Fear is the most powerful human feeling. Therefore, it is not surprising that literature and cinema have devoted so much space to this negative emotional process. But there are only a few writers in the world who could not only captivate the reader, but also scare him to the point of goosebumps. Such writers include Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who is often called a twentieth-century writer.

The creator of the Cthulhu Mythos is so original that in literature it is customary to distinguish a separate genre - “Lovecraftian horror”. Howard gained thousands of followers (August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith), but during his lifetime he never saw a single book published. Lovecraft is familiar from his works “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Lurking Fear”, “Beyond the Dream”, “Cast Away”, etc.

Childhood and youth

Howard was born on March 15, 1937 in the capital of Roth Island, Providence. This city with chaotically located streets, crowded squares and Gothic spiers is often found in the works of Lovecraft: throughout his life, the literary genius was acutely homesick. The writer said that his family descends from the astronomer John Field, who lived in the era and introduced the works to the United Kingdom.

Young Howard had a peculiar childhood. The quiet and intelligent boy grew up until the age of two in the suburbs of Boston and was raised in the family of jewelry salesman Winfield Scott, who lost his mind and went crazy. Winfield was placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he soon died, and Sarah Susan, with her two-year-old son in her arms, moved to her relatives’ three-story clapboard house at 454 Angell Street.

The cottage belonged to Lovecraft's grandfather Whipple Van Buren Phillips and his wife Robie, who were known as avid bookworms and kept a large library. They also had at their disposal several servants, an orchard with a fountain and a stable with three horses. One could only dream of such luxury, but not everything was so smooth in the life of little Howard. Winfield's mental illness was passed on to Susan: having lost her husband, she became obsessed with the idea that Howard was all she had.

Therefore, Susan did not leave her beloved child a single step, trying to fulfill even the most bizarre whims of her son. And the grandfather loved to pamper his little grandson, indulging him in everything. Howard's mother loved dressing the boy in girls' clothes. It is noteworthy that the parent also bought dresses and hair bands for her offspring.

This upbringing did not prevent the child prodigy Howard, who began reciting poems as soon as he could walk, from becoming addicted to literature. Lovecraft spent days and nights sitting in his grandfather's library, leafing through books. The young man fell into the hands of not only classical works, but also Arabic tales: he enjoyed reading the stories told by Scheherazade.

During his first years, Howard was educated at home. Since the boy had poor health, he could not attend an educational institution, so he had to master physics, chemistry, mathematics and literature on his own. When Lovecraft turned 12, he, fortunately, began going to school again, but this did not last long. The fact is that in 1904 Whipple Van Buren Phillips died, which is why the family lost their main source of income.

Consequently, Lovecraft, along with his mother, who was barely making ends meet, had to move to a smaller house. The death of his grandfather and his departure saddened Howard; he plunged into deep depression and even considered taking his own life. Ultimately, the author of “Dagon” never received a high school diploma, something he was ashamed of all his life.

Literature

Howard Phillips Lovecraft took up inkwell and pen as a child. The boy was constantly tormented by nightmares, because of which sleep was a terrible torture, because Lovecraft could not control these dreams or wake up. Throughout the night, he observed in his wild imagination frightening creatures with webbed wings, which were called “night monsters.”

Howard's first works were written in the fantasy genre, but Lovecraft abandoned this “frivolous literature” and began to hone his skills by writing poems and essays. But in 1917, Howard returned to science fiction and published the stories “The Crypt” and “Dagon.”

The plot of the latter is built around the deity Dagon, who belongs to the pantheon of Cthulhu myths. The appearance of this deep-sea monster is disgusting, and its huge scaly hands will make everyone shudder.

It would seem that success is already close, for “Dagon” was published in the magazine in 1923. But misfortune happened again in Howard's life. His mother ended up in the same hospital where his father spent the last years of his life. Sarah died on May 21, 1921; doctors were unable to cure this crazy woman. Therefore, in order to escape from the torment, the literary genius began to work hard.

Howard Lovecraft managed to invent his own unique worlds, which can be put on a par with Middle-earth, Discworld, Lyman Frank Baum's Oz and other parallel Universes in the world of literature. Howard became the founder of a certain mystical cult: in the world there are people who believe in unprecedented and omnipotent deities (the Ancients), which are found in the Necronomicon.

Fans of the writer know that Lovecraft refers to ancient sources in his works. The Necronomicon is Howard's fictional encyclopedia of magical rituals, strongly associated with the Cthulhu Mythos, first found in the story "The Hound" (1923).

The writer himself said that the manuscript existed in reality, and claimed that the “Book of the Dead” was written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred (the early pseudonym of the writer, inspired by the “Arabian Nights”). There is also a legend that this book is kept behind seven locks, because it is dangerous for the mental and physical health of the reader.

