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H(oward) P(hillips) Lovecraft (1890-1937) | |
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American poet and author of macabre short novels, who was virtually unknown most of his career. Lovecraft's posthumous fame, particularly in America and France, rests on his 'Cthulhu Mythos' stories, referring to a "race who, in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again." H.P. Lovecraft has become a cult figure in the genre of horror stories; he is considered a true successor of Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft's imaginary town in his tales, Arkham, was based on his home town of Providence. "For after all, the victim was a writer and painter wholly devoted to the field of myth, dream, terror, and superstition, and avid in his quest for scenes and effects of a bizarre, spectral sort. His earlier stay in the city - a visit to a strange old man as deeply given to occult and forbidden lore as he - had ended amidst death and flame, and it must have been some morbid instinct which drew him back from his home in Milwaukee. He may have known of the old stories despite his statements to the contrary in the diary, and his death may have nipped in the bud some stupendous hoax destined to have a literary reflection." (from 'The Haunter Of the Dark', 1951) Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He was of predominantly of British stock on both sides of his family, consumed by eccentricity. His mother keep his son from contact with the outside world. She treated him like a girl, and made him wear his hair long until the age of six. Lovecraft's father, named after the hero Winfield Scott, was a traveling salesman, who went mad, probably from syphilis, was institutionalized, and died when his son was five. Lovecraft suffered from terrifying nightly disturbances and nightmares which lasted until his own death. This deeply personal material also clinged to his stories, such as The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1928). "From a private hospital for the insane near Providence, Rhode Island, there recently disappeared an exceedingly singular person. He bore the name of Charles Dexter Ward, and was placed under restraint most reluctantly by the grieving father who had watched his aberration grow from a eccentricity to a dark mania involving both a possibility of murderous tendencies and a peculiar change in the apparent contents of his mind." Lovecraft grew up as a fringe member of the conservative New England aristocracy. He was educated at local schools, although often he was kept away from school by his overprotective mother. Lovecraft's poor health as a young boy led him to read voluminously from his grandfather's old library. During this time he found the works of Edgar Allan Poe, who had visited several times the library in Province, and who became the model for his literary compositions. He also read works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, and Lord Dunsany (1878-1957), who inspired him to write the short novel The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926-27). "The most poignant sensations of my existence are those of 1896, when I discovered the Hellenic world, and of 1902, when I discovered the myriad suns and worlds of infinite space," Lovecraft once said to his friend. In his early career Lovecraft struggled to assimilate all these literary influences he encountered, finding his own voice after years of writing. After two and half years of high school, he had a "nervous collapse" and failed to leave secondary school with a diploma. However, he was fascinated by science and by the age of 16 he wrote on astronomy for local newspapers. At the age of 27 he was still at home, writing gloomy tales for amateur publications. The publisher of Weid Tales magazine, Clark Henneberger, become interested in the work of the Rhode Island hermit, a character not far from his stories, and published 'Dragon' in the Octobor 1923 issue. Henneberger bought everything he wrote. For Harry Houdini, the famous magician who "contributed" to the magazine, Lovecraft ghostwrote 'Imprisoned with the Pharaohs' (1924). Eventually Lovecraft was offered the job of editor at Weird Tales, but he turned the offer down. Lovecraft's mother died when the author was 31 - at the same insane asylum as his father. Lovecraft continued to live with his two aunts. His marriage in 1924 with Sonia Greene, who was seven years his senior, lasted only until 1926. Sonia was a Jew and she has recalled that her husband hated Jewish immigrants, but he was an "adequately excellent lover." After two miserable year in New York, an example of the disintegration of society, "a babel of sound and filth," Lovecraft moved back to Providence, where he spent the rest of his life with his aunts. Social contacts Lovecraft maintained mainly by mail - Lovecraft's letters to Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) alone averaged about 40,000 words a year. While still in his thirties, he began referring to himself as an "old gentleman" and signing his letters as "Grandpa". L. Sprague de Camp has claimed in Lovecraft: A Biography (1975) that the author wrote over 1000,000 letters. "Nyarlathotep is a nightmare - an actual phantasm of my own, with the first paragraph written before I fully awakened. I had been feeling execrably of late - whole weeks have passed without relief from head-ache..." (from Lovecraft by Lin Carter, 1972) After gaining some success as a writer, Lovecraft started to travel. His later works show that he was beginning to outgrow from the genre of horror in the direction of science fiction - among others 