HP Lovecraft

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HP Lovecraft, photograph from 1915

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (born August 20, 1890 in Providence , Rhode Island , † March 15, 1937 there ; mostly only H. P. Lovecraft ) was an American writer . He is considered the most important author of fantastic horror literature of the 20th century and has influenced numerous successors with the Cthulhu myth he invented .

During Lovecraft's lifetime, only the long story Shadows over Innsmouth appeared as a book, while the other texts were published in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales . After his death, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei edited several edited volumes by Arkham House , which were reprinted in many paperbacks .

In this way, Lovecraft developed into a cult figure in the following years, who was often uncritically and epigonally adored and imitated. Numerous imitations and film adaptations from the fund of the Cthulhu myth usually did not come close to the models. In addition to respect, there was also abrupt rejection, malice and ridicule from some quarters. Over time, literary critics and essayists have delved into Lovecraft, explored style and narrative technique , psychology , mythology and also racist ideas that show up in some narratives, treatises and letters.

Life

Lovecraft at the age of about ten

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1890. His father, Winfield Scott Lovecraft, was a traveling salesman. His mother, Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft, was able to trace her family tree back to 1630 when her ancestors reached Massachusetts Bay to settle there. Lovecraft was the first child to his parents, both of whom were over 30 when he was born. The birthplace at 194 Angell Street (now 454) was demolished in 1961.

When Lovecraft was three years old, his father suffered a (alleged) nervous breakdown in a Chicago hotel and was taken to Butler Hospital in Providence, where he stayed until his death five years later. "General paresis " was given as the cause of death . At the time, this term was also used to describe the symptoms of advanced syphilis , the so-called neurolues . It was therefore suggested that Lovecraft's father suffered from syphilis.

Lovecraft was henceforth mainly raised by his mother, grandfather and two aunts and showed literary talent from an early age. He memorized poetry as a toddler and began writing his own at the age of six. His grandfather supported this tendency, as well as Lovecraft's interest in the mysterious and fantastic, by giving him books such as The Tales of the Arabian Nights and children's editions of classics such as the Odyssey and the Iliad to read. The grandfather also told Lovecraft self-made horror stories, partly to the displeasure of the mother, who was concerned about their possible influence on the boy.

Lovecraft had both physical and psychological problems at school age, which is why he only attended classes sporadically until the age of eight and then was withdrawn from school a year later due to his aggressive and undisciplined behavior. During this time Lovecraft read a lot and developed a great enthusiasm for the history of New England, chemistry and astronomy and from 1899 wrote handwritten journals such as The Scientific Gazette and The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy , which he distributed among his relatives and friends . Four years later, at the age of 13, Lovecraft returned to school at Hope Street High School in Providence.

youth

Lovecraft's grandfather died in 1904 and the family soon fell into poverty as the legacy was soon used up due to mismanagement. The family had to give up their home and move to a boarding house on the same street. Lovecraft suffered so badly from the changes, especially from having lost the house where he was born, that for a while he harbored suicidal intentions . In 1908, just before the end of his senior year at school, Lovecraft had a nervous breakdown that never graduated from high school. Even late in life, he found the fact that he could never finish his school career and never, as desired, attend Brown University as painful and shameful.

In 1914 Lovecraft became a member of the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA), an association of American amateur authors. The aim of the UAPA was to promote the exchange between the authors, and for this purpose congresses were organized. Edward F. Daas, the president of the UAPA, noticed the young writer and invited him to join the association through a letter from Lovecraft to the editor in the pulp magazine The Argosy , in which he complained about the lack of “flavor” in the love stories to join. Lovecraft judged retrospectively that this was one of the decisive steps in his life. Working with like-minded people gave him a new impetus that strengthened him. During this time he wrote the short stories The Tomb and especially Dagon , which was printed in 1923 as his first professional publication in Weird Tales , a fantasy and horror magazine.

From this time he began to build up a network of correspondence, which would later assume colossal proportions. His pen pals included young writers such as Forrest J. Ackerman , Henry S. Whitehead , Robert H. Barlow , Donald Wandrei , August Derleth , Fritz Leiber , Robert Bloch (author of Psycho ) and Robert E. Howard (author of Conan the Barbarian ) . The latter committed suicide at the age of 30, which touched Lovecraft deeply.