It is noteworthy that excerpts from the Necronomicon were scattered throughout Lovecraft's novels and stories, and these quotes were collected into a single volume by enthusiastic fans. The first to think of this was the writer August Derleth, a passionate admirer of Howard. By the way, the similarity of the “Necronomicon” was used by the director in his cult trilogy “The Evil Dead” (1981,1987,1992).

The master of the pen also endowed his books with original spells and drawings. For example, in order to respect the great and terrible Cthulhu, an adherent of a cruel cult needs to say: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh vgah’nagl fhtagn!” By the way, for the first time a giant octopus-like monster sleeping at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and capable of influencing the human mind appeared in the story “The Call of Cthulhu” (1928).

Then, a year later, a work called “The Dunwich Horror” (1929) was published. Lovecraft tells his reader about a fictional town in north-central Massachusetts. In this seedy place lived an old man who loved to perform sinister rituals, and a young man named Wilbur, who was not a man at all, but a strange creature with tentacles.

In 1931, Howard expanded his creative biography with the science fiction novel “The Ridges of Madness”, and also wrote the story “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (1931), the plot of which revolves around a mystery: an enveloping gloomy city where people live who have an ominous appearance, as if they were ill with an unexplored disease. previously ill.

In the same 1931, Lovecraft wrote another work, “The Whisperer in the Dark,” where the extraterrestrial race of intelligent mushrooms Mi-go was first mentioned. In his story, the writer mixes detective, science fiction in one bottle and flavors his creation with a special Lovecraftian technique.

Lovecraft's books are scary because his manuscripts use the psychological horror of the unknown, rather than primitive intimidation of the reader with vampires, monsters, ghouls, zombies and other characters. Moreover, Howard knew how to create such an atmosphere of suspense that, perhaps, he himself would have envied this literary genius.

Later, Lovecraft presented the story “Dreams in the Witch House” (1932). The story describes the life of an inquisitive student Walter Gilman, who had heard plenty of stories about the witch Kezia Mason, who could easily move in space. But the young guy is sure that the witch travels in the fourth dimension. Ultimately, the puzzled Walter begins to have nightmares: as soon as Morpheus touches the protagonist's eyes, an evil old woman begins to mock him.

In 1933, Howard wrote a story with a telling title: “The Thing on the Doorstep.” The plot of the work develops in the fictional town of Arkham, in the house of architect Daniel Upton, who is trying to explain to the reader why he killed his friend, the writer Edward Pickman Derby. This work with an unexpected ending will thoroughly immerse the avid book lover in mystical and intricate stories.

Then, in 1935, Lovecraft published the book “Beyond Time” and in the same year dedicated a new work to Robert Bloch, “Dweller in Darkness.” This book is about the writer Robert Blake, who was found dead in his home. Horror froze on the writer’s face, and one can only judge what happened on that fateful day of death by the notes scattered on the table.

Among other things, Howard's credentials include a collection of sonnets, Mushrooms from Yuggoth, written in 1929. Also, Lovecraft, whose undeniable talent was appreciated by fans, helped his colleagues in writing stories. Moreover, it often happened that all the laurels of honor went to the second co-author, who made a smaller contribution to the plot of the work.

Lovecraft left behind an epistolary legacy; scientists used to say that a hundred thousand letters were written by the hand of the mystic. Drafts by other writers, corrected by Lovecraft, have also survived. Thus, Howard kept only a few sentences from the “original”, receiving a small amount for this, while some co-authors were content with large fees.

Personal life

Howard Lovecraft lived a reclusive life. He could spend days and nights at his desk, writing science fiction novels that became popular only after the death of the author. The master of words actively published in magazines, but the money paid by the editors was not enough for a decent existence.

It is known that Lovecraft was “fed” by editorial activities in the field of amateur literary journalism. He not only made “candy” out of writers’ drafts, but also retyped texts by hand, which burdened him, because Howard had difficulty retyping even his own texts.

Contemporaries said that the tall and thin man, whose appearance resembled Boris Karloff (played in the film "Frankenstein" based on the novel) and, was a kind and sympathetic person, whose soft smile gave warmth. Lovecraft knew how to empathize, for example, the suicide of his friend Robert Howard, who decided to do such an act because of the death of his mother, wounded Lovecraft to the very heart and undermined his health.

In addition, the author of chilling horrors loved cats, ice cream and travel: he visited New England, Quebec, Philadelphia and Charleston. It is ironic that Lovecraft did not like cold and slushy weather, the atmosphere of which reigns in Poe’s novels and paintings. He also avoided everything connected with the sea, although his works are saturated with the smell of water and damp planks of a coastal pier.

As for amorous relationships, only one of the writer’s chosen ones is known, a native of the Russian Empire - Sonya Green. The lovers moved from quiet Providence to noisy New York, but Lovecraft could not stand the crowds and fast pace of life. Soon the couple separated without having time to file a divorce.

Death

Upon learning of the death of a friend who shot himself in the mouth with a pistol, Howard could not come to his senses. Ultimately, he stopped eating because he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937 in his native Providence, having outlived Robert E. Howard by nine months.

