LIFE

Howard Philips Lovecraft (August 20th, 1890 - March 15, 1937) was an American author of fiction, mainly horror, science, fantasy and weird. He is one of the precursors of the science fiction genre, although the style that is most evident in his works and which is named after him is the Lovecraftian horror. His works and the influence that they had led to the creation what is now known as the Cthulhu mythos

Lovecraft was a genius as a child, being 3 years old he was able to recite poetry and by the age of 6 he began to write his own poems. One that sparked Lovecraft's interest in weird tales was his maternal grandpa - Winfield who with his wife took care of young Howard after his father passed away from illness. Stories told him by his grandpa were most likely inspired by gothis novelists.

FIRST WORKS

In 1896 his grandmother died, which had an effect on the entire family as Lovecraft called it a gloom from which it never fully recovered. It was at this time when your Howard started having nightmares which would influence his later writings. First known works of Lovecraft were his poems written at the age of 7 in the style of Odyssey by Homer.

Later on astronomy became one of the influences which were guiding Lovecraft in his worldview. He begun publishing Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy. In later years his grandfathers business faced couple of downturns aswell as a catastrophic failure, within couple of months after that Winfield died from a stroke. Those events led to a financial decline of the household.

ADULT LIFE

In 1908 young Lovecraft went through a mental breakdown, which in turn made it impossible for him to pass exams required to get a high school diploma.

Lovecraft led a life of a hermit, although everything changed when he wrote a letter to The Argosy newspaper criticising a love story by some other author. The debate on that subject drew attention of the head editor of United Amateur Press Association - Edward F. Dass who invited Lovecraft to join his organization and later accepted him into it in 1914.

HISTORY OF HIS WORKS

Joining the organization started a new chapter in Lovecraft's life, he went back to his roots and started writing fantasy fiction again. He finished up his old storied Dagon and The Tomb. Both of those works were influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. Dagon was the first of Lovecraft's works that displayed the themes and elements which his style is known for nowadays.

In late 1920 Lovecraft started publushing his earlies stories which we count towards the Cthulhu mythos. The first one - a poem titled Nyarlathotep and a short story The Crawling Chaos written in a collaboration with Winifred Virginia Jackson. Following year he wrote The Nameless City and Ex Oblivione which were published in Weird Tales newspaper.

In later years Lovecraft moved to New York where he married Sonia Greene in 1924. He was being pressured by his friends to submit more stories to the Weird Tales. Many of them were accepted and published under his own name, as well as some of the ones he ghostwritten.

His life in New York was full of tragedies, which left to decline in his and his wife's healths. In 1925 he wrote The Horror at Red Hook and He which both showed his disapproval of living in New York. It was around this time when he started planning the outline of The Call of Cthulhu.

BACK TO PROVIDENCE

His decline in health and financial problems led him back to Providence where he lived in his aunts victorian house. This period in his live contains most of his best works: The Call of Cthulhu, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and The Shadow over Innsmouth among many others. During this time Lovecraft did a large amount of editorial work as well as ghostwriting for other artists.

In later years Lovecraft's productivity would bring him no renumeration, he was really sensitive to criticism and easily would withdraw. As an example one of his better works The Shadow over Innsmouth was declined by him when offered publication.

The book would be published as a paperback in 1936, even though its advertisements in the Weird Tales and some other magazines it would sell poorly. Lovecraft was not pleased since book had many errors which would take a long time to correct.

THE END

His last original story The Haunter of the Dark marked the end of his writing career. He said that poor reception of At the Mountains of Madness marked the end of him as an author.

Because of his fear of the doctors Lovecraft would not want to be examined by them, which made it impossible to diagnose the terminal cancer he had. Only a month before his death he decided to look for help, he was hospitalized until his death on March 15th, 1937.

His legacy lives on in many other works as well as the themes which influences art as it is known now.