H. P. Lovecraft, 1890-1937

Portrait

Biographical note

American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror; the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fiction featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Christian humanism. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century, who together with Edgar Allan Poe has exerted "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction". Stephen King has called Lovecraft "the twentieth Century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."

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Works

Non-Fiction

  • Supernatural Horror in Literature

Fiction

  • The Tomb [1917]
  • Dagon [1917]
  • A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson [1917]
  • Polaris [1918]
  • The Mystery of Murdon Grange [1918]
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep [1919]
  • Old Bugs [1919]
  • The Transition of Juan Romero [1919]
  • The White Ship [1919]
  • The Doom that Came to Sarnath [1919]
  • The Statement of Randolph Carter [1919]
  • The Street [1919]
  • Sweet Ermengarde [c.1919-21?]
  • The Tree [1920]
  • The Temple [1920]
  • Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family [1920]
  • Celephaïs [1920]
  • From Beyond [1920]
  • The Picture in the House [1920]
  • Life and Death [1920]
  • The Nameless City [1921]
  • The Quest of Iranon [1921]
  • The Moon-Bog [1921]
  • The Outsider [1921]
  • The Other Gods [1921]
  • Herbert West--Reanimator [1922]
  • The Music of Erich Zann [1921]
  • Hypnos [1922]
  • The Hound [1922]
  • The Lurking Fear [1922]
  • The Rats in the Walls [1923]
  • The Unnamable [1923]
  • The Festival [1923]
  • Imprisoned with the Pharaohs [1924]
  • The Shunned House [1924]
  • The Horror at Red Hook [1925]
  • He [1925]
  • In the Vault [1925]
  • Cool Air [1926]
  • The Call of Cthulhu [1926]
  • Pickman's Model [1926]
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath [1927]
  • The Silver Key [1926]
  • The Strange High House in the Mist [1926]
  • The Case of Charles Dexter Ward [1927]
  • The Colour out of Space [1927]
  • The Very Old Folk [1927]
  • The Dunwich Horror [1928]
  • The Whisperer in Darkness [1930]
  • At the Mountains of Madness [1931]
  • The Shadow over Innsmouth [1931]
  • The Dreams in the Witch House [1932]
  • The Evil Clergyman [1933]
  • The Thing on the Doorstep [1933]
  • The Shadow Out of Time [1935]
  • The Haunter of the Dark [1935]

Fragments

  • Memory [1919]
  • The Terrible Old Man [1920]
  • The Cats of Ulthar [1920]
  • Nyarlathotep [1920]
  • Ex Oblivione [1920-21]
  • Azathoth Fragment [1922]
  • What the Moon Brings [1922]
  • The Descendant Fragment [1927]
  • The Book Fragment [1933]

Other links

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