H. P. Lovecraft
Novelist, Author
1890 – 1937
Who was H. P. Lovecraft?
Howard Phillips Lovecraft — known as H. P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy, poetry and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction.
Lovecraft's guiding aesthetic and philosophical principle was what he termed "cosmicism" or "cosmic horror", the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally inimical to the interests of humankind. As such, his stories express a profound indifference to human beliefs and affairs. Lovecraft is the originator of the Cthulhu Mythos story cycle and the Necronomicon, a fictional magical textbook of rites and forbidden lore.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his lifetime, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. According to Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft — as with Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century — has exerted "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction". Science fiction and fantasy author Stephen King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." King has made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for King's own fascination with horror and the macabre, and was the single largest figure to influence his fiction writing. Lovecraft's stories have been adapted into plays, films and games, such as Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth and id Software's Quake.
Famous Quotes:
- The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
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- Born
- Aug 20, 1890
Providence - Also known as
- Howard Philips Lovecraft
- Humphrey Littlewit
- Ward Phillips
- Edward Softly
- Albert Frederick Willie
- Ames Dorrance Rowley
- C. M. Eddy, Jr.
- Harry Houdini
- Hazel Heald
- Howard Phillips Lovecraft
- Parents
- Spouses
- Sonia Greene
(1924/03/03 - 1926/03/25)
- Sonia Greene
- Religion
- Atheism
- Agnosticism
- Ethnicity
- English American
- Nationality
- United States of America
- Profession
- Education
- Hope High School
- Lived in
- Providence
- Rhode Island
- Died
- Mar 15, 1937
Providence
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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"H. P. Lovecraft." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/h_p_lovecraft>.
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