Subsequently, the writer’s works were often used as the basis for various films and cartoons, and they wanted to erect a monument to Howard himself in Providence.

Bibliography

• 1917 – “Crypt”
• 1917 – “Dagon”
• 1919 – “The Reincarnation of Juan Romero”
• 1920 – “Cats of Ulthar”
• 1921 – “The Music of Erich Zahn”
• 1925 – “Holiday”
• 1927 – “Color from Other Worlds”
• 1927 – “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”
• 1928 – “Call of Cthulhu”
• 1929 – “The Dunwich Horror”
• 1929 – “Silver Key”
• 1931 – “The Ridges of Madness”
• 1931 – “Shadow over Innsmouth”
• 1931 – “The Whisperer in the Dark”

Howard Phillips Lovecraft(English) Howard Phillips Lovecraft, August 20, Providence, Rhode Island, USA - March 15, ibid.) - American writer and poet who wrote in the genres of horror, mysticism, combining them in an original style. The founder of the Cthulhu Mythos. During Lovecraft's lifetime, his works were not very popular, but after his death they had a noticeable influence on the formation of modern mass culture. His work is so unique that Lovecraft's works stand out as a separate subgenre - the so-called Lovecraftian horror.

Biography

Lovecraft at the age of 9-10 years.

Lovecraft was raised by his mother, two aunts and his grandfather (Whipple Van Buren Phillips), who sheltered the future writer's family. Howard was a child prodigy - he recited poetry by heart at the age of two, and by the age of six he was already writing his own. Thanks to his grandfather, who had the largest library in the state, he was introduced to classical literature. In addition to the classics, he became interested in Gothic prose and Arabian tales of the Thousand and One Nights.

At the age of 6-8, Lovecraft wrote several stories, most of which have not survived to this day. At the age of 14, Lovecraft wrote his first serious work, “The Beast in the Cave.”

As a child, Lovecraft was often ill, and he went to school only at the age of eight, but a year later he was taken away from there. He read a lot, studied chemistry in between, and wrote several works (copying them on a hectograph in small editions), starting in 1899 (“Scientific Newspaper”). Four years later he returned to school.

Whipple Van Buren Phillips died in 1904, after which the family became greatly impoverished and was forced to move to a smaller house on the same street. Howard was saddened by the departure and even contemplated suicide. Due to a nervous breakdown that happened to him in 1908, he never finished school, which he was very ashamed of.

Lovecraft wrote science fiction as a child (“The Beast in the Cave”), “The Alchemist” ()), but later preferred poetry and essays to it. He returned to this “frivolous” genre only in 1917 with the stories “Dagon”, then “The Tomb”. "Dagon" became his first published creation, appearing in 1923 in the magazine "Mystery Stories" ( Weird Tales). At the same time, Lovecraft began his correspondence, which eventually became one of the most voluminous in the 20th century. His correspondents included Forrest Ackerman, Robert Bloch and Robert Howard.

Sarah, Howard's mother, after a long period of hysteria and depression, ended up in the same hospital where her husband died, and died there on May 21, 1921. She wrote to her son until her last days.

Despite his success as a writer, Lovecraft became increasingly needy. He moved again, this time to a small house. Robert Howard's suicide made a strong impression on him. In 1936, the writer was diagnosed with intestinal cancer, a consequence of malnutrition. Howard Phillips Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.

Literary creativity

Predecessors

Writers whose work influenced Lovecraft primarily include Edgar Allan Poe, Edward Dunsany, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Lafcadio Hearn.

Followers

August Derleth

Perhaps the most important of Lovecraft's followers, both in terms of chronology and continuity, is August Derleth. Despite the fact that many authors subsequently turned to the pantheon of cosmic gods created by Lovecraft, it was Derleth who became the creator and head of the Arkham House publishing house, which published the works of Lovecraft himself, Derleth and everyone who in one way or another came into contact with the works created by Lovecraft worlds. Derleth was also quite successful as a writer, although he could not match the power of his teacher. However, he was a publishing genius - books from the Arkham House publishing house from that period are now bibliographic rarities. Moreover, this was a rare case when a publishing house was created for the work of a specific person.

Stephen King

Lovecraft's work, which influenced the popular culture of the West, left an indelible mark on the work of countless writers who worked and are working in the genre of mysticism and horror. One of Lovecraft’s creative heirs is the famous “King of Horror” Stephen King. The most striking work in which Stephen King does not imitate the storytelling style of Howard Lovecraft, but pays tribute to the latter’s talent, is the story “Crouch End”, filmed by the TNT film company in the collection of short stories “Nightmares and Fantasies of Stephen King”. King's work clearly shows traces of the influence of Lovecraft. Thus, the novel “It” directly refers the reader to cosmic horror that came from time immemorial. It should be noted, however, that King's horror can be quite clearly divided into three main parts: cosmic (Lovecraft), afterlife and scientific (Mary Shelley).

