A master of fantastic horror stories, Howard Phillips Lovecraft He was born on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island. Lovecraft had an unusual childhood marked by tragedy. When he was about three years old, his father, who was a traveler by profession, developed a type of mental disorder caused by syphilis; shortly after, he was admitted to Butler Hospital in Providence, and there he remained until his death in 1898.
In 1914, he joined the United Amateur Press Association as an aspiring journalist. The following year, he published his magazine The Conservative for which he wrote several essays and other pieces. Although he had dabbled in fiction before, around 1917 he took the job of writing stories more seriously. Many of these early works were influenced by the writings of Lord Dunsany, an Irish fantasy-story author, as well as his first favorite, Edgar Allan Poe.
The horror magazine Weird Tales bought some of the stories from Lovecraft in 1923, giving him his first experience of literary success. The following year, he married Sonia Greene. The couple lived in New York City for two years before separating. After her failed marriage, she returned to Rhode Island and began working on some of her best stories. “Call of Cthulhu“came out in 1928 in Weird Tales, and is perhaps the one that best illustrates his efforts to create an ‘otherworldly terror’ of a kind.
Lovecraft introduced his readers to the first of many supernatural beings wreaking havoc on mankind. Elements of this story would reappear in other related tales – collectively known to many as the “Cthulhu mythsThese later stories reflected his own philosophical ideals. According to American Heritage magazine, Lovecraft wrote once, “all my stories are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or importance in the macro cosmos“.
In his later years, he was barely able to support himself. I’d take editing and ghostwriting jobs to try and make ends meet. Lovecraft died of cancer on March 15, 1937, in Providence, Rhode Island.
He left more than 60 stories and some novels, among them The case of Charles Dexter Ward. His death was mourned by his devoted followers, colleagues, and aspiring writers with whom he collaborated. Two of these friends, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, formed a publishing company called Arkham House to promote and preserve the work of Lovecraft.