H. P. Lovecraft
| Famous as | Writer |
| Born on | 20 August 1890 |
| Born in | Providence, Rhode Island, United States |
| Died on | 15 March 1937 |
| Nationality | United States |
H. P. Lovecraft Childhood
H. P. Lovecraft was born on 20 August 1890 in Providence, Rhode
Island, United States to father Winfield Scott Lovecraft, a travelling
salesman of jewellery and precious metals and mother Sarah Susan
Phillips Lovecraft. In 1893 Lovecraft was 3 years old when his father
became acutely psychotic in a Chicago hotel room
while on a business trip. Winfield Scott Lovecraft was shifted to his
hometown Providence in Butler Hospital where he stayed till his death in
1898.
Young Lovecraft was brought up by his mother, two of his aunts,
Lillian Delora Phillips and Annie Emeline Phillips and maternal
grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, an American businessman.
Lovecraft was an intelligent kid and a child prodigy who could read
poetry at the age of 3. He could write complete poems at the age of 6.
His grandfather greatly encouraged his reading habit by gifting
Lovecraft classics like ‘The Arabian Nights’, ‘Bulfinch's Age of Fable’,
and children's versions of ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’. His interest
into thing things weird were instilled by his grandfather who told him
original tales of Gothic horror which worried Lovecraft’s mother
greatly. He often fell ill and most of his illness are said to be
psychosomatic. By 1899 he produced several hectographed publications
with a limited circulation with ‘The Scientific Gazette’. He went to at
Hope High School (Rhode Island), a public school. He had always
suffered from nightmares and horrific dreams and most of his work has
been inspired by his night terrors.
In 1904 Lovecraft’s grandfather died leaving his life shattered and
changing his family’s financial conditions. His grandfather’s finances
and family estates were subjected to mismanagement thus his family
became poor and moved to smaller accommodations at Angell Street.
Youth
Lovecraft wrote certain amount of fiction during his youth but most
of his creative pursuit from 1908 until 1913 surrounded around poetry.
He was a lonely young man having no contact with anyone except for his
mother. However, he engaged himself in a debate when he posted a letter
to ‘The Argosy’, a pulp magazine, complaining about the flat nature of
the love stories written by one
of the publication's popular writers. This debate was spotted by Edward
F. Daas, President of the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA), who
invited Lovecraft to join them in 1914. It was with UAPA’s insistence
that Lovecraft wrote and submitted many poems and essays. In 1917
Lovecraft was urged by many of his correspondents to resume writing
fiction to which he rightly obliged coming up with greatly polished
stories like “The Tomb” and “Dagon”. Dagon was published as Lovecraft’s
first professional work in November 1919 by The Vagrant publication.
Lovecraft connected with many correspondents. He sought several notable
correspondents like Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E.
Howard.
In 1919 Lovecraft’s mother was admitted to Butler Hospital, much
like her husband, after suffering from severe bouts of depression and
hysteria. However, all this while she never stopped writing letters to
Lovecraft. She died on 24 May 1921 (due to complications arising out of
gall bladder surgery) leaving Lovecraft all alone (he was very close to his mother all his life) and devastated.
Marriage
A few weeks passed after his mother’s death when Lovecraft went to
attend an amateur journalist convention in Boston, Massachusetts where
he came across Sonia Greene who was 7 years older to him and of
Ukrainian-Jewish descent. In 1924 Lovecraft married Sonia before moving
into Chris Tompkins' apartment in Brooklyn with her. Although Lovecraft
was interested to stay in New York, he faced financial struggles. His
family (aunts) was unhappy with his alliance with Greene as she was a
business owner having a hat shop to her name. Lovecraft had no work to
sustain his family and Greene moved to Cleveland for employment, also
losing her hat shop and suffering from poor health. While living in the
Red Hook neighbourhood of Brooklyn all by himself, Lovecraft started
hating New York intensely. He could not come to terms with his life,
neither could he get any work for himself and his sense of failure made
him write the short story “The Horror at Red Hook” on 1 or 2nd
August 1925 which was published in the January 1927 issue of Weird
Tales. Lovecraft lived a life separated from his wife and after living
separately for some more years the couple agreed to an amicable divorce
which never got completed. He returned to Providence and started living
with his aunts.
Work and Influences
Lovecraft is greatly known for his horror fiction writing,
especially The “Cthulhu Mythos” which is also known as the “Lovecraft
Mythos” was the concept of a shared fictional universe which also has
fictional elements like places, names and entities. Popular cultures
have referred and borrowed from Lovecraft’s works. Several notable
writers like Stephen King, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Mike Mignola and
many of his contemporary authors like August Derleth, Robert E. Howard,
Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber have been inspired by Lovecraft’s works.
Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote his short story "There Are More
Things" in memory of Lovecraft. Contemporary French writer Michel
Houellebecq wrote a literary biography of Lovecraft called H. P.
Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life. Prolific American writer
Joyce Carol Oates wrote an introduction for a collection of Lovecraft
stories. The Library of America published a volume of Lovecraft's work
in 2005, essentially declaring him a canonical American writer.
In the music world there are great many examples of Lovecraft’s
influences. The psychedelic rock band H. P. Lovecraft (who shortened
their name to Lovecraft and then Love Craft in the 1970s)
released the H. P. Lovecraft and H. P. Lovecraft II albums in 1967 and
1968 respectively, Metal band Metallica recorded a song, “The Call of
Cthulhu”, a song based on “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” titled “The Thing
That Should Not Be”, and a song based on Frank Belknap Long's “The
Hounds of Tindalos”, titled “All Nightmare Long”, Black Sabbath's
"Behind the Wall of Sleep" which appeared on their 1970 debut album and
is based on Lovecraft's short story “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” and The
Darkest of the Hillside Thickets whose entire repertoire is
Lovecraft-based.
