60 Fun Facts About H. P. Lovecraft

In which city was H. P. Lovecraft born in 1890 and did he spend most of his life?

His fan-erected headstone bears the phrase I AM PROVIDENCE, taken from one of his letters.

What do the initials H. P. stand for?

Phillips was his mother's maiden name; his grandfather Whipple Van Buren Phillips raised him.

Where was Lovecraft's father committed in 1893 after a psychotic episode in a Chicago hotel?

His death certificate cited general paresis, a term for late-stage syphilis; his mother was later committed to the same hospital.

What did young Lovecraft call the creatures of his childhood nightmares, later used in his fiction?

He blamed Gustave Dore's illustrations for their appearance and said they whirled him through space with tridents.

What periodical did the young Lovecraft publish using a hectograph from 1902?

He excelled at chemistry and physics but said the mathematics gave him incapacitating headaches.

Which university did Lovecraft claim he would attend, though he never graduated high school?

A 1908 breakdown ended his schooling; the exact cause has never been determined.

A 1913 letter to which magazine, attacking writer Fred Jackson, launched Lovecraft into amateur journalism?

The resulting year-long letters-page feud, partly conducted in verse, got him noticed by the amateur press.

Of which organisation of hobbyist journalists was Lovecraft elected president in 1917?

He used its Department of Public Criticism to campaign for archaic English over American slang.

What was Lovecraft's first published short story, which appeared in 1916?

Dagon, written soon after, is considered the first story to show the themes he became known for.

Which Irish fantasy writer's 1919 Boston talk did Lovecraft attend, having recently discovered and idolised him?

His Dream Cycle stories such as The White Ship show that influence.

Which 1921 story is considered the first that falls definitively within the Cthulhu Mythos?

It contains the couplet about that which is not dead which can eternal lie.

Whom did Lovecraft marry in 1924?

She was willing to support him financially and thought he needed to leave Providence to flourish.

What was the informal name of Lovecraft's circle of literary friends in New York?

They urged him to submit stories to Weird Tales.

For which famous escape artist did Lovecraft ghostwrite the story "Under the Pyramids"?

Weird Tales editor Edwin Baird accepted it along with many of his other stories.

Which Weird Tales editor often rejected Lovecraft, then accepted many stories after his death?

He turned down At the Mountains of Madness because of its length.

Which Brooklyn neighbourhood, where Lovecraft lived in 1925, gave its name to one of his stories?

His single-room apartment there was burgled, leaving him only the clothes he was wearing.

What did Lovecraft's weight reportedly rise to on his wife's home cooking?

Greene said he performed satisfactorily as a lover but she had to take the initiative in everything.

Which Texan pulp writer became Lovecraft's correspondent after praising "The Rats in the Walls" to Weird Tales?

Their vigorous correspondence lasted until Howard's suicide in 1936.

Which completed Lovecraft novel was never typed up, so he ignored a publisher's enquiry?

Scholars read it as being partly about the city of Providence itself.

Which was the only Lovecraft story published in book form during his lifetime?

Only 400 copies were printed, riddled with errors, and about 200 were later destroyed.

What was Lovecraft's last original short story?

He said the hostile reception of At the Mountains of Madness had done more than anything to end his fiction career.

What did Lovecraft die of in March 1937?

His fear of doctors meant he was not examined until a month before his death, and he kept a diary of his illness.

What phrase did fans inscribe on the headstone they erected for Lovecraft in 1977?

It comes from one of his personal letters; he lies in Swan Point Cemetery.

How old was Lovecraft when he died?

He had returned to Providence in 1926 and remained active as a writer for 11 years.

What is Lovecraft's personal philosophy, holding humanity insignificant in the cosmos, called?

He blended fantasy and science fiction to show the fragility of anthropocentrism.

Roughly how many letters do biographers estimate Lovecraft wrote in his lifetime?

About a fifth are believed to survive; he sometimes signed them Grandpa Theobald or E'ch-Pi-El.

In which year was "The Call of Cthulhu" first published in Weird Tales?

It was written in the summer of 1926, shortly after his return to Providence.

Which two animals does Cthulhu's green humanoid form visually resemble?

He is a Great Old One worshipped by cultists and is the namesake of the whole mythos.

In which sunken city does Cthulhu lie dreaming?

The story places it beneath the South Pacific.

Who is the narrator of "The Call of Cthulhu", piecing together his late grand-uncle's notes?

His grand-uncle was Brown University linguistics professor George Gammell Angell.

What is the name of the fictional grimoire, also called the Book of the Dead, invented by Lovecraft?

