NationMaster - Encyclopedia: H.P.Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction, noted for combining these three genres within single narratives. Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, but his works have become highly important and influential among writers and fans of modern horror fiction. Portrait photograph of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. ... August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Nickname: Beehive of Industry Motto: Official website: http://www. ... Official language(s) None Capital Providence Largest city Providence Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 50th 4,005 kmÂ² 50 km 65 km 32. ... March 15 is the 74th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (75th in Leap years). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Nickname: Beehive of Industry Motto: Official website: http://www. ... Official language(s) None Capital Providence Largest city Providence Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 50th 4,005 kmÂ² 50 km 65 km 32. ... August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... March 15 is the 74th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (75th in Leap years). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... For other definitions of fantasy see fantasy (psychology). ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle or horrify the reader. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A genre is a division of a particular form of art according to criteria particular to that form. ... In non-technical terms, no matter what the context (whether scientific, philosophical, legal, etc) a narrative is a story, an interpretation of some aspect of the world that is historically and culturally grounded and shaped by human personality (per Walter Fisher). ...

Biography

Lovecraft was born on 20 August 1890 at 9:00 am in his family home at 194 (now 454) Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the only child of Winfield Scott Lovecraft, a traveling salesman of jewelry and precious metals, and Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft, who could trace her ancestry in America back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Unusually for the time, both his parents were in their thirties when they married, and it was the first marriage for both. When Lovecraft was three his father became acutely psychotic at a hotel in Chicago, Illinois, where he was on a business trip, and was brought back to Butler Hospital in Providence, where he remained for the rest of his life. His affliction was general paresis and may have been caused by syphilis. August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Nickname: Beehive of Industry Motto: Official website: http://www. ... The Massachusetts Bay Colony (sometimes called the Massachusetts Bay Company, for the institution that founded it) was an English settlement on the coast of North America in the 1600s, centered around the present-day city of Boston, which is now in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 United... Psychosis is a psychiatric classification for a mental state in which the perception of reality is distorted. ... Nickname: The Windy City Motto: Official website: http://egov. ... General paresis, also known as general paralysis of the insane or paralytic dementia, is a now-rare neuropsychiatric disorder affecting the brain and central nervous system. ... Depression-era U.S. poster advocating early syphilis treatment Syphilis (historically called lues) is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by a spirochaete bacterium, Treponema pallidum. ...

Lovecraft was thereafter raised by his mother, two aunts (Lillian Delora Phillips and Annie Emeline Phillips), and his grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, with whom Lovecraft and his female relatives lived until Phillips' death. Lovecraft was a child prodigy, reciting poetry at age two and writing complete poems by six. His grandfather encouraged his reading, providing him with classics such as The Arabian Nights, Bulfinch's Age of Fable, and children's versions of The Iliad and The Odyssey. His grandfather also stirred young Howard's interest in the weird by telling him original tales of Gothic horror. A child prodigy, or simply prodigy, is someone who is a master of one or more skills or arts at an early age. ... Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryar. ... Thomas Bulfinch (July 15, 1796 - May 27, 1867) was an American writer, born in Newton, Massachusetts to a highly-educated but not rich Bostonian merchant family. ... The Iliad (Greek Î™Î»Î¹Î¬Ï‚, Ilias) tells part of the story of the siege of the city of Ilium, i. ... Odysseus and NausicaÃ¤ - by Charles Gleyre The Odyssey (Greek ÎŸÎ´ÏÏƒÏƒÎµÎ¹Î±) is the second of the two great Greek epic poems ascribed to Homer, the first of which is the Iliad. ...

Lovecraft was frequently ill as a child and was said by his biographer (L. Sprague de Camp) to have suffered from a rare disease known as poikilothermism, the result of which made him always feel cold to the touch. He attended school only sporadically but he read much. He produced several hectographed publications with a limited circulation beginning in 1899 with The Scientific Gazette. L. Sprague de Camp (centre) with Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov Lyon Sprague de Camp, (November 27, 1907-November 6, 2000) was a science fiction and fantasy author born in New York City. ... Cold-blooded is a common term used to describe organisms that maintain their body temperatures in ways different from mammals and birds. ... The hectograph or gelatin duplicator is a printing process which involves transferring from an original sheet prepared with special inks to a gelatin pad. ...