Among other things, most of Stephen King's books take place in small American towns, which is also typical of the works of Lovecraft, who believed that the most terrible things happen in quiet places.

"Necronomicon" and books in the works of Lovecraft

Lovecraft usually referred to ancient books that contained secrets that man should not know. Most of the references were fictitious, but some occult works actually existed. The combination of fictional documents with real ones in the same context allowed the former to appear real. Lovecraft gave only general references to such books (mostly to create atmosphere) and rarely provided detailed descriptions. The most famous of these fictional manuscripts is his "Necronomicon", about which the writer spoke most. His explanations of this text were so well thought out that many people to this day believe in the reality of this book, and this allows some to profit from the ignorance of others.

The Book of Eibon, Livre d'Eibon, or Liber Ivonis

Currently, Lovecraft's collections are regularly republished in Russia by at least three major publishing houses - Azbuka, AST, Eksmo.

Works of Howard Lovecraft

The most famous and significant works:

• Herbert West - Re-Animator (1922)

Screen adaptation

Several dozen films have been made based on Lovecraft's works. The most famous of them were created by directors Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and others:

Currently in Russia, in Vladivostok, the film “The Shadow over Arkham” is being filmed (film blog - community.livejournal.com/hpl_movie_blog), also based on the works of Lovecraft.

Computer games

• Alone in the Dark (Quest, 1992)

• Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet (Quest, 1993)

• Prisoner of Ice (Quest/Survival horror, 1995)

• Legacy (RPG, 1996)

• Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness (Quest, 2001)

• Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (Action/Adventure, 2006)

• Sherlock Holmes 3: The Secret of Cthulhu (Quest, 2007)

• Darkness Within - In Pursuit of Loath Nolder (Quest, 2007)

• Penumbra: Black Plague (Adventure/Survival horror/Action, 2008)

Notes

Literature

• L. Sprague De Camp. Lovecraft: A Biography. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2008. - P. 656. - ISBN 978-5-367-00815-9

Links

See also

Works Howard Phillips Lovecraft
-
	Creeping Chaos · Oblivion · Nameless City · Search for Iranon · Lunar Marsh · Outcast · Other Gods ·

Howard Phillips Lovecraft- American writer, poet and journalist who wrote in the genres of horror, mysticism and fantasy, combining them in an original style. The founder of the Cthulhu Mythos.

During Lovecraft's lifetime, his works were not very popular, but after his death they had a significant influence on the formation of modern popular culture. His work is so unique that Lovecraft’s works stand out as a separate subgenre - the so-called Lovecraftian horrors. It should be noted that Lovecraft never used the term "Cthulhu Mythos", which was introduced by his protégé after the death of the writer. - just one of the representatives of a whole pantheon of deities, which includes Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath and others.

Born August 20, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. His parents, Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Phillips, were of English descent, and throughout their lives Lovecraft remained an Anglophile. Winfield Lovecraft, a traveling salesman, spent a lot of time away from home. Three years after the birth of his son, he was placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he died in 1898 from the “progressive paralysis of the insane,” the final stage of syphilis. As a result, Lovecraft spent the remainder of his formative years under the supervision of his mother and her two unmarried sisters.

Lovecraft studied at Hope High School in Providence, but, having poor health, was forced to educate himself.

At the age of 15, he wrote his first story "". At this time, he also became interested in epistolary communication, which became one of the main entertainments of his life. At the same time, he was associated with more than a hundred regular correspondents; his letters that have reached us significantly exceed his fiction in volume (according to some estimates, the total number of letters written Lovecraft, exceeds 100,000).

Lovecraft was prone to extremely vivid and lucid dreams, suffering from nightmares almost every night. In his childhood, he was visited in his dreams by creatures he called “Night Mverzi.” These faceless, bat-winged ghosts carried him to the high, jagged mountain peaks - an archetypal landscape that was called in his prose "the disgusting plateau of Lang." And what happened during such nightly events gave rise to many of the most vivid images Lovecraft, often left on paper in a manner virtually identical to that of “automatic writing.”
In winter, he rarely left the confines of his home due to a morbid fear of temperatures below 70F. He showed a clear aversion to the sea, suffered from terrible headaches, and his physical appearance showed signs of malnutrition.

From 1930 onwards, Lovecraft periodically convinced those with whom he corresponded that just as he was about to give up writing, something forced him to continue creating new works.
In 1935 (a year after the completion of his last story, ""), he was diagnosed with a disease that was finally diagnosed in 1937 as intestinal cancer. Lovecraft was admitted to Jane Brown Memorial Hospital, where he died on March 15, 1937, at the age of 46.

After death Lovecraft The writer's friend August Derleth founded the publishing house Arkham House to rescue his work from the obscurity of the cheap magazines in which Lovecraft's stories first appeared, and to bring his writings to a wider audience. (During Lovecraft's lifetime, only one of his stories, "The Outsider" appeared in book form, published by a small private press.) In 1939, Arkham House published the first collection of his stories, The Outsider and the Others.

