HP Lovecraft was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction who originated the concept of “cosmic horror.” His works, including over a hundred short stories, have influenced countless books, films, novels, music, comics, and cartoons. Lovecraft’s unique and memorable themes include forbidden knowledge, nonhuman influences on humanity, hereditary guilt, threatened civilization, and the perils of a scientific age. Some of his most popular stories were Dagon, A Color Out of Space, The Shadow Out of Time, and At the Mountains of Madness.
HP Lovecraft (1880-1937) is a famous American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Horror author Stephen King called Lovecraft “the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror story,” but this is misleading, because HP Lovecraft’s tales were anything but classic. He is the originator of the concept of “cosmic horror” – the idea that the universe is incomprehensible to human minds and is fundamentally alien. If you understand him well enough, you risk going crazy, like many of the protagonists of his stories. HP Lovecraft’s deeply pessimistic and cynical worldview emerges in most of his writings.
HP Lovecraft had a limited readership in his lifetime and died poor. But in the decades since his death, his work has become much more popular, and he is now considered one of, if not the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. His works, including over a hundred short stories, have influenced countless books, films, novels, music, comics and cartoons. He is best known for his Cthulhu Mythos, a loosely connected series of stories with commonalities in mythology: ancient gods and evil beings that threatened humans under certain circumstances, such as the grounds of an abandoned church in the middle of a storm. Another feature common to many of his stories are the references to the Necronomicon, an ancient book filled with rites and spells for summoning demons.
There are several common themes in HP Lovecraft’s work that have made it unique and memorable. Many of these characteristics have since been frequently copied into horror stories of all kinds, often by authors who are not even aware of their creator. These concepts are forbidden knowledge, nonhuman influences on humanity, hereditary guilt, threatened civilization, and the perils of a scientific age. Lovecraft lived in a time when scientific and technological knowledge was expanding rapidly and it was palpable how little humans knew. He has used this to his advantage in his stories about him, where scientific investigations have sometimes revealed much more than his protagonists could ever have imagined.
Some of Lovecraft’s most popular stories were Dagon, A Color Out of Space, The Shadow Out of Time and At the Mountains of Madness.
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