Whipple Van Buren Phillips died in 1904, and the family was subsequently impoverished by mismanagement of his property and money. The family was forced to move down the street to 598 Angell Street, accommodations which were much smaller and less comfortable. Lovecraft was deeply affected by the loss of his home and birthplace and even contemplated suicide for a time. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1908, as a result of which he never received his high school diploma. This failure to complete his education — his hopes of ever entering Brown University dashed — nagged at him for the rest of his life, and he in fact maintained that he was a high school graduate. Brown University is an Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island. ...

Lovecraft wrote fiction as a youth, but then set it aside for some time in favour of poetry and essays, before returning to fiction in 1917 with more polished stories such as The Tomb and Dagon. The latter was his first professionally published work, appearing in Weird Tales in 1923. Also around this time he began to build up his huge network of correspondents. His lengthy and frequent missives would make him one of the great letter writers of the century. Among his correspondents were the young Forrest J. Ackerman, Robert Bloch (Psycho) and Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian series). Forrest J Ackerman (born November 24, 1916) is a legendary science fiction fan and collector of science fiction-related memorabilia. ... Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917 â€“ September 23, 1994) was a prolific Jewish-American writer. ... Psycho is a 1958 pulp novel by Robert Bloch, which details the life and crimes of the profoundly disturbed Norman Bates. ... Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 â€“ June 11, 1936) was a writer of fantasy and historical adventure pulp stories published mainly in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s. ... Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet. ...

Lovecraft's mother also was committed to the Butler Hospital, where she died from surgical complications on May 21, 1921. May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (142nd in leap years). ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

Shortly after, he attended an amateur journalist convention where he met Sonia Greene. She was Ukrainian, a Jew, and, having been born in 1883, seven years older than Lovecraft. They married in 1924, and the couple moved to the Borough of Brooklyn in New York City. Lovecraft's aunts may have been unhappy with this arrangement. Lovecraft himself rather disliked New York life. A few years later he and Greene agreed to an amicable divorce, and he returned to Providence to live with his aunts during their remaining years. Due to the unhappiness of their marriage, some biographers have speculated that Lovecraft could have been asexual. The definitions of the political subdivisions of the state of New York differ from those in certain other countries or even various other U.S. states, leading to misunderstandings regarding the governmental nature of an area. ... For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... New York City portal The Empire State Building (right) and the Chrysler Building (left) are easily recognized symbols of New York City to the world. ... This article is about human asexuality; asexual reproduction is a separate topic. ...

Back in Providence Lovecraft lived in a "spacious brown Victorian wooden house" at 10 Barnes Street until 1933 (this is the address given as the home of Dr. Willett in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward). The period after his return to Providence — the last decade of his life — was Lovecraft's most prolific. During this time period he produced almost all of his best known short stories for the leading pulp publications of the day (primarily Weird Tales) as well as longer efforts like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness. He frequently revised work for other authors and did a large amount of ghost-writing. Categories: Stub | Cthulhu Mythos ... Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as the pulps ) were inexpensive fiction magazines. ... This page is about the fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine and its heirs. ... At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. ...

Despite his best writing efforts, however, he grew ever poorer. He was forced to move to smaller and meaner lodgings with his surviving aunt. He was also deeply affected by Robert E. Howard's suicide. In 1936 he was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine and he also suffered from malnutrition. He lived in constant pain until his death the following year (1937) in Providence, Rhode Island. Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 â€“ June 11, 1936) was a writer of fantasy and historical adventure pulp stories published mainly in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s. ... It has been suggested that Suicide and culture be merged into this article or section. ... For other uses, see Cancer (disambiguation). ... Malnutrition is a general term for the medical condition in a person caused by an unbalanced dietâ€”either too little or too much food, or a diet missing one or more important nutrients. ... Official language(s) None Capital Providence Largest city Providence Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 50th 4,005 kmÂ² 50 km 65 km 32. ...

Lovecraft's grave in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence is occasionally marked with graffiti quoting his famous phrase from The Call of Cthulhu (originally from The Nameless City): Graffiti on the banks of the Tiber river in Rome, Italy. ... The Call of Cthulhu is one of H. P. Lovecrafts best known short stories. ...

Lovecraft was listed along with his parents on the Phillips family monument. That was not enough for his fans, so in 1977 a group of individuals pitched in to buy him a headstone of his own. They chose a plain block of granite, on which they had inscribed Lovecraft's name, the dates of his birth and death and the phrase, "I AM PROVIDENCE," a line from one of his personal letters.

