H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraftwas an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Virtually unknown and only published in pulp magazines before he died in poverty, he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in his genre. Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his life. Among his most celebrated tales is "The Call of Cthulhu", canonical to the Cthulhu Mythos. Never able to support himself from...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 August 1890
CityProvidence, RI
CountryUnited States of America
In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative.
There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect, and once in a while man's evil prying calls them just within our range.
There were nameless horrors abroad; and no matter how little one might be able to get at them, one ought tp stand prepared for any sort of action at any time.
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.
The one test of the really weird (story) is simply this--whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim.
In search of Truth the hopeful zealot goes,But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!
While my chosen form of story-writing is obviously a special and perhaps a narrow one, it is none the less a persistent and permanent type of expression, as old as literature itself. There will always be a certain small percentage of persons who feel a burning curiosity about unknown outer space, and a burning desire to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest.
And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare.
With hidden powers of unknown extent apparently at his disposal, Curwen was not a man who could safely be warned to leave town.
Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.
Maybe, just maybe, I should not have used the word "eldritch" so many times now that I think about it...
I can look back . . . at two distinct periods of opinion whose foundations I have successively come to distrust a period before 1919 or so, when the weight of classic authority unduly influenced me, and another period from 1919 to about 1925, when I placed too high a value on the elements of revolt, florid colour, and emotional extravagance or intensity.
To me there is nothing more fraught with mystery & terror than a remote Massachusetts farmhouse against a lonely hill. Where else could an outbreak like the Salem witchcraft have occurred?
Something like fear chilled me as I sat there in the small hours alone-I say alone, for one who sits by a sleeper is indeed alone; perhaps more alone than he can realise.