Fear is the most ancient and powerful of human feelings, and the oldest and most powerful fear is the fear of the unknown.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft "Supernatural Horror in Literature"

In some ways, Howard Lovecraft is luckier than many other authors. This is not about success in book publishing: during Lovecraft’s lifetime, only one of his novels went into print, and his stories were published in cheap magazines, where they published just about anyone. And not about a bright, eventful life: hardly anyone will be impressed by moving from one house to another at a distance of several tens of meters...

Lovecraft accomplished something more. A man who throughout his life was amazed at any secrets (more often imaginary than real), turned his biography and work into a “Lovecraft phenomenon”, causing, if not amazement, then bewilderment. Before us is a very contradictory personality. A homebody who wrote with gusto about deadly journeys and terrifying unknown spaces. A dense, dense xenophobe in words, but who did not adhere to these principles in real life. Almost unknown during his lifetime - and unexpectedly becoming popular after his death...

Let's take a closer look at the horror classic.

Music for the mood: Nox Arcana - Necronomicon

Library and telescope

He was a tall, thin and fair-haired young man with serious eyes, slightly stooped, dressed with slight carelessness and gave the impression of a not very attractive, awkward, but harmless young man.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

Young Lovecraft, dressed in the children's fashion of the time - both boys and girls under five were dressed the same

On August 20, 1890, the only and, by then standards, late child of traveling jewelry salesman Winfield Scott Lovecraft and his wife Sarah Susan Phillips was born in Providence, Rhode Island.

Winfield and Sarah came from old American families that had settled in the New World since 1630. Being a descendant of the first settlers was considered an honor. This “aristocratic” origin seems to have shaped the writer’s intolerant views.

All of them turned out to be people of mixed blood, extremely low mental
development, and even with mental disorders.

A typical Lovecraftian description of the servants of dark cults

His mother’s sisters, Lillian Delora and Annie Emeline, and his grandfather Whipple Van Buren Phillips, a businessman, inventor and bookworm (who, by the way, collected the largest library in Providence) lived in the large family house at number 454 Angell Street. The help of relatives came in very handy three years later, when Winfield Scott had to be urgently hospitalized in the Providence Butler Hospital psychiatric hospital in a state of acute psychosis. No matter how doctors tried to improve Lovecraft Sr.’s condition, things got worse, and in 1898, at the age of only forty-five, Howard’s father died of nervous exhaustion.

Whipple Van Buren, Howard's grandfather, loved to tell his grandson scary stories

Of course, surrounded by four loving adults, Howard did not go unnoticed. Van Buren especially often worked with his grandson. Fortunately, the boy grew up as a child prodigy: he voraciously read classics and Arabic fairy tales, and from the age of six he began writing poetry and stories. Young Lovecraft also became familiar with Gothic prose from childhood: there were plenty of such books in the home library, and his grandfather - a clearly creative man, but, unfortunately, who did not write down his works - often told his grandson dark, mysterious and exciting stories.

Howard's first literary story was "The Beast in the Cave", written in 1905. Alas, his enviable intellect was accompanied by extremely poor health. The boy was constantly ill, and although he could still go to school until he was eight years old, albeit with long absences, after that he fell ill for a whole year and was expelled.

Howard is nine years old. His father had already died in a mental hospital. He has nightmares about the Lang Plateau.

However, it cannot be said that he lost time - thanks to his grandfather, Howard became interested in history, chemistry and especially astronomy and even began publishing The Scientific Gazette and The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy magazines, dedicated to his scientific research.

At first, Lovecraft's articles were very childish, but soon he was noticed by serious publications. Already in 1906, his article on astronomy was published by The Providence Sunday Journal. Howard then became a regular astronomy columnist for The Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner. And then other publications became interested in his scientific articles: The Providence Tribune, The Providence Evening News, The Asheville (N.C.) Gazette-News.

Howard's other problem was dreams. Nightmares, hallucinations, like vile winged creatures that carried the boy to the Lang plateau, or Dagon emerging from the thickness of the fetid waters - all this exhausted an already fragile body. Time after time, Lovecraft woke up in a panic with his heart beating wildly and could not move - he was overcome by night paralysis.

Night paralysis is a condition in which a person wakes up before he is able to move, or falls asleep later than the muscles completely relax. Often accompanied by irrational horror, suffocation, disorientation in space, and fantastic visions.

Changes occurred during sleep. I cannot remember in detail how everything happened, since my sleep, being restless and full of various visions, nevertheless turned out to be quite long. When I woke up, I discovered that I was half-sucked into the slimy surface of a disgusting black quagmire, which stretched around me in monotonous undulations as far as the eye could see.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft "Dagon"

In 1904, a new misfortune befell the family - grandfather Van Buren died. Financial affairs fell into complete disarray, and Howard and his mother had to move to a small apartment on the same street - 598 Angell Street.