Background of Lovecraft's work

Much of Lovecraft's work was directly inspired by his nightmares, and it is perhaps this direct insight into the subconscious and its symbolism that helps to account for their continuing resonance and popularity. All these interests naturally led to his deep affection for the works of Edgar Allan Poe, who heavily influenced his earliest macabre stories and writing style. Lovecraft's discovery of the stories of Lord Dunsany moved his writing in a new direction, resulting in a series of imitative fantasies in a "Dreamlands" setting. It was probably the influence of Arthur Machen, with his carefully constructed tales concerning the survival of ancient evil, and his mystic beliefs in hidden mysteries which lay behind reality, that finally helped inspire Lovecraft to find his own voice from 1923 onwards. This took on a dark tone with the creation of what is today often called the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of alien extra-dimensional deities and horrors which predate mankind, and which are hinted at in aeon-old myths and legends. The strangeness of the mythos' style may have been influenced, and was certainly foreshadowed, by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. The term 'Cthulhu Mythos' was coined by Lovecraft's correspondent and fellow author, August Derleth, after Lovecraft's death; Lovecraft referred to his artificial mythology as "Yog-Sothothery"[1]. His stories created one of the most influential plot devices in all of horror: the Necronomicon, the secret grimoire written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. The resonance and strength of the Mythos concept have led some to believe that Lovecraft had based it on actual myth, and faux editions of the Necronomicon have also been published over the years. A nightmare is a dream of particular intensity and with content that the sleeper finds disturbing. ... Subconscious may refer to: that which is subliminal to consciousness the underlying consciousness see subconsciousness. ... This daguerreotype of Poe was taken less than a year before his death at the age of 40. ... Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany (24 July 1878â€“25 October 1957) was an Irish writer and dramatist notable for his work in fantasy and horror. ... Arthur Machen (March 3, 1863 â€“ December 15th, 1947) was a leading Welsh-born author of the 1890s. ... Cthulhu in Rlyeh Cthulhu mythos is the term coined by the writer August Derleth to describe the shared themes, characters, and elements in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, his protegÃ©s, and writers influenced by him. ... Hieronymus Bosch; alleged portrait (around 1560) Hieronymus Bosch, also Jeroen Bosch, Jerome Bosch,(c. ... August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 â€“ July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. ... The Necronomicon is the title of a fictional book created by H.P. Lovecraft and often featured in stories based on the Cthulhu mythos inspired by his works. ... This article is on medieval books of magic; for information on the term grimoire as used in the Source Mage GNU/Linux operating system, see the Source Mage article. ... The Arabs (Arabic: Ø¹Ø±Ø¨ Ê»arab) are a large and heterogeneous ethnic group found throughout the Middle East and North Africa, originating in the Arabian Peninsula of southwest Asia. ... Abdul Alhazred, or the Mad Arab, is a fictional character created by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. ... Faux (pronounced as foe) is a French word for fake. ...

His prose is somewhat antiquarian. He was fond of heavy use of unfamiliar adjectives such as "eldritch", "rugose", "noisome", "squamous", and "cyclopean", and of attempts to transcribe dialect speech which have been criticized as inaccurate. His works also featured British English (he was an admitted Anglophile), and he sometimes made use of anachronistic spellings, such as "compleat/complete" and "lanthorn/lantern". An antiquarian or antiquary is one concerned with antiquities or things of the past. ... British English (BrE) is a term used to differentiate the form of the English language used in the United Kingdom from other forms of the English language used elsewhere. ... An anglophile is considered to be a non-English person who is extremely fond of all things English. ...

Lovecraft was a prolific letter writer, inscribing multiple pages to his group of correspondents in small longhand. He sometimes dated his letters 200 years before the current date, which would have put the writing back in U.S. colonial times, before the American Revolution that offended his Anglophilia. He explained that he thought that the 18th and 20th centuries were the best; the former being a period of noble grace, and the latter a century of science. In his view, the 19th century, particularly the Victorian era, was a "mistake". The American Revolution is the series of events, ideas, and changes that resulted in the political separation of thirteen colonies in North America from the British Empire and the creation of the United States of America. ... An anglophile is considered to be a non-English person who is extremely fond of all things English. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... This page is about centuries as units of time. ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Science For the scientific journal named Science, see Science (journal). ... Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her Accession to the Throne, 20 June 1837) gave her name to the historic era The Victorian era of Great Britain is considered the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British Empire. ...

