H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft was a writer of science fiction, horror and fantasy, most famous for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. While largely unknown during his own time, his works have influenced generations of authors, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore and Ramsey Campbell. H.P. Lovecraft is now regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century.

The Cthulhu Mythos is a series of connected tales concerning alien beings which seek to rule Earth and/or destroy mankind. Lovecraft encouraged other authors to use settings and beings from his tales, thus creating a shared world for horror fans to explore.

H.P. Lovecraft - Early Life

H.P. Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island on August 20th, 1890. His father went insane when he was three, and the elder Lovecraft was committed to an asylum until his death in 1898. Following his father’s illness, Lovecraft was raised by his mother, two aunts and his grandfather.

H.P. Lovecraft was a brilliant child, reading and even writing poetry by a very young age. He was encouraged in this pursuit by his grandfather, with the latter introducing him to such stories as The Arabian Nights.

Following the death of his grandfather and the family’s loss of their estate, H.P. Lovecraft suffered a nervous breakdown in 1908. The incident occurred before his high school graduation, and many believe Lovecraft was also greatly distressed by the prospect of not being able to study Astronomy in college (due to his struggles with Advanced Mathematics).

H.P. Lovecraft - Fiction and Personal Difficulty

H.P. Lovecraft then cut himself off from the outside word and mostly wrote poetry for several years. He also wrote letters, and several published in a pulp magazine caught the eye of the president of the UAPA. He was invited to join this group, and this interaction inspired Lovecraft to generate more work. He eventually returned to fiction writing, and “Dagon” (appearing in the pages of Weird Tales) became his first professionally published work.

H.P. Lovecraft suffered a great amount of personal difficulty with the death of his mother in 1921. Prior to her passing, she had suffered a nervous breakdown and been forced to live in an asylum for the remaining two years of her life.

He married Sonia Greene in 1924, and the couple moved to Brooklyn, New York. She developed health problems and lost her hat shop, while Lovecraft found difficulty getting work to support them. They eventually moved to Cleveland, and the couple divorced a few years later.

H.P. Lovecraft returned to Rhode Island, and he entered the most productive phase of his career. Unfortunately, fame eluded Lovecraft in life, and he grew increasingly poor over time.

In 1936, H.P. Lovecraft was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine. Also suffering from malnutrition, the author would battle constant pain until his death on March 15th, 1937. He was 46 years old.

H.P. Lovecraft Books List

While he was a voracious writer of letters, poems and more academic works, Lovecraft’s best-loved work falls into the horror genre. The following list includes the most popular works H.P. Lovecraft.

Fiction

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

Collaborations, Revisions and Ghostwriting

The Battle That Ended the Century (with R. H. Barlow; June 1934)
The Challenge from Beyond (with C. L. Moore; A. Merritt; Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long; August 1935)
Collapsing Cosmoses (with R. H. Barlow; June 1935)
The Crawling Chaos (with Winifred V. Jackson; 1920/21)
The Curse of Yig (with Zealia Bishop; 1928)
The Diary of Alonzo Typer (with William Lumley; October 1935)
The Disinterment (with Duane W. Rimel; September 1935)
The Electric Executioner (with Adolphe de Castro; 1929?)
The Green Meadow (with Winifred V. Jackson; 1918/19)
The Horror at Martin's Beach (with Sonia H. Greene; June 1922)
The Horror in the Burying-Ground (with Hazel Heald; 1933/35)
The Horror in the Museum (with Hazel Heald; October 1932)
In the Walls of Eryx (with Kenneth Sterling; January 1936)
The Last Test (with Adolphe de Castro; 1927)
The Lurker at the Threshold (with August Derleth; 1945)
The Man of Stone (with Hazel Heald; 1932)
Medusa's Coil (with Zealia Bishop; May 1930)
The Mound (with Zealia Bishop; December 1929-early 1930)
The Night Ocean (with R. H. Barlow; Autumn? 1936)
Out of the Aeons (with Hazel Heald; 1933)
Poetry and the Gods (with Anna Helen Crofts; 1920)
The Thing in the Moonlight (with J. Chapman Miske; 24 November 1927)
Through the Gates of the Silver Key (with E. Hoffmann Price; October 1932-April 1933)
Till A'the Seas (with R. H. Barlow; January 1935)
The Trap (with Henry S. Whitehead; late 1931)
The Tree on the Hill (with Duane W. Rimel; May 1934)
Two Black Bottles (with Wilfred Blanch Talman; July-October 1926)
Under the Pyramids aka "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" (with Harry Houdini; February-March 1924)
Winged Death (with Hazel Heald; 1933)

Reprints and Collections

At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels (7th corrected printing), S. T. Joshi (1985)
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (1987)
The Dunwich Horror and Others (9th corrected printing) (1984)
The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions (1989)
The Tomb and Other Tales
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
The Doom That Came to Sarnath and Other Stories
The Lurking Fear and Other Stories
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror
The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
The Road to Madness
Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft
Waking Up Screaming: Haunting Tales of Terror
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories
The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories
Omnibus 1: At the Mountains of Madness
Omnibus 2: Dagon and other Macabre Tales
Omnibus 3: The Haunter of the Dark
To Quebec and the Stars
The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H.P. Lovecraft

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