He loved cats and ice cream, and hated seafood. He distrusted modernity, but was fascinated by the stars. He loved England, but could never afford to travel beyond the shores of his native USA. He was a rationalist, but loved reading tomes on witchcraft and the occult. He was deeply racist and suspicious of anyone who was not of English or west European origin. He wrote horrific tales for poorly paying pulp magazines, has faced criticism for his prose style and the narrow scope of his characterisation. He died impoverished and malnourished of intestinal cancer.
Little known to the larger reading public in his lifetime, H P Lovecraft still emerged as a grey eminence of 21st century pop culture. His eldritch creation Cthulhu is quite popular. Computer games, movies, comic books and even stuffed toys have been inspired by his work. Virtually every horror writer alive today, and a good few science fiction authors too, have been inspired by him. His stories are constantly in print from multiple publishers. So who was this man, and why do his stories fascinate people so much?
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890 in Rhode Island – a town in northeast USA, where he spent most of his life. His family was a formerly well-off one, sliding into genteel poverty. Both his parents died in mental asylums, although years apart. His only father figure was his grandfather, who passed away when Lovecraft was a teenager. So he was mainly raised by spinster aunts and, as long as she was able, his mother.
A sickly child, Lovecraft found solace and escape in reading, as many solitary and unwell children do. He read everything from poetry and classic literature to astronomy and physics. Despite being a precocious reader and an amateur astronomer, he dropped out of high school before graduating.
The death of his grandfather made Lovecraft retreat from society. He was only drawn out by his interest in pulp magazines, which specialised in publishing short stories. He took to writing letters to them and in the process came in contact with other fans and aspiring writers. In these days of instant messaging, it can be hard to imagine the impact of a large circle of pen pals on the isolated, unhappy Lovecraft. Suddenly, he had a community of like-minded souls at his fingertips. People with whom he could share his enthusiasms and passions, no matter how obscure.
Lovecraft rekindled his love of writing and started to pen stories. Deeply influenced by horror and fantasy writers Edgar Alan Poe and Lord Dunsany, many of his early tales can be seen as homages to the style of his literary heroes. He soon developed his own direction, moving from fantasy and psychological horror towards something called cosmic horror or just weird fiction.
Lovecraft imagined a universe dominated by alien species so powerful and strange as to be incomprehensible to the human race. He depicts these creatures as frightening, ancient gods. These creatures use humans in their plans, giving rise to cults built around them. Ultimately, we are insignificant to them, like flies to an elephant.
Lovecraft took ideas from predecessors like Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen and many others; he added to them the fruits of his own encyclopaedic reading and his interests and dislikes. Sad to say, his racism is as much a driving force in his fiction as his pessimistic view of reality. Ultimately, Lovecraft suffered from a fear of the unknown, but he magnified and elaborated it in a way that no one else had before, and in a way that continues to excite our imaginations even as it speaks to our deep, dark fears. Most of all, he possessed a fantastic imagination. He was a dark visionary of a cosmic void, and showed us the way to a strangely enchanting nightmare world.