Survey of the work

The definitive editions (specifically At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, The Dunwich Horror and Others, and The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions) of his prose fiction are published by Arkham House, a publisher originally started with the intent of publishing the work of Lovecraft, but which has since published a considerable amount of other literature as well. Arkham House is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. ...

Lovecraft's poetry is collected in The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft, while much of his juvenilia, various essays on philosophical, political and literary topics, antiquarian travelogues, and other things, can be found in Miscellaneous Writings. Also, Lovecraft's essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, first published in 1927, is a historical survey of horror literature available with endnotes as The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature.

Writing phases

Lovecraft had three very distinct categories of fiction in which he wrote during his life. Although the groups' stories were often written in overlapping time periods with the other groups, there were still periods where almost all of Lovecraft's writings could be categorized in one of the below mentioned groups. It should be noted that these distinctions have been drawn by others and not by Lovecraft himself.

It might also be noted that some critics see little difference between the Dream-Cycle and the Mythos, often pointing to the recurring Necronomicon and subsequent 'gods'. A frequently given explanation is that the Dream-Cycle belongs more to the genre of fantasy, while the Mythos is science fiction. This article is about the writing style, macabre. ... H.P. Lovecrafts Dream-Cycle, although often overlooked for his Cthulhu Mythos, is a huge entity in a good number of this master of the macabres fictional works. ... Cthulhu in Rlyeh Cthulhu mythos is the term coined by the writer August Derleth to describe the shared themes, characters, and elements in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, his protegÃ©s, and writers influenced by him. ...

Letters

Despite the fact that Lovecraft is mostly known for his works of weird fiction, the bulk of Lovecraft's writing mainly consists of voluminous letters about a variety of topics, from weird fiction and art criticism to politics and history. S. T. Joshi estimates that Lovecraft wrote about 87,500 letters from 1912 until his death in 1937 — one famous letter from November 9, 1929 to Woodburn Harris being 70 pages in length. November 9 is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 52 days remaining. ... -1...

Lovecraft was not a very active letter-writer in youth. 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). The initial interest in letters stemmed from his correspondence with his cousin Phillips Gamwell but even more important was his involvement in the amateur journalism movement, which was responsible for the enormous number of letters Lovecraft produced.

Lovecraft clearly states that his contact to numerous different people through letter-writing was one of the main factors in broadening his view of the world: "I found myself opened up to dozens of points of view which would otherwise never have occurred to me. My understanding and sympathies were enlarged, and many of my social, political, and economic views were modified as a consequence of increased knowledge." (SL 4.389).

Today there are four publishing houses that have released letters from Lovecraft — Arkham House with its five-volume edition Selected Letters being the most prominent. Other publishers are Hippocampus Press (Letters to Alfred Galpin et al.), Night Shade Books (Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei et al.) and Necronomicon Press (Letters to Samuel Loveman and Vincent Starrett et al).

Intellectual property

There is no little controversy over the copyright status of many of Lovecraft's works, especially his later works. All works published in the US before 1923 are public domain. However, there is some disagreement over who exactly owns or owned the copyrights and whether the copyrights for the majority of Lovecraft's works published post-1923 - including such prominent pieces as The Call of Cthulhu and At the Mountains of Madness - have now expired. Copyright symbol. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Call of Cthulhu is one of H. P. Lovecrafts best known short stories. ... At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. ...

Questions center over whether copyrights for Lovecraft's works were ever renewed under the terms of the USA Copyright Act of 1976 for works created prior to January 1, 1978. If Lovecraft's work had been renewed they would be eligible for protection for 75-95 years after the author's death according to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. This means the copyrights would not expire on some of Lovecraft's works until 2019 at the earliest, providing that no further laws extend the periods of copyrights within the USA. Similarly, the European Union Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection of 1993 extended the copyrights to 70 years after the author's death. The Copyright Act of 1976 is the United States copyright law that was passed in 1976. ... January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. ... The Directive on harmonizing the term of copyright protection was a European Union (EU) copyright directive issued in 1993. ...

In those Berne Convention countries who have implemented only the minimum copyright period, copyright expires 50 years after the author's death. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, sometimes called the Berne Union or Berne Convention, adopted at Berne in 1986, first established the recognition of copyrights between sovereign nations. ...