Many of Lovecraft's characters were like him

The loss of his grandfather and his home, where he felt at least somehow protected from the frightening world, hit Lovecraft painfully. He began to think about suicide. However, he was able to pull himself together and even go to a new school - Hope High School. Howard was unexpectedly lucky - both with classmates and especially with teachers who encouraged his scientific interests. But poor health still failed, and in 1908, after a severe nervous breakdown, Lovecraft dropped out of school without receiving a high school diploma. Howard was ashamed of this detail of his biography: sometimes he hid it, sometimes he outright lied.

Rescue for hickey

When describing the next period of Lovecraft's life, it is difficult to resist the thought that the events take place at the beginning of the 20th century, and not a century later. Let's imagine this picture. An eighteen-year-old young man, whose only interests are astronomy and literature, lives with his mother in a small apartment, communicates with almost no one and only reads and reads... What is missing to complete the image? Active correspondence on Facebook or VKontakte, flame-driven posts generating kilometer-long comment feeds, with massive boyfriends and boyfriends, swearing and likes? Well, why, and that was it!

Issue of The Argosy with story by Jackson

In place of Facebook was the pulp magazine for teenagers The Argosy, where in 1913 a story by Frederick Jackson that caught the eye of Lovecraft was published. It’s hard to say why he didn’t like the mediocre love story so much (at that time there were plenty of them in pulp magazines), but Howard wrote an extremely emotional letter to the editor, in which he tore Jackson’s creation to smithereens.

Jackson's fans reared up, and a long, furious correspondence ensued on the pages of the magazine, involving many people. This included Edward Daas, who then headed the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA), an organization of young American authors who published their own magazines and wrote in them.

Having taken a closer look at Lovecraft, Daas invited him to join the UAPA. He agreed and began publishing The Conservative magazine (a total of 13 issues were published between 1915 and 1923), where he published his poems, articles and essays. The main thing is that, feeling in demand, he was finally able to leave the house and live a much more fulfilling life, surrounded by people, and not just books.

With the books, however, everything was also in order. Lovecraft began writing stories again: in 1917, “The Crypt” and “Dagon” were published, then “The Remembrance of Dr. Samuel Johnson”, “Polaris”, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep”, “The Reincarnation of Juan Romero”... Those that tormented him in childhood Lovecraft melted nightmares into fantastic stories - fortunately there was no shortage of material.

Lovecraft's publications in pulp magazines

Pulp Fiction

Pulp magazine Weird Tales, where Lovecraft and his friends were published. This issue published Robert E. Howard's story about Conan, “Queen of the Black Coast.”

Pulp magazines (from the word pulp - pulp from recycled materials and cheap paper made from it), despite all the neglect of intellectuals towards them, performed an important function. They gave the opportunity to read literature - even if not the best - to those who could not pay dearly for it. Workers and employees on a pittance salary who wanted to relax after work. Children and teenagers who had even less money, but needed food for imagination. Or simply people who had to travel far or wait a long time.

The first American palp magazine was The Argosy (“Merchant Ship”): it began publication on December 2, 1882 and lasted until 1978. At first it was called Golden Argosy, aimed at children, published once a week and cost five cents, but it soon became clear that this policy was not paying off. Since 1894, the magazine became monthly and ten-cent and began publishing detective stories, mysticism, westerns, gothic, stories about travelers, pirates, gold miners... What you need to distract yourself and have fun.

The Argosy was followed by The Popular Magazine, Adventure, All-Story, Blue Book, Top-Notch, Short Story, Cavalier... At the beginning of the 20th century, there were dozens of magazines - and they changed (and shaped) mass culture.

Communication with people - writers' conferences, meetings with colleagues and readers, copious correspondence - helped Lovecraft endure another blow. In 1919, after many years of depression, his mother's condition deteriorated sharply. Sarah Lovecraft was hospitalized at the same Butler Hospital, where her husband was treated unsuccessfully. Her condition, however, was better - she could at least write letters, and continued to maintain relations with her son until her death in 1921.

Lovecraft's aunts did not approve of his novel - that's why they learned about Howard and Sonya's wedding only after the fact

It is difficult to say what would have happened to Lovecraft - he took the death of his mother seriously - if he had not had an outlet in the form of writing events, where he was expected. A couple of weeks later he went to Boston for a conference of amateur journalists - and there he met Sonya Haft Green. A successful hat shop owner, a self-made woman who was widowed five years ago after a failed marriage, she was also a pulp writer, an amateur publisher, and a sponsor of several fanzines. Common interests brought Howard and Sonya closer together, and on March 3, 1924, they got married.

Sonya Green - nee Shafirkina, daughter of Simon and Rakhil Shafirkin from the city of Ichnya, Chernigov province - by her origin, it seemed that she did not fall into the category of “correct”, “our own”, so important for Lovecraft - at least judging by his works. But when theories and real life collide, more often than not, theories lose. Meeting an intelligent and charming lady made Howard forget about his views... however, only for a while.

