 1931 he admitted: "In youth I scarcely did any letter-writing—thanking anybody for a present was so much of an ordeal that I would rather have written a two hundred fifty-line pastoral or a twenty-page treatise on the rings of Saturn." (SL 3.369–70).
In 1932, he wrote in a letter to Robert E.
He had lost approximately of body weight by 1926, when he left for Providence. ===Return to Providence=== Back in Providence, Lovecraft lived in a "spacious brown Victorian wooden house" at 10 Barnes Street until 1933.
Greene moved to California in 1933 and remarried in 1936, unaware that Lovecraft, despite his assurances to the contrary, had never officially signed the final decree. ===Last years and death=== Lovecraft was never able to provide for even basic expenses by selling stories and doing paid literary work for others.
Later that year, she was forced to move herself and her son to a small duplex. Lovecraft has called this time one of the darkest of his life, remarking in a 1934 letter that he saw no point in living anymore.
Greene moved to California in 1933 and remarried in 1936, unaware that Lovecraft, despite his assurances to the contrary, had never officially signed the final decree. ===Last years and death=== Lovecraft was never able to provide for even basic expenses by selling stories and doing paid literary work for others.
Roosevelt, but he thought that the New Deal was not sufficiently leftist. In late 1936, he witnessed the publication of The Shadow over Innsmouth as a paperback book.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird and [fiction], who is known for his creation of what became known as the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life in New England.
He lived in constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937, in Providence.
Works Lovecraft published during his lifetime between 1926 and 1937 will indisputably be out of copyright as they enter the public domain annually between 2022 and 2033 (pre-1978 works do not use the life+70 rule in the US). Lovecraft had specified that the young R.
When Gamwell died in 1941, the copyrights passed to her remaining descendants, Ethel Phillips Morrish and Edna Lewis, who then signed a document, sometimes referred to as the Morrish-Lewis gift, permitting Arkham House to republish Lovecraft's works while retaining the copyrights for themselves.
For example, Lovecraft renamed the town of Oakham to Arkham and expanded it to include a nearby landmark. ==Critical reception== ===Literary=== Early efforts to revise an established literary view of Lovecraft as an author of 'pulp' were resisted by some eminent critics; in 1945, Edmund Wilson sneered: "the only real horror in most of these fictions is the horror of bad taste and bad art".
In 2020, Lovecraft was awarded the 1945 Retro-Hugo Award for Best Series for the Cthulhu Mythos. ===Music=== Lovecraft's fictional Mythos has influenced a number of musicians, especially in rock music.
On October 9, 1947, Derleth purchased all rights to Weird Tales.
Neighbour and friend Clara Hess, interviewed in 1948, recalled instances of Susie describing "weird and fantastic creatures that rushed out from behind buildings and from corners at dark".
Barlow committed suicide in 1951. Lovecraft protégés and part owners of Arkham House, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, often claimed copyrights over Lovecraft's works.
Subsequently, Lovecraft began to acquire the status of a cult writer in the counterculture of the 1960s, and reprints of his work proliferated. Michael Dirda, a reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, has described Lovecraft as being a "visionary" who is "rightly regarded as second only to Edgar Allan Poe in the annals of American supernatural literature".
Peter Levenda, an occult author who has written about the Necronomicon, claims that he and "Simon" came across a hidden Greek translation of the grimoire while looking through a collection of antiquities at a New York bookstore during the 1960s or 1970s.
Gale said that "Lovecraft at his best could build a mood of horror unsurpassed; at his worst, he was laughable." In 1962, Colin Wilson, in his survey of anti-realist trends in fiction The Strength to Dream, cited Lovecraft as one of the pioneers of the "assault on rationality" and included him with M.
Lovecraft II in 1967 and 1968 respectively; their songs included "The White Ship" and "At the Mountains of Madness", both titled after Lovecraft stories.
Lovecraft II in 1967 and 1968 respectively; their songs included "The White Ship" and "At the Mountains of Madness", both titled after Lovecraft stories.
