Remembering H. P. Lovecraft, author of horror tales on his birthday.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction whose reputation grew dramatically after his death. Working largely outside the literary mainstream and publishing much of his fiction in pulp magazines, he developed a distinctive form of cosmic horror in which humanity confronts ancient forces and a universe vast, indifferent, and largely unknowable.

His best-known story, “The Call of Cthulhu,” became central to what is now known as the Cthulhu Mythos—a loosely connected fictional universe of forbidden knowledge, ancient beings, strange cults, and cosmic dread. Lovecraft's mythology continued to expand after his death as other writers adopted and reinterpreted its characters, creatures, and ideas.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life there and made New England an essential part of his fictional landscape. Despite the lasting power of that imagined world, literary success largely escaped him. He struggled financially, never supported himself comfortably through his writing, and died in 1937 at only forty-six.
His posthumous influence, however, has been extraordinary. Stephen King called Lovecraft “the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale,” while Joyce Carol Oates described his influence on later generations of horror writers as “incalculable.”

From a writer known principally to readers of pulp magazines emerged one of the defining imaginations of twentieth-century supernatural fiction—and a literary mythology that continues to inspire writers, filmmakers, artists, and readers nearly ninety years after his death.

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