Our own not-our own

In the board game "Arkham Horror" you can take the local priest Ivanitsky as an ally

As a rule, when it comes to xenophobia, it can be clearly defined. For example, this person is an anti-Semite. Or a white racist. Or black...

Not so with Lovecraft. His xenophobia did not limit itself - why waste time on trifles? Indians, Eskimos, blacks, Egyptians, Hindus - everyone, literally all of them, with the help of their nightmarish rituals, are going to destroy civilization, humanity and the Earth!

However, there was one foreign people who did not fall into the category of “strangers” for the writer. These are... Poles! Poland's turbulent history and economic problems in the 19th century led to mass emigration abroad. There were many representatives of the Polish diaspora in New England. The Poles, familiar from childhood, did not bother Howard Phillips’s trembling soul. From which we can draw a not particularly original conclusion: “The more you know, the less you are afraid.”

There and back

Gilman settled in ancient Arkham, where time seemed to stand still and people live only by legends. Here, everywhere, in silent rivalry, peaked roofs rise to the sky; underneath them, in dusty attics, in colonial times the Arkham witches hid from persecution by the Royal Guard.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft "Dreams in the Witch House"

At first, Howard and Sonya's marriage was successful. The newlyweds moved to New York, where Lovecraft joined the Kalem Club, a group of writers and intellectuals. He began publishing in the pulp magazine Weird Tales: editor Edwin Bird published many of Lovecraft's stories, despite criticism from some readers. Finally, Sonya took care of Howard’s health - and her husband, previously painfully thin, recovered thanks to his wife’s culinary talents.

Weird Tales with Lovecraft stories

Then things got worse. Sonya went to Cleveland, trying to improve the affairs of her company, but the bank where she kept her savings went bankrupt and the company went bankrupt. In addition, she also became ill - so, in theory, Howard was supposed to provide financially for the family. But he did not have the habit of systematic work, and he did not have enough professional skills.

Lovecraft could refuse even lucrative job offers if they were associated with inconvenience for him. So, he was offered a job as an editor at Weird Tales - but for this he had to move to Chicago. “Just imagine what a tragedy this move would be for an old wreck like me,” Howard, 34, responded mournfully.

While the sick Sonya was traveling around the States, trying to make money, Lovecraft found himself in New York, becoming more and more dissatisfied with this city every day. He lived on the money that his wife managed to send him, and was forced to move to an apartment on Clinton Street in Brooklyn, where there were many emigrants belonging to different nations and races - this infuriated Howard and horrified him. It was there that he began writing “The Call of Cthulhu” - the famous story about a cruel deity, worshiped by disgusting sectarians and who sends deadly nightmares to people (and simply eats them).

Cthulhu by Danilo Neira (Creative Commons)

Lovecraft rated the Cthulhu story as average, and the editor of Weird Tales (by then Fernsworth Wright) initially rejected it altogether - and published it only when one of Lovecraft's friends lied that Howard would send the work to another magazine. But “Call of Cthulhu” was very loved by the author of “Conan” Robert Howard:

A masterpiece that I am confident will live on as one of the highest achievements of literature... Lovecraft occupies a unique position in the literary world; he has captured, in every respect, worlds beyond our puny horizons.

I must admit: at least within the horror genre, Howard was right.

Lovecraft could not stand such a life for long - and returned to his native Providence. His marriage, in fact, quietly broke up, but it never came to an official divorce. He never saw Sonya again. And Providence - along with neighboring Salem - became the prototype for Arkham, the most famous city from Lovecraft's works.

After many misadventures, Sonya Green went to California, where she married again - to Dr. Davis from Los Angeles (and Lovecraft was still alive, which actually made the new marriage invalid), then she was widowed again. She wrote the memoirs “The Private Life of Lovecraft” - already as Sonya Davis. She lived a long and successful life - and died at the age of 89.

The next few years were Lovecraft's most fruitful. He traveled a lot (mainly in New England, but not only - he also went to Quebec, Philadelphia, Charleston, St. Augustine), gained impressions - and, of course, wrote.

His works of this time are called “the elder Lovecraft texts”: these include the novels “The Ridges of Madness”, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, short stories and novellas “The Color from Other Worlds”, “The Dunwich Horror”, “Silver key", "Shadow from Timelessness", "Whisperer in the Dark". At the same time, many articles appeared from his pen on a variety of topics: from politics to architecture, from economics to philosophy. Lovecraft continued to correspond extensively with both old friends such as Robert Bloch and younger authors such as August Derleth and Fritz Leiber.

Christmas card signed by Lovecraft. Well, as signed...

His biographer Lion Sprague de Camp estimates that Lovecraft wrote about 100,000 letters throughout his life (of which only a fifth have survived). If so, he set an absolute record among all people who have ever lived on Earth. Other biographers believe that de Camp's figures are exaggerated and that Lovecraft wrote about 30 thousand letters. But even this number places him in second place - after Voltaire.