Lovecraft (who shortened their name to Lovecraft and then Love Craft in the 1970s) released the albums H.
Peter Levenda, an occult author who has written about the Necronomicon, claims that he and "Simon" came across a hidden Greek translation of the grimoire while looking through a collection of antiquities at a New York bookstore during the 1960s or 1970s.
Following Derleth's death in 1971, his attorney proclaimed that all of Lovecraft's literary material was part of the Derleth estate and that it would be "protected to the fullest extent possible". S.
because it's a way to look into the mind of a true bigot, and realize just how alien their thinking is, just how disturbing their ability to dehumanize their fellow human beings is". The first World Fantasy Awards were held in Providence in 1975.
In 1977, fans erected a headstone in Swan Point Cemetery on which they inscribed his name, the dates of his birth and death, and the phrase "I AM PROVIDENCE"—a line from one of his personal letters. ==Personal views== ===Politics=== Lovecraft began his life as a Tory.
Chaosium's tabletop role-playing game Call of Cthulhu, released in 1981 and currently in its seventh major edition, was one of the first games to draw heavily from Lovecraft.
Though few subsequent Lovecraftian board games were released annually from 1987 to 2014, the years after 2014 saw a surge in the number of Lovecraftian board games, possibly because of the entry of Lovecraft's work into the public domain combined with a revival of interest in board games. Few video games are direct adaptations of Lovecraft's works, but many video games have been inspired or heavily influenced by Lovecraft.
In 1991, as a result of his rising place in American literature, it was popularly thought that Lovecraft extensively transcribed his dreams when writing fiction.
The European Union Copyright Duration Directive of 1993 extended the copyrights to 70 years after the author's death.
Called Providence in 2000 A.D., the poem envisioned a future where American of English descent were displaced by immigrants: Irish, Italians, Portuguese, and Jews.
This mechanic would go on to make appearance in subsequent table top and video games. 1987 saw the release of one of the first Lovecraftian board games, Arkham Horror, which sold extremely well, and since 2004 is still in print from Fantasy Flight Games.
In Mamatas' view, Lovecraft's quality is obscured by his difficulty, and his skill is what has allowed his following to outlive the followings of other prominent authors, such as Seabury Quinn and Kenneth Patchen. In 2005, the Library of America published a volume of Lovecraft's works.
The Library of America published a volume of Lovecraft's work in 2005, a reversal of the traditional judgment that there "has been nothing so far from the accepted canon as Lovecraft".
All of Lovecraft's works published during his lifetime became public domain in all 27 European Union countries on January 1, 2008.
Thacker at one point characterizes this as a tension between "I can't believe what I see" and "I can't see what I believe." ===Social=== Several media outlets published articles discussing Lovecraft's legacy as a horror fiction writer, with many outlets in the 2010s discussing and criticizing Lovecraft's racism and homophobia.
In July 2013, the Providence City Council designated "H.
Though few subsequent Lovecraftian board games were released annually from 1987 to 2014, the years after 2014 saw a surge in the number of Lovecraftian board games, possibly because of the entry of Lovecraft's work into the public domain combined with a revival of interest in board games. Few video games are direct adaptations of Lovecraft's works, but many video games have been inspired or heavily influenced by Lovecraft.
Until 2015, winners were presented with an elongated bust of Lovecraft that was designed by cartoonist Gahan Wilson, nicknamed the "Howard".
In November 2015 it was announced that the World Fantasy Award trophy would no longer be modeled on H.
A previously unknown manuscript of the work was discovered in 2016 in a collection owned by a magic shop.
In 2016, Lovecraft was inducted into the Museum of Pop Culture's Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
In 2020, Lovecraft was awarded the 1945 Retro-Hugo Award for Best Series for the Cthulhu Mythos. ===Music=== Lovecraft's fictional Mythos has influenced a number of musicians, especially in rock music.
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