In 1919, Lovecraft's mother, like his father before, was admitted to the Butler Hospital due to mental illness, where she died in 1921 after very lively correspondence with her son. This event also shook Lovecraft very much.

Married life

Shortly after the death of his mother, Lovecraft met Sonia Greene, seven years her senior, at a meeting of young journalists. The two married in 1924. Lovecraft's aunts were against it, because they considered this marriage to be a mesalliance : Sonia Greene came from the Ukraine, was Jewish, had a hat business and was married to Samuel Greene, ten years her senior, in a first, turbulent marriage. who had apparently committed suicide in 1916.

The couple moved to New York . The initial enthusiasm for life in Brooklyn vanished and financial difficulties dominated the Lovecrafts' everyday life. Sonia lost her business and suffered from poor health. Since Lovecraft couldn't take care of both of them on her own, she found a job in Cleveland and moved away. Lovecraft suffered many failures and was unemployed for a long time. During this time, according to some biographers, his general hatred of people, especially xenophobia, increased to the point of panicking about immigrants who, in his eyes, blocked his access to jobs.

A few years later, the separated couple agreed on a friendly divorce, which was never legally enforced.

Last years

Lovecraft's gravestone with the inscription "I AM PROVIDENCE"

Lovecraft returned to Providence and lived there again with his aunts. This last phase of his life was the most productive. Almost all of his well-known stories, such as The Case of Charles Dexter Ward or Berge des Wahnsinns, date from this time. Much of these stories were published in Weird Tales magazine. In addition, he edited and revised works by other authors or, in exceptional cases , worked as a ghostwriter , for example for Harry Houdini , for whom he wrote Imprisoned with the Pharaos .

His rather modest literary successes during his lifetime were partly responsible for the fact that Lovecraft became more and more impoverished and was finally forced to move into cheaper accommodation with his aunt. He regarded himself as something of an aristocrat and adhered to a code of honor that made him temporarily prefer hunger to menial work. His sense of honor also encompassed his literary work: he tried to write artistically demanding, technically sophisticated and often complexly staged narratives that represent and also arouse “honest” emotions. He heartily refused to work as a wage clerk or the author of cheap penny novels.

In 1936, Lovecraft was diagnosed with colon cancer. Until his death a year later, he suffered from constant pain and malnutrition. His name is carved on the family tombstone next to those of his parents.

In 1977, admirers of his works Lovecraft put their own tombstone; In addition to the life data, this contains the ambiguous saying “I AM PROVIDENCE”, which comes from one of his letters.

plant

stories

Lovecraft's narrative work is usually assigned to the "Supernatural Horror", ie the supernatural horror literature . Lovecraft saw himself as the heir to a venerable literary tradition:

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. These facts few psychologists will dispute, and their admitted truth must establish for all time the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tales as a literary form. "

“The oldest and strongest human emotion is fear, and the oldest and strongest form of fear is fear of the unknown. Hardly any psychologist will dispute these facts, and they establish once and for all the authenticity and rank of the supernatural horror story as a literary form. "

- H. P. Lovecraft : Supernatural Horror in Literature , p. 12

The title of his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature should not mislead you into the fact that he counted among the forerunners of cosmic horror not only the classics of the English horror novel , but also works of black romanticism such as Henry James ' The Turn of the Screw or Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage .

Lovecraft's work can be roughly divided into three categories: traditional horror stories, dream world stories and the myths stories. There are also many poems, essays and countless letters.

The first category includes many of the early short stories such as The Alchemist and Dagon , which are recognizably reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe , whose eerie, sometimes macabre tales had a great influence on Lovecraft's younger creative period. Typical scenes are cemeteries and abandoned, eerie houses. The stories are not linked by any background; Lovecraft, however, was often inspired by nightmares , and some of these stories reveal motifs that would come back later.