Lovecraft protégés and part owners of Arkham House, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei often claimed copyrights over Lovecraft's works. On October 9, 1947 Derleth purchased all rights to Weird Tales. However, since April 1926 at the latest, Lovecraft had reserved all second printing rights to stories published in Weird Tales. Hence, Weird Tales may only have owned the rights to at most six of Lovecraft's tales. Again, even if Derleth did obtain the copyrights to Lovecraft's tales no evidence as yet has been found that the copyrights were renewed.[2] August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 â€“ July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. ... Donald Wandrei (1908 - 1987) was an American science fiction, fantasy and weird fiction writer, poet and editor. ... October 9 is the 282nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (283rd in Leap years). ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... This page is about the fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine and its heirs. ...

However, prominent Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi concludes in his biography, H.P. Lovecraft: A Life, that Derleth's claims are "almost certainly fictitious" and that most of Lovecraft's works published in the amateur press are most likely now in the public domain. The copyright for Lovecraft's works would have been inherited by the only surviving heir of his 1912 will: Lovecraft's aunt, Annie Gamwell. Gamwell herself perished in 1941 and the copyrights then passed to her remaining descendents, Ethel Phillips Morrish and Edna Lewis. Morrish and Lewis then signed a document, sometimes referred to as the Morrish-Lewis gift, permitting Arkham House to republish Lovecraft's works but retaining the copyrights for themselves. Searches of the Library of Congress have failed to find any evidence that these copyrights were then renewed after the 28 year period and, hence, it is likely that these works are now in the public domain. Arkham House is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. ... Library of Congress, Jefferson building The Library of Congress is the unofficial national library of the United States. ...

According to Peter Ruber's (the current editor of Arkham House) essay, The Un-Demonizing of August Derleth, certain letters obtained in June 1998 detail the Derleth-Wandrei acquisition of Lovecraft's estate. It is unclear whether these letters contradict Joshi's views on Lovecraft's copyrights.[3]

Chaosium, publishers of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, have a trademark on several Lovecraftian phrases and creations, including "The Call of Cthulhu" for use in game products. Another RPG publisher, TSR, Inc., original publisher of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, included in one of that game's earlier supplements, Deities & Demigods, a section on the Cthulhu Mythos; TSR, Inc. was later forced to remove this section from subsequent editions because of Chaosium's trademark. Chaosium is one of the longer lived publishers of role_playing games still in existence. ... Call of Cthulhu is a horror fiction role-playing game based on the story of the same name written by H. P. Lovecraft and the so-called Cthulhu Mythos the story inspired. ... A trademark (Commonwealth English: trade mark) is a distinctive sign of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely identify itself and its products and services to consumers, and to distinguish the business and its products or services from those of other businesses. ... TSR, Inc. ... The original Dungeons & Dragons set Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) published by Gary Gygax and David Arneson in January 1974. ... The cover of the first printing of the first edition, featured artwork by Erol Otus. ...

Regardless of the legal disagreements surrounding Lovecraft's works, Lovecraft himself was extremely generous with his own works and actively encouraged others to borrow ideas from his stories, particularly with regard to his Cthulhu Mythos. By "wide citation" he hoped to give his works an "air of verisimilitude" and actively encouraged other writers to reference his creations, such as the Necronomicon, Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. After his death, many writers have contributed stories and enriched the shared mythology of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as making numerous references to his work (see References to the Cthulhu Mythos). The Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft has spread and become part of popular culture. ...

Locations featured in Lovecraft stories

Lovecraft drew extensively from his native New England for settings in his fiction. Numerous real historical locations are mentioned, and several fictional New England locations make frequent appearances.

Historical locations

Copps Hill is the second oldest burial ground of the city of Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1659 (the oldest is the burial ground at Kings Chapel). ... Nickname: City on a Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Solar System), Athens of America Motto: Official website: www. ... View of Boston from the Red Line The Red Line is the newest of the MBTA rapid transit lines in the Boston, Massachusetts area. ... Location of Cranston, Rhode Island. ... Nickname: Beehive of Industry Motto: Official website: http://www. ... Brown University is an Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island. ...