The gaming world has also been influenced by Lovecraft. The
role-playing game “Call of Cthulhu” has been in print for 30 years,
computer horror adventure games like Alone in the Dark, Chzo Mythos,
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened,
Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Dead Space, "Splatterhouse" and the Penumbra
series are heavily influenced by Lovecraft.
Themes in his Work
Lovecraft’s stories have various themes and concepts. One of the
most central themes in most of his works is that of forbidden knowledge.
His critics and biographers often refer to Lovecraft’s hatred and
failure making way for the reflection of these themes in his works. In
most of his works, the search for forbidden knowledge drives many of the
main characters, either filling the seeker with regret from what they
have learned, destroying them psychically, or completely destroying the
person who holds the knowledge. Lovecraft refers to certain beings that
have human servants like the ‘Cthulhu’ which is worshiped under various
names by cults amongst both the Eskimos of Greenland and voodoo circles
of Louisiana, and in many other parts of the world. Many of the mythos
in his stories were too powerful to be defeated by human opponents, and
so horrific that direct knowledge of them meant insanity for the victim.
He also used ideas of guilt in his works like crimes in a bloodline
that never escape the descendants. Fate is another important factor that
has often found its place with the protagonists in Lovecraft’s works.
The most controversial theme used by Lovecraft is racism. He did
not hold all White people in high regard, but rather he held English
people and people of English descent above all others. In many of his
writings he had argued on a strong colour line for the purpose of
preserving race and culture. He had adjusted his views toward the end of
his life as he began to travel more and contacted many people who were
from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Lovecraft’s fictional writing had Misotheism which repeatedly found
its place in his works. He was an atheist in his early life. Most of
his protagonists were educated men favouring the claims of the physical
sciences over those of scripture.
Lovecraft also loved including the risk factors involved in a
scientific era. He often portrayed the growing gap of man's
understanding of the universe as a potential for horror. In March 1927
Lovecraft wrote ‘The Colour Out of Space’, a short story that spoke of
the inability of science to comprehend a contaminated meteorite leads to
horror.
Later Years and Death
Lovecraft stayed in Providence till the end of his days. He lived
at 10 Barnes Street until 1933. He wrote ‘The Case of Charles Dexter
Ward’ a short novel in early 1927. His stay in Providence in his later
years turned out to be his most productive years in terms of creativity.
He wrote a horror novella, ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ in
February/March 1931. During this time Lovecraft worked on many
publications as a ghost writer. “The Mound” is a novella H. P. Lovecraft
had written as a ghost-writer from December 1929 to January 1930.
“Under the Pyramids” also published as “Entombed with the Pharaohs” and
“Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” was another short story (ghost written)
created by author H. P. Lovecraft in February 1924.
Lovecraft often referred himself as a “New Deal Democrat”. He was a
great supporter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and he kept “moderately
socialist” political views.
As a great writer Lovecraft never could se wealth and money in his
life. He had to move to cheap lodgings. In 1936 he was diagnosed with
cancer of the intestine and he also suffered from Bright's disease and
malnutrition. He lived his final years in great pain. He died on 15
March 1937 in Providence.
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H. P. Lovecraft Timeline: | ||||
1890 - H. P. Lovecraft was born on 20 August
1893 - Lovecraft was 3 years old when his father became acutely psychotic in a Chicago hotel room while on a business trip
1898 - Winfield Scott Lovecraft was shifted to his hometown Providence in Butler Hospital where he stayed till his death
1899 – By this time he produced several hectographed publications with a limited circulation with ‘The Scientific Gazette’
1904 - Lovecraft’s grandfather died leaving his
life shattered and changing his family’s financial conditions. His
grandfather’s finances and family estates were subjected to
mismanagement thus his family became poor and moved to smaller
accommodations at Angell Street
1908-1913 - Lovecraft wrote certain amount of fiction during his youth but most of his creative pursuit surrounded around poetry
1914 - Edward F. Daas, President of the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA) invited Lovecraft to join them
1917 - Lovecraft was urged by many of his
correspondents to resume writing fiction to which he rightly obliged
coming up with greatly polished stories like “The Tomb” and “Dagon”
1919 - Dagon was published as Lovecraft’s first professional work in November by The Vagrant publication
1919 - Lovecraft’s mother was admitted to Butler
Hospital, much like her husband, after suffering from severe bouts of
depression and hysteria
1921 - She died on 24 May (due to complications
arising out of gall bladder surgery) leaving Lovecraft all alone (he was
very close to his mother all his life) and devastated
1924 - Lovecraft married Sonia before moving into Chris Tompkins' apartment in Brooklyn with her
1924 - “Under the Pyramids” also published as
“Entombed with the Pharaohs” and “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” was
another short story (ghost written) created by author H. P. Lovecraft in
February
1925 - He could not come to terms with his life,
neither could he get any work for himself and his sense of failure made
him write the short story “The Horror at Red Hook” on 1 or 2nd August
1927 - The Horror at Red Hook was published in the January issue of Weird Tales
1927 - In March Lovecraft wrote ‘The Colour Out of
Space’, a short story that spoke of the inability of science to
comprehend a contaminated meteorite leads to horror
1927 - He wrote ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward’ a short novel
1929 to 1930 - “The Mound” is a novella, H. P. Lovecraft had written as a ghost-writer from December 1929 to January 1930
1931 - He wrote a horror novella, ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ in February/March
1936 - He was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine and he also suffered from Bright's disease and malnutrition
1937 - He died on 15 March in Providence
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