'The Color Out of Space' and 'The Shadow Out of Time' from his mature period were first published in science fiction magazines. Lovecraft died from a combination of intestinal cancer and Bright's disease on March 15, 1937. He was buried in the family plot in the Swan Point Cemetary. Lovecraft's friends August Derleth and Donald Wandrei set up in 1939 a publishing house for his work, Arkham House, and the author's books have remained in print ever since. Lovecraft's THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS (1939), which was the first publication from Arkham House, contains his most memorable stories. Most of Lovecraft's short stories appeared in the magazine Weird Tales, beginning in 1923. His works from the early phase include 'The Tomb', 'The Statement of Randolph Carter', 'The Outsider', 'The Rats in the Walls, 'The Shunned House', 'From Beyond', and 'Cool Air', all written with more or less conventional scenarios. Lovecraft often used the first-person narrator, who is a scientist or scholar. The narrator witnesses events that contradict his beliefs and completely change his view of the world. "Trouble with memory. I see things I never knew before. Other worlds and other galaxies... Dark... The lightning seems dark and the darkness seems light..." (from 'The Haunter of the Dark') Going gradually insane, Lovecfaft's characters must face ultimatre horrors, prepared or not: "The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!" (from 'Dragon', 1919) After returning to his native Providence, Lovecraft became interested in his own New England heritage, evoking its topography, history and society. This mature period produced such stories as 'The Color Out of Space', 'The Dunwich Horror', 'The Shadow over Innsmouth', 'The Thing on the Doorstep', 'The Dreams in the Witch House'. Many of Lovecraft's tales utilize a pseudo-mythical framework, termed the 'Cthulhu Mythos.' The first installment in the series, 'The Call of Cthulhu' appeared in the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales, where he created his basic myth of the Old Ones and Elder Race, which wandered on earth long before the appearance of Homo Sapiens. 'The Dunwich Horror' was partly inspired by Lovecraft's trip to western Massachusetts in the area of Athol. He tranformed it into the home of decadent Wheateleys. In the story cycle, humans are hapless victims, not important for the incomprehensible cosmic forces. The view was based on his philosophical idea of 'cosmicism', the insignificance of all human affairs in the vastness of the universe. Religion Lovecraft had rejected early but used it myth and images, among others the scene of the crucifixion. "He hated modern civilization, particularly in its confident belief in progress and science," wrote Colin Wilson in The Strength to Dream, 1962. For further reading: Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos by Lin Carter (1972); Lovecraft: A biography by L. Sprague De Camp (1975); H.P. Lovecraft: An Annotated Bibliography by S.T. Joshi (1981); H.P. Lovecraft: A Critical Study by Donald R. Burleson (1983); Howard Phillips Lovecraft: The Books, Addenda and Auxiliary by Joseph Bell (1983); Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic by Maurice Lévy (1988); Lovecraft: A Life by S.T. Joshi (1996); The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, ed by John Clute and John Grant (1997); Clive Baker's A-Z of Horror (1997); Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers, ed. by David Pringle (1998) - Note: Among Lovecraft's circle of correspondents was writer Robert Bloch, who became famous with his story Psycho (film 1960, dir. by Alfred Hitchcock). - Suom.: Suomeksi ovat ilmestyneet kokoelmat Temppeli, Nimetön kaupunki ja muita kertomuksia (1999), Vaeltaja unien portilla (1997), Alkemisti ja muita kertomuksia (1994), Kauhun kynnys (1993), toisena tekijänä August Derleth (alkuper. nimeltä The Lurker at the Treshold), Varjo menneisyydestä (1993), Charles Dexter Wardin tapaus (1992), Nimetön kaupunki (1991), Kuiskaus pimeässä (1989), Temppeli ja muita kertomuksia (1988). Suomennos löytyy myös mm. kokoelmasta Amerikkalaiset aaveet, toim. Markku Sadelehto (1995). - H.P. LOVECRAFT IN THE MOVIES 1963-1995: THE HAUNTED PALACE, dir. by Roger Corman (1963); MONSTER OF TERROR, dir. by Daniel Haller (1965); THE SHUTTERED ROOM, dir. by David Greene (1966); CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR, dir. by Vernon Sewell (1968); THE DUNWICH HORROR, dir. by Daniel Haller (1969); EQUINOX, dir. by Mark McGee and Jack Woods (1969); THE BEYOND, dir. by Lucio Fulci (1981); RE-ANIMATOR, dir. by Stuart Gordon (1985); FROM BEYOND, dir. by Stuart Gordon (1986); THE CURSE, dir. by David Keith (1987); PULSE POUNDERS, dir. by Charles Band (1988); THE UNNAMABLE, dir. by Jean-Paul Oulette (1988); BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR, dir. by Brian Yazna (1989); TRANSYLVANIA TWIST, dir. by Jim Wynorski (1989); CAST A DREADLY SPELL, dir. by Martin Campbell (1991); THE RESURRECTED, dir. by Dan O'Bannion (1991); CTHULHU MANSION, dir. by J.P. Simon (1992); THE UNNAMABLE RETURNS, dir. by Jean-Paul Oulette (1992); BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP, dir. by Hervé Hachuel (1993); NECRONOMICON, dir. by Brian Yuzna, Christopher Gans, and Shu Kaneko (1993); IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, dir. by John Carpenter (1994); LURKING FEAR, dir. by Courtney Joyner (1994); CASTLE FREAK, dir. by Stuart Gordon (1995) Selected works:
Principal Cthulhu Mythos stories:
August Derleth wrote many stories based on fragmentary texts by Lovecraft, including novels
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