Fictional locations

Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in the equally fictional Arkham, Massachusetts. ... Arkham is a fictional city in Massachusetts. ... Official language(s) English Capital Boston Largest city Boston Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 44th 10,555 miÂ²; 27,360 kmÂ² 183 mi; 295 km 113 mi; 182 km 13. ... Innsmouth is a fictional place, created by H. P. Lovecraft. ... Dunwich, Massachusetts (Pronounced Dunn-ich) is a fictional town that appears in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, most notably in the story The Dunwich Horror. Dunwich is found in the Miskatonic River Valley, which is a common setting for Lovecraftian tales. ...

Bibliography

Books

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikisource â€“ The Free Library â€“ is a Wikimedia project to build a free, wiki library of primary source texts, along with translations of source-texts into any language and other supporting materials. ... Arkham House is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. ... Sunanda Tryambak Joshi (b. ... Ballantine was an American brewery, founded by Peter Ballantine who was born in Scotland in 1781. ... Instumental Indie Rock group from Chicago. ... The Doom that Came to Sarnath is an early short story by H.P. Lovecraft. ... The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a novella by H. P. Lovecraft. ... Categories: Stub | Cthulhu Mythos ... At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. ... Del Rey Ed. ... In The Shadow out of Time, H.P. Loveraft tell us the history of the great race of Yith, a cone shapped creatures that lived 150 million years ago in earth. ...

Adaptations

Movies

Films based (generally very loosely) on specific Lovecraft works (partial list only; see Lovecraft's IMDB entry for a more complete selection):

The Colour out of Space is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. ... The Dunwich Horror is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. ... Bravo! is a Canadian cable specialty television channel owned by CHUM Limited and was launched on January 1, 1995. ... Re-Animator (1985) is the first in a series of films based on an H.P. Lovecraft story. ...

Radio production

Lovecraft's influence in popular culture

Beyond direct adaptation, Lovecraft and his stories have had a profound (if sometimes indirect and unnoticed) impact on popular culture, and has been praised by many modern writers of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Much of his influence is secondary, as he was a friend, inspiration, and correspondent to many authors who would gain fame through their creations. He was a friend of Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard; Robert Bloch, author of Psycho; and Frank Belknap Long, Lovecraft's biographer and contributor to the Mythos. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Lovecraftianism. ... Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet. ... Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 â€“ June 11, 1936) was a writer of fantasy and historical adventure pulp stories published mainly in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s. ... Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917 â€“ September 23, 1994) was a prolific Jewish-American writer. ... Psycho is a 1958 pulp novel by Robert Bloch, which details the life and crimes of the profoundly disturbed Norman Bates. ... Frank Belknap Long (April 27, 1903 - January 3, 1994) was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. ...

Many later creators of horror writing and films show influences from Lovecraft, including Clive Barker, H. R. Giger and John Carpenter. Others, notably Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Neil Gaiman, Fred Chappell, Stephen King, Alan Moore, and Brian Lumley, have written stories that are explicitly set in the same "universe" as Lovecraft's original stories. Videogames like Eternal Darkness show a great amount of influence from his work; others, like Call of Cthulhu, are directly based on his job. Lovecraft pastiches are common. For more examples of specific references to and uses of the Mythos in popular culture, see References to the Cthulhu Mythos. Clive Barker (born October 5, 1952, Liverpool, England) is a British author, director and visual artist. ... Birth machine Hans Ruedi Giger (pronounced: GEE-ger) (born at Chur, Grisons canton, February 5, 1940) is a Swiss painter best known for his design work on the film Alien. ... John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948 in Carthage, New York) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film music composer. ... Image:Front-4. ... August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 â€“ July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. ... Neil Gaiman (November 2004) Neil Richard Gaiman () (November 10, 1960, Portchester, Hampshire) is an English Jewish author of numerous science fiction and fantasy works, including many comic books. ... Fred Davis Chappell (b. ... Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author best known for horror novels. ... Alan Moore Alan Moore (born November 18, 1953, in Northampton, England) is a British writer most famous for his work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. ... Brian Lumley (born December 12, 1937) is a writer of horror fiction. ... Eternal Darkness: Sanitys Requiem is a survival horror video game exclusive for the Nintendo GameCube, based loosely on the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. ... The neutrality of this article is disputed. ... The Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft has spread and become part of popular culture. ...

