Q 01/05

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

A) Providence

B) Salem

C) Boston

D) Portland

Answer · why

A) Providence

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

Q 02/05

What do the initials H. P. stand for?

A) Henry Peter

B) Howard Phillips

C) Harold Prescott

D) Herbert Paul

Answer · why

B) Howard Phillips

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

Q 03/05

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

A) McLean Hospital

B) Bellevue Hospital

C) Danvers State Hospital

D) Butler Hospital

Answer · why

D) Butler Hospital

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

Q 04/05

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

A) Night-gaunts

B) Byakhee

C) Ghouls

D) Shoggoths

Answer · why

A) Night-gaunts

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

Q 05/05

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

A) The New England Star Gazette

B) Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy

C) The Weird Chronicle Monthly

D) The Providence Astronomical Review

Answer · why

B) Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy

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