Lovecraft's life and legacy

by M

H.P.Lovecraft is one of the world's most beloved horror writers, with eerie tales of indescribable beings and maddening alien geometries. M delves into Lovecraft's upbringing (racism, fear of change - the horror! The horror!) and his fearful legacy (Cthulhu plushies...)

Howard Philip Lovecraft (20 August, 1890 - 15 March, 1937) was raised by his mother, maternal grandfather and two aunts after his father died from paralytic dementia. Despite his frequent illnesses, some of which were psychosomatic, he was able to recite poetry at the age of three, writing poetry by six, and was studying chemistry and astronomy by the age of eight. He took on the pseudonym of a child "Abdul Alhazred"; later, he would attribute the authorship of the mythical Necronomicon to the same Alhazred.

Was Lovecraft a mad hermit? Was he afraid of life?

He was born and lived in Providence, Rhode Island, which he felt a strong attachment to all his life. That he was a hermetic recluse who never left New England is a myth, as his visits to friends living as far south as Florida, west as Ohio and north as Quebec were well-documented by the letters he wrote. An avid letter-writer, it is estimated that he wrote more than 100,000 letters over the course of his life.

After his mother's death in 1921, Lovecraft married and moved but was unable to find work in New York City and grew to intensely dislike the city and its large immigrant population. A few years later, he and his wife agreed to an amicable separation and Howard moved back to live with his aunts in Providence.

Though the ten years that followed were his most prolific, he grew poorer and poorer, to the point where he was suffering from malnutrition. He was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine in 1936 and died a year later.

Strange to think that these quiet, relatively dull events chronicle the life story of the same man who, under the name of H. P. Lovecraft, created the explorations to the Antarctic, the revelations of the horrors of the Elder Gods in his short stories, the mythos of the horrors that lie under, not dead but dreaming, underneath the Pacific (Q: What sound does a drowning man make whilst screaming in terror A: Cthhhulhhhu, of course!) and the universe where humanity is but a mistake and to fathom those from which we came and their non-Euclidian geometry can only cause insanity.

'Night terrors', a sleeping disorder characterized by extreme terror and a temporary inability to regain full consciousness, was among the illnesses Lovecraft suffered from as a child and was probably a very strong influence on his writing. The Gothic horror stories his grandfather told him stirred his interest in the strange and weird.

Lovecraft and science: The stars be right

His affinity for science shows with many of his protagonists and narrators being, as he writes in his intentionally antiquated style, 'men of science'. Astronomy plays a key role in the Elder Gods, for they came from the 'cold stars'. Cthulhu, too, can only be woken when the 'stars be right'. The rapidly increasing rate of scientific progress which was happening during Lovecraft's lifetime was a key inspiration for one of his most prevalent themes: that the human race was insignificant, essentially meaningless and had no power over their doomed destiny in a massive, materialistic and mechanical universe. Lovecraft's dislike of cities and racist views also figure in his short stories, most notable in 'The Horror at Red Hook'.

H. P. Lovecraft had a deep affection for the writings of Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany and especially Edgar Allen Poe. It's rather appropriate that Lovecraft is widely considered to be Poe's true successor: both spent their short lives in relative obscurity and both pioneered new genres. Poe is considered the father of detective-fiction, Lovecraft of cosmic horror. And, of course, both now have rabid fanbases.

Lovecraft's legacy

Writers, artists, manga-ka and film directors world-wide, including Stephen King and H.R. Giger, cite Lovecraft as among their influences. Members in the thrash-metal band Metallica claim to be avid readers of Lovecraft and have based several of their songs off his stories. Cthulhu plushies and Cthulhu amigurumis populate eBay and Etsy. Courtesy of unclear copyright issues, H. P. Lovecraft's stories have been posted, in complete form, at various websites for the benefit of those who can't access a library. The HP Lovecraft Historical Society "celebrates Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos by producing movies, audio CDs, live action gaming, and other curiosities." And, of course, there is the Hello Cthulhu web comic, making the eldritch and unearthly cute and adorable!

Lovecraft literature

• Necronomicon: The Best Weird Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft
• Omnibus: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror No. 1 (H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus)
• The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Modern Classic)

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