Lovecraft has also had a profound influence on what is considered more "highbrow" literature. The fantasias of the Argentinian short story writer and essayist Jorge Luis Borges display a marked resemblance to some of Lovecraft's more dream influenced work, and Borges was known to be an admirerer of Lovecraft. The controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq has also cited Lovecraft as an influence and has written a lengthy essay on Lovecraft entitled H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life in which he refers to the Cthulthu cycle as "the great texts." Jorge Luis Borges () (August 24, 1899 â€“ June 14, 1986) was an Argentine writer who is considered to be one of the foremost writers of the 20th century. ... Michel Houellebecq (real name Michel Thomas, born 26 February 1958, on the French island of RÃ©union) is a controversial, award-winning French novelist. ...

Lovecraft's penchant for dreamscapes and for the biologically macabre has also profoundly influenced visual artists such as Jean Giraud Mobius and H.R. Giger. Giger's book of paintings which led directly to many of the designs for the film Alien was named Necronomicon, a clear reference to Lovecraft. Dan O'Bannon, the original writer of the Alien screenplay, has also mentioned Lovecraft as a major influence on the film. Mobius may refer to: In mathematics, the mathematician August Ferdinand MÃ¶bius, and several mathematical concepts discovered by him, including: The MÃ¶bius strip - an object with one surface and one edge The MÃ¶bius function, MÃ¶bius transform, and MÃ¶bius inversion formula of number theory The MÃ¶bius... Birth machine Hans Ruedi Giger (pronounced: GEE-ger) (born at Chur, Grisons canton, February 5, 1940) is a Swiss painter best known for his design work on the film Alien. ... Dan OBannon (born Daniel Thomas OBannon on September 30, 1946 in St. ...

Lovecraft's "universe" is so distinctive that he is an eponym for strange creatures and settings. Lovecraftian horror may mean a story that references the Mythos, or that is simply too bizarre to be classified as normal horror. Examples include beings with hideous and completely unnatural features (innumerable sets of eyes, far too many limbs) or architecture or geography of inhuman or alien design (such as the city of R'lyeh, which makes exclusive use of curves in its architecture). Lovecraftian horror stands in contrast to the predominantly humanoid and anthropomorphic designs in mainstream horror and mythology. An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, whose name has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery, or other item. ... This article refers to the sight organ. ... Example of Anthro artwork. ... ...

Race, Class, and Sex

The racist, classist and sexist themes in much of Lovecraft's writing evoke strong reactions in many modern readers. Lovecraft was an avowed Anglophile, and may have held English culture to be the pinnacle of civilization, with the descendants of the English in America as something of a second-class offshoot, and everyone else below them (see, for example, his poem "An American to Mother England). Lovecraft's writing showed a distinct disinclination towards mixing with other ethnic groups, reverence for birth-issued social status, and a preference for traditional social roles for women. 1. ... Classism (a term formed by analogy with racism) is any form of prejudice or oppression against people who are in, or who are perceived as being like those who are in, a lower social class (especially in the form of lower socioeconomic status) within a class society. ... Sexism is discrimination between people based on their Sex rather than their individual merits. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area â€“ Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 kmÂ² Population â€“ Total (mid-2004) â€“ Total (2001 Census) â€“ Density Ranked 1st UK...

Racial, ethnic, class, and sexual stereotypes are frequently encountered in Lovecraft's work. A typical example of this sentiment is found in the name of the black cat "Nigger-Man" in his tale The Rats in the Walls, which was actually the name he gave to his real-life cat. The narrator in "The Rats in the Walls" expresses sentiments which could be considered hostile towards Jews (although several of Lovecraft's closer friends and correspondents were Jewish), Italians, and Poles. Racist views can also be found in his poetry, particularly in On the Creation of Niggers, and New England Fallen (both 1912). Stereotypes are considered to be a group concept, held by one social group about another. ...