Alas, the writer’s financial affairs were getting worse. He published little and rarely, the inheritance on which he lived ended. Lovecraft had to move into a small house with one of his aunts. Health problems caused by starvation (as he tried to save money on paper and envelopes for correspondence) were aggravated by the depression into which Lovecraft fell after the suicide of his close friend Robert E. Howard.

At the beginning of 1937, doctors diagnosed him with intestinal cancer - which had already developed to a condition with which medicine could not do anything. On March 15, 1937, Lovecraft passed away.

The writer's last house: here he lived from May 1933 to March 10, 1937, when he was taken to the hospital. He never returned from there...

At first, Lovecraft did not have a separate tombstone - his name and surname were written on his parent’s monument. But when his works became popular, it seemed to his fans that this was not enough. They raised money and in 1977 erected a separate tombstone for their beloved writer.

On it, in addition to the name and two dates, the phrase “I am Providence” is written (this is not a self-epitaph, but simply a quote from one of his letters). This play on words means both “I am Providence” and “I am providence”, “I am God’s providence”. Elegant, pathetic and with a touch of mystery - just what we would expect from Lovecraft.

Lovecraft's tombstone, erected thanks to his fans

Life after death

Usually, when a person dies, his biography ends. If this were the case with Lovecraft, it is unlikely that we would remember the pulp author of the 1920s and 1930s. Thousands of them. And a book published during his lifetime (The Shadow Over Innsmouth was published in 1936 in Pennsylvania) would hardly have changed the situation.

But when executors and biographers got to Lovecraft’s literary estate, the situation changed dramatically. First of all, thanks to August Derleth, an average science fiction writer, but a brilliant advertiser and book publisher. He created the Arkham House publishing house in 1939 specifically to publish Lovecraft's works - a rare case in this industry.

Derleth, an ardent admirer of Lovecraft, helped publish his works during his lifetime. But Lovecraft himself interfered with him: he refused to provide what he had written, declared that he had outlived his usefulness as an author, and so on. But when Derleth was allowed to access posthumous archives without restrictions, everything started to spin - and to this day, although eighty years have passed, it continues to gain momentum.

Lovecraft books published by Arkham House

It seems that everything that Lovecraft wrote and that has survived was published, including unfinished works, volumes of letters and inter-author projects. Not only Arkham House took part in this - other publishing houses also joined in.

Several dozen films have been made based on Lovecraft, starting with “The Enchanted Castle” in 1963 - it also started the fashion for “Lovecraft plus someone” crossovers, in this case plus Edgar Allan Poe. About fifty computer games and a little less than thirty board games have been created, and a number of rock operas have been recorded. And the number of individual songs, fan art and fan fiction based on Lovecraft simply cannot be counted. And there's no sign that we'll be forgetting Cthulhu, Arkham, and Lang Plateau anytime soon.

So why Lovecraft?

Why did Lovecraft, not particularly famous during his lifetime, become so popular after his death? Let us venture to offer a possible answer - albeit a rather unpleasant one for us. In short, Lovecraft was ahead of his time. Usually they say this about scientific or other brilliant insights, but here the meaning is different. Let's remember the standard scheme of Lovecraft's works: we lived normally, but we poked our heads where we shouldn't or discovered what we shouldn't - and because of this, someone else's evil is breaking into the world, so terrible that it can't even be described. Moral: there was no point in poking around and opening it. Knowledge multiplies not only sorrow, but also downright chthonic horror.

We live on a quiet island of ignorance in the middle of a dark sea of ​​infinity, and we should not sail long distances at all. The sciences, each pulling in its own direction, have hitherto done us little harm; however, the day will come when the unification of hitherto scattered fragments of knowledge will reveal to us such terrifying views of reality that we will either lose our minds from what we see, or we will try to hide from this destructive enlightenment in the peace and security of the new Middle Ages.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft "The Call of Cthulhu"

Cthulhu for President! (in this case Poland)

For people of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this type of horror became a real gift. Because - well, let's look at ourselves honestly. We are locking ourselves away from life in a house of virtual reality and distance communication. We tense up when we are surrounded by strangers - people who differ from us in appearance, clothing or religion. Our money is spent on isolating ourselves from the rest of humanity, not on space exploration - but we don't mind. We enthusiastically spread horror stories about GMOs, drink bullshit and charged water. And remember the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar - how many representatives of enlightened humanity believed in this “secret knowledge”, which would look great under the same cover with stories about Yog-sothoth, Dagon and Nyarlathotep!

It all looks pathetic. And to ennoble the fear of another synthesized mold or Dolly the sheep, you need pathos, the more the better. This is what Lovecraft generously gave us! “Monstrous deities capable of destroying the universe, and their awe-inspiring and disgusting cults” - this sounds much better than “I’m afraid of Vasya and genetically modified corn.” Not so embarrassing.

Thank you, Howard. You have become a good mirror for us. Well, it’s true that the reflection could have been better. And it’s up to us to sort this out ourselves.