Booksellers and librarians still receive requests for it, and pranksters have listed it in rare-book catalogues.

Who is the "Mad Arab" credited as author of Lovecraft's fictional grimoire?

Lovecraft admitted he simply invented both the author and the book.

A student once slipped a catalogue card for Lovecraft's invented grimoire into which university's library?

Lovecraft approved of other writers citing the book, believing it built up a background of evil verisimilitude.

Which magazine finally serialised At the Mountains of Madness in 1936 after Weird Tales rejected it?

It ran in the February, March and April issues.

On which continent is the disastrous expedition of At the Mountains of Madness set?

Narrator Dr. William Dyer of Miskatonic University tells the tale to deter another expedition.

Which Edgar Allan Poe novel does At the Mountains of Madness explicitly draw on?

Lovecraft admitted his early story The Tomb was also heavily influenced by Poe.

What are the immortal fish-like humanoids that Captain Obed Marsh's seaport interbred with called?

Captain Obed Marsh encountered their worshippers in the Caroline Islands.

Which Batman location is named for Lovecraft's fictional Massachusetts city?

August Derleth's publishing house Arkham House also took its name from the city.

Which real Massachusetts town did Lovecraft's posthumous publisher describe Arkham as his stand-in for?

He called it Lovecraft's well-known place-name for legend-haunted Salem.

Which story about a meteorite poisoning a farm near Arkham was Lovecraft's personal favourite?

It first appeared in Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories in September 1927.

Which actor starred in the 2019 film adaptation Color Out of Space, produced by Elijah Wood?

Earlier adaptations include Die, Monster, Die! in 1965 and The Curse in 1987.

In The Dunwich Horror, which entity is revealed to be the father of Wilbur Whateley?

His mother Lavinia was a deformed albino, and his invisible twin screams for their father before being destroyed.

Which correspondent coined the term Cthulhu Mythos and founded Arkham House to keep Lovecraft in print?

He also invented a war between good Elder Gods and evil Outer Gods that Lovecraft never wrote.

Which Sherlock Holmes pastiche detective was created by the co-founder of Arkham House?

Derleth was also a leading regional writer of Wisconsin's Sac Prairie.

Which formless creatures from At the Mountains of Madness recur in Lovecraft's fiction?

The Antarctic civilisation's builders were dubbed the Elder Things after creatures in the Necronomicon.

Which best-selling horror novelist cites Lovecraft as a major influence after finding his work as a child?

He argues that all horror written after Lovecraft was influenced by him.

Which band's 1970 debut album included "Behind the Wall of Sleep", a title taken from a Lovecraft story?

It derives from the 1919 story Beyond the Wall of Sleep, his first science fiction tale.

Which company released the tabletop role-playing game Call of Cthulhu in 1981?

Its insanity mechanic, letting characters go mad from contact with cosmic horrors, was widely copied.

Which 2015 FromSoftware game directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki was strongly influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos?

Lovecraft himself disliked games during his lifetime.

Until 2015, the World Fantasy Award trophy was a bust of Lovecraft nicknamed what?

It was dropped in response to the author's views on race.

What is the generally accepted copyright status of Lovecraft's works?

Searches of the Library of Congress found no evidence the copyrights were ever renewed.

Which award were Lovecraft and the other Cthulhu Mythos authors posthumously given in 2020?

He was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2016.

Which Weird Tales editor first accepted many of Lovecraft's stories, including the Houdini piece?

Baird was succeeded by Farnsworth Wright, who often rejected Lovecraft's submissions.

Which young writer, met at a 1920 amateur convention, became Lovecraft's closest lifelong confidant?

Long later joined Lovecraft in New York's Kalem Club as his protégé.

How did Lovecraft describe his grandfather Whipple Van Buren Phillips?

Whipple encouraged his love of classical literature and English poetry; his death and the family's ruin came in 1904.

Which 1917 story is considered Lovecraft's first to display his signature themes?

The Tomb, written around the same time, was by his own admission heavily influenced by Poe.

What happened when Lovecraft tried to enlist in the US Army in 1917?

He told his friend Kleiner that his mother threatened to do anything, legal or otherwise, to prove him unfit.

At which Providence address did Lovecraft live with his aunts from 1926 until 1933?

He described it as a spacious brown Victorian wooden house; it was here he wrote The Call of Cthulhu.

Which fantasy novel do scholars read as being about Lovecraft's return to Providence?

It also marks a partial repudiation of Dunsany's influence, which Lovecraft decided did not come naturally to him.

How did Lovecraft's mother Susie die in May 1921?

She had been committed to Butler Hospital in 1919 after a nervous breakdown; her medical papers later burned.