The dream world includes a series of mystical and mythical short stories that were inspired by Lord Dunsany's tales and William Beckford's horror novel Vathek and are more likely to be assigned to fantasy than fantastic literature. Alien landscapes, exotic cities, forbidden mountains, mysterious gods - this world is furnished with all these phenomena and serves as a common background; in addition there are ghouls , ghasts , dryads and other bizarre beings. Even cats , which Lovecraft as Poe was devoted, preferred inhabitants of this region. There are also some characters that recur several times, such as a certain Kuranes - a king in a dream, nothing in the waking life - or the notorious dream traveler Randolph Carter , almost an alter ego of the author.

The myth stories form a loosely connected circle of narratives on which Lovecraft's fame and status as a cult author today is largely based; with them he found his big topic. You may be influenced by Arthur Make , with his carefully constructed stories of the survival of an ancient evil and the hidden mysticism behind reality. The stories form the basis of the Cthulhu myth , which has been expanded upon by other authors. Lovecraft himself spoke of the Arkham Cycle , as the fictional New England town of Arkham appears in many of his stories ; other names for the circle are Yog-Sothoth-Zyklos or Cthulhu cycle , after the most prominent creation of Lovecraft, who debuted in the first real representative of the circle with The Call of Cthulhu in 1926.

Poems

A lesser known part of Lovecraft's oeuvre is his lyrical work, although until the age of about 25 he saw himself primarily as a poet and only secondarily as a prose writer. His love for the past and his intensive preoccupation with the literature of bygone centuries was reflected, for example, in long didactic poems in the style of the 18th century, which today are hardly understandable. In addition to such replicas of ancient forms, there are also poems that take up the background of his myths. This includes above all the sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth (German title: Saat von den Sternen ).

Essays

Lovecraft's essayistic works are divided into three main areas:

  • Science and philosophy
  • Amateur journalism
  • Literary theory and criticism

In addition, there are miscellaneous and scattered things, for example some reports on trips, especially on the east coast ( Sleepy Hollow To-day , Account of a Visit to Charleston, SC etc.), as well as some autobiographical notes (e.g. The Brief Autobiography of an Inconsequential Scribbler and Some Notes on a Nonentity ).

Science and philosophy

Lovecraft began at a very young age to write popular scientific papers, practically at the same time that he discovered the relevant areas of science - especially chemistry and astronomy - for himself. He wrote several papers on chemistry around 1899 and, as a teenager, published several journals, all of which were written by him, including:

  • The Scientific Gazette (32 issues, 1899–1909)
  • The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy (69 issues, 1903-1909)
  • Astronomy / The Monthly Almanack (9 issues, 1903–1904)

Due to the author's youth and the development of science since then, these popular scientific contributions are only of antiquarian or philological interest today.

Amateur journalism

The importance that Lovecraft's participation in the amateur journalism movement from 1914 had on him as a person and as a writer cannot be overestimated. Above all, he noticed the positive influence that the resulting contacts had on his style, which was thus cleared of archaisms and dusty inconveniences. Lovecraft was intensely involved - also as a functionary - in the competing amateur journalism associations, and it is from this that he not only published fiction and general discursive works in amateur magazines, but also made amateur journalism a topic and wrote both programmatic and historical articles on amateur journalism . They reflect his increasing involvement in the movement and, thanks to his exposed position, have this significance for the history of amateur journalism.

Literary theory and criticism

Lovecraft also wrote a number of literary historical and theoretical works. His early work in this area shows his inclination towards antiquated forms and norms and is of little interest today. His contributions to the theory of fantastic literature are quite different, first Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927) and then his Notes on Writing Weird Fiction . Above all, Supernatural Horror in Literature is important as a programmatic writing for Lovecraft himself as well as for his students and imitators and here he defines cosmic or supernatural horror in relation to other forms of weird fiction . In addition to these areas, there is also a group of papers with contributions to questions of verse doctrine and metrics.

Letters

Although Lovecraft was best known for his stories, most of his writing has been the writing of large letters in which he speaks on all sorts of subjects, including fantastic literature, reviews, politics, and history. S. T. Joshi estimates that Lovecraft must have written about 87,500 letters between 1912 and the year of his death, 1937. A well-known letter to Woodburn Harris was 70 pages.