Contemporary critics have decried Lovecraft's presumed white supremicism, particularly in the treatment of immigrants and African-Americans. However, Lovecraft does not spare even northern European ethnic groups from his onslaught of negative ethnic stereotyping. The degenerate descendants of Dutch immigrants in the Catskill Mountains, "who correspond exactly to the decadent element of white trash in the South," (Beyond the Wall of Sleep, 1919) are common targets. The Temple presents a stereotypical arrogant and coldly murderous Prussian aristocrat U-boat captain from World War I who makes frequent references to his "iron German will," supremely rational Prussian mental powers, and the insignificance of human life compared to the need to glorify the Fatherland. White supremacy is a racist ideology which holds that the white race is superior to other races. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... Catskill Escarpment and Blackhead Range as seen from Overlook Mountain The Catskill Mountains, a natural area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are not, despite their popular name, true geological mountains, but rather a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently... White trash is an American ethnic slur or racial epithet usually used to describe persons of European descent (white people), especially those perceived as having crude manners, abnormally low moral standards, and lack of cultured behavior and/or education. ... Southern United States. ... The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918 The word Prussia (German: PreuÃŸen, Polish: Prusy, Lithuanian: PrÅ«sai, Latin: Borussia) has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia and... U-boat is also a nickname for some diesel locomotives built by GE; see List of GE locomotives October 1939. ... Combatants Entente Powers Central Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties > 5 million military deaths > 3 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War I, also known as the First World War and (before 1939) the Great War, the War of the Nations, War to End All Wars was a world... The neutrality of this article is disputed. ...

Perhaps the best example of his classist views can be found in the short story Cool Air (1926): the (presumably Anglo-Saxon) narrator speaks disparagingly of the poor Hispanics of his neighborhood, but he worshipfully respects the wealthy and aristocratic Spaniard Dr. Muñoz, "a man of birth, cultivation, and discrimination." The Anglo-Saxons refers collectively to the groups of Germanic tribes who achieved dominance in southern Britain from the mid-5th century, forming the basis for the modern English nation. ... It has been suggested that Latino be merged into this article or section. ...

Lovecraft drew upon the history of his own ethnic group for the environment of much of his work, and his love for Anglo-Saxon history and culture is often-times repeated in his work (such as King Kuranes' nostalgia for England in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath). Characteristically, this history is viewed sardonically. An important character in Lovecrafts Dream-cycle works. ... The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a novella by H. P. Lovecraft. ...

A major Lovecraftian theme is the individual who finds that his lineage is accursed or interbred with a non-human strain. Important examples are Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family (1920), The Rats in the Walls (1923), and The Shadow over Innsmouth (1931). This theme may represent concerns relating to Lovecraft's own family history, particularly the death of his father due to what Lovecraft must have suspected to be a syphilitic disorder. Depression-era U.S. poster advocating early syphilis treatment Syphilis (historically called lues) is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by a spirochaete bacterium, Treponema pallidum. ...

Lovecraft expressed racist and ethnocentric beliefs in his personal correspondence and he gave a thorough summary of his views on race and culture in a letter to J. Vernon Shea written September 25, 1933. This letter, 648, can be found in the book Selected Letters IV published by Arkham House. September 25 is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years). ... Arkham House is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. ...

Women in Lovecraft's fiction are rare, and the few leading female characters in his stories often turn out to be agents of some evil, alien force. Paradoxically, Lovecraft married a Jewish woman of Ukrainian ancestry, Sonia Greene. The marriage failed, and some commentators believe that the cause may have been shame felt by Lovecraft over his wife being essentially the breadwinner. The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ...

Lovecraft's frankness on race, class, and sex can shock the early 21st century reader. His attitudes were not at all unusual during Lovecraft's lifetime. The eugenics movement, for example, was quite mainstream in the United States and most of Europe before World War II, to the point where harsh eugenics policies were actually written into the law in many states. Racial segregation was still legally enforced throughout much of the United States. Very many prominent and powerful individuals in these times openly avowed attitudes similar to or even harsher than Lovecraft's. Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ... World map showing Europe Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiogeographic one. ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 7 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War II, also known as the Second World War (sometimes WW2 or WWII or World War Two), was a mid-20th century conflict that engulfed much of the... It has been suggested that Apartheid outside South Africa be merged into this article or section. ...

Contents

Biography

Background of Lovecraft's work

Survey of the work

Writing phases

Letters

Intellectual property

Locations featured in Lovecraft stories

Historical locations

Fictional locations

Bibliography

Books

Adaptations

Movies

Radio production

Lovecraft's influence in popular culture

Race, Class, and Sex

Further reading

External links

Contents

Biography GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Background of Lovecraft's work

Survey of the work

Writing phases

Letters

Intellectual property

Locations featured in Lovecraft stories

Historical locations

Fictional locations

Bibliography

Books

Adaptations

Movies

Radio production

Lovecraft's influence in popular culture

Race, Class, and Sex

Further reading

External links

Biography