H.P. Lovecraft
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Howard Phillips Lovecraft (20 August 1890–15 March 1937) was a writer of horror fiction for 1920s pulp magazines. He pioneered the idea of "cosmic horror", in which the horror arises not from prosaic fears of death and dismemberment but from the idea that the universe itself is utterly alien and indifferent to us, full of unguessable horrors that our minds are ill-equipped to cope with.
This idea replaced the traditional spooks, werewolves, vampires and psychos with tentacled monstrosities from beyond space and time, dark gods sleeping beneath the ocean and secretive cults carrying out terrible rites to bring their masters back to the world of the living. His influence can be felt throughout our culture - Mind Flayers in D&D, the insidious cults and corrupting influence of the gods of Chaos in Warhammer, and of course Call of Cthulhu.
Lovecraft himself was a shy, gentlemanly soul, and a prolific writer of letters. He corresponded with many of the other authors of the time, including Robert E. Howard (Conan), Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, and even a young Robert Bloch (Psycho). Many of his correspondents wrote pastiches of his distinctive style of horror. In fact, Bloch and Lovecraft each wrote stories in which the other made an appearance - and died in a suitably gruesome way.
Lovecraft was profoundly racist, believing Jews to be overly excitable and inferior, blacks to be plain stupid and ugly, and not being especially keen on Asians or homosexuals either (he ended up marrying a Jewish wife regardless). It's important to realize that this isn't the domineering, brutal racism of the Nazis and the KKK, but the fearful, neurotic racism of the skinny white nerd. (Which many of you are probably familiar with. Kstang!) Many of his stories draw their sense of terror from this sense of xenophobia and corruption, of unholy interbreeding and miscegenation. In addition to being an anti-Semite who married a Jew, Lovecraft refused to write a story set outside America (because he was too poor to travel and it would be obvious he was basing the setting on other peoples' reports) and then wrote a story that was set in Antarctica. Basically, he was really bad at sticking to his guns.
Lovecraft is credited with having penned an early example of a racist troll, in the form of the poem On the Creation of Niggers:
When, long ago, the gods created Earth;
In Jove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were designed;
Yet were too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest of Man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.
Sadly, Lovecraft was never able to fulfill his ambitions as a troll, since the internet would not be invented for another 90 years, and so he became a writer of macabre fiction instead.
(On the contrary, he was something of a troll but he had a tendency to experience much butthurt. A large portion of his stories were posthumously published as he would get shot down once by a publisher and then just give up.)
In short, Howard was a twitch, boys & girls, and that's all there is to it.
Influences
- His influence in nerdom is much more extensive than some would believe:
- The monsters of DnD-- Mindflayers (cthulhu), gibbering mouthers (shoggoths), kuo-toa (deep ones), some creature in 4.o [(flying polyps) but who really cares about WoW]
- The Jabberslyth in Warhammer Fantasy (shoggoths)
- The concept of Chaos in both the Warhammer Fantasy and 40,000 settings.
- Magic the Gathering's entire Eldrazi set, as cheesy as it was, was about the Old Ones awakening.
- The Pathfinder RPG gets a lot of mileage out of Lovecraftian themes, like the stuff about aboleths creating the human race, the Vault Keepers, Aucturn the Stranger, and the Dark Tapestry.
See Also
- Call of Cthulhu
- Trail of Cthulhu
- Arkham Horror