Lovecraft was not a very keen letter writer at a young age. In 1931 he remarked: “In my youth I hardly ever wrote a letter. Thanking someone in writing for a gift was as agony to me as having to write a 250-page pastoral letter or a 20-page treatise on the rings of Saturn . ”His interest in letter writing was fueled by correspondence with his cousin Phillips Gamwell awakened. His later extensive correspondence was the result of his commitment to amateur journalism.

Lovecraft confessed that his correspondence with a wide variety of people helped shape his worldview and broaden his horizons: “I was faced with dozens of different viewpoints that would otherwise never have crossed my mind. My understanding and sympathies grew, and many of my social, political, and economic views changed as a result of my growing knowledge. "

Parts of Lovecraft's correspondence have been published by several publishers. So did Arkham House , a selection of his letters as a five-volume edition under the title Selected Letters out.

background

Lovecraft gives direct insight into his conceptual working method in the essays Notes on Writing Eerie Stories and Some Notes on Interplanetary Stories, as well as in his note and notebook . He advocated Poe's theory of short narration , according to which every story only develops its maximum effect when it can be completely read through in a single session. Therefore, like Poe, Lovecraft did not write longer novels.

Influences

Among the authors with the greatest influence on Lovecraft are Edgar Allan Poe , with whom he felt a kindred spirit in terms of style, concept and content, and Lord Dunsany , on whom he wrote a homage essay and from his collection of short stories The Book of Wonder the first-person narrator in recited the early short story City Without a Name . In addition to them, there are ancient historians and writers such as Herodotus , Plutarch and Epicurus, as well as Arthurmachen , Lord Byron , Charles Baudelaire and William Butler Yeats , whose names he also incorporated into several stories. In Lovecraft's early story Poetry and the Gods , especially Dante , Shakespeare , Goethe , John Keats , John Milton , Plato and Homer are listed as "divine", even as "dream figures of the gods". Lovecraft also inspired visual artists such as Jack Butler Yeats , Harry Clarke , Aubrey Beardsley , Johann Heinrich Füssli , Gustave Doré and Francisco de Goya . He explicitly names the latter three in Pickman's model .

Lovecraft was sometimes inspired by contemporary authors by adopting certain names and entities in his own work. From Clark Ashton Smith , whose poetry and prose he enthusiastically praised and with whom he maintained a lively pen friendship, he borrowed the name “Tsathoggua” for his story The Whisperer in the Dark , while Smith used elements of the Cthulhu myth and with the “Book of Eibon ”responded to the Necronomicon Lovecrafts.

Cosmicism and worldview

The Cosmicism is a literary philosophy, founded by HP Lovecraft and often by him to refer to his weird fiction was used. For Lovecraft, the modern, scientifically interwoven and deterministically determined worldview could no longer offer miracles. So he moved the source of horror, preferably in the past or in the depths of the universe. From these two bottomless abysses of time and space, cosmic forces arise and penetrate into the everyday life of people who are completely insignificant in comparison with them, usually in the familiar and contemplative environment in which the author grew up. The past of the earth harbors several races that are far superior to humans , some of which still bear traces and relics in remote areas; Terrifying cosmic deities threaten from space and from other, "outer" dimensions, the sight of which is enough to make mortal people fall into madness.

Lovecraft advocated an extremely pessimistic view of history that negates the anthropocentric position of man and classifies him as one of the other historical inhabitants of planet earth. If one looks at its marginal history and the primitive level of civilization , man is as insignificant as it is vulnerable. So the narrative characters of Lovecraft are helplessly exposed to the breaking forces and forces of the cosmos. The confrontation with absolute horror often leads the directly affected first-person narrator, chosen because of its apparent authenticity, to madness, death or suicide in the end. In the narratives in which the Cthulhu myth is elaborated, the defenselessness of the individual increases to a cosmic threat to all of humanity.

For Michael Koseler, Lars Gustafsson's considerations on the position of man in fantastic art also apply to Lovecraft's worldview. In his essay On the Fantastic in Literature, Gustafsson pointed out the difference between depicting the world as a natural human milieu and as a place where he happened to end up and whose powers he is as helpless as it is in Giovanni Battista Piranesi's pictures of prison is shown. Consider how deeply human history is enclosed by alien cultures at Lovecraft, if the human being in his work is a “stranger on earth”.

These narratives are precisely constructed and often follow a similar pattern. Created as a confession, letter or diary, they depict with many premonitions the Kafkaesque incursion of the overpowering stranger into the lives of ordinary people, often triggered by investigations or expeditions that should never have happened. The human characters are almost entirely exposed to the supernatural and often go crazy when they can no longer close their eyes to the truth.

In his most successful texts, which include The Rats in the Walls , The Music of Erich Zann , Cthulhus Ruf or Shadows over Innsmouth , Lovecraft forcibly puts the reader in a threatening sphere. The tension is created by the curious narrator (and thus of identifying themselves with him viewing) deeper into the world of evil enters, which he finally speak relish surrenders. In the “union” with the horrific, which is initially described as disgusting, Rein A. Zondergeld believes that the erotic component in the stories of Lovecraft, who was an inhibited hermit , can be felt .

Location and motivation

Lovecraft drew the charisma of his stories from themes and fears that moved him deeply: the modern worldview that pulls man from the center of creation and reduces it to a speck of dust in space; the love of the past with its covered secrets; the fear of inbreeding , decadence , regression, cultural decay, historical decay and, last but not least, his fear of “racial contamination” based on racism. A very specific disgust for sea creatures has left its mark on numerous stories. The stories are mostly set in his home country, New England of the 20th century; There are also trips to remote regions (Antarctica, Australia, Africa, Arabia, Europe, South America) and the local past. One of the special charms of his texts lies in the combination of the everyday familiar with the unspeakable horror from the distant past, the distant future or cosmic depths.

In the less cosmically oriented narratives, phenomena of degeneration and inbreeding play an important role. These include Arthur Jermyn , The Lurking Fear , The Rats in the Walls, and the late Shadows Over Innsmouth . The horror in the sequel story The Lurking Fear is taken to extremes in the form of degenerate monsters that have undermined an area around the Catskill Mountains like moles and have haunted the backwoods residents for centuries. In Sunand T. Joshi's opinion , it would be cheap to interpret Lovecraft's fixation on degenerative problems in an amateur psychological way, for example to explain it with his understanding of sexuality and to refer to the cause of death of his father Winfield Scott, who was probably with a prostitute or another sexual partner before the marriage with neurosyphilis infected and died of it. It is more productive to explain this subject with his racial thinking.

Intertextual elements

By using recurring set pieces across plants, Lovecraft achieved a highly individual overall effect. These include fictional locations such as the Leng plateau as well as numerous fictional books with forbidden knowledge. The most famous of these works is the Necronomicon , a script purportedly written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, who Lovecraft introduced to City Without a Name , but without mentioning the book. To this day, the Necronomicon stimulates the imagination of Lovecraft's readers, and the speculation that this book really exists or that it once existed continues. Lovecraft's biographer Lyon Sprague de Camp reports that the name Alhazred was used by Lovecraft as a child during his thousand and one nights phase and that it alludes jokingly to a family friend. Lovecraft himself wrote that he called himself that when playing Arabs. As a teenager, Lovecraft regularly wrote an astronomical column for a local newspaper and often mentioned the ancient didactic poem Astronomicon by Marcus Manilius . The title Necronomicon could have been based on this title . Lovecraft often used names from his immediate surroundings or slightly modified them in his stories. Another fictional book that Lovecraft frequently mentions is Von Junzt's Unspeakable Cults .

Above all, however, the creation of recurring cosmic quasi-deities creates an intertextuality that creates an oppressive coherence. August Derleth later tried to force these beings - with names like Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Tsathoggua, Azathoth and Nyarlathotep - into a Manichaean grid and to form a complete pantheon from them; as a result, his reputation with many of today's followers has suffered badly.

racism

One of the frequently discussed questions is Lovecraft's racism, which is evident in some poems and letters, essays and short stories such as Arthur Jermyn and Shadows about Innsmouth , and which was already pronounced in his younger years. Until the end of his life he held on to the idea of ​​the superiority of whites , allowed derogatory comments to flow into blacks and spoke out in favor of racial segregation . Violent failures can be found in the correspondence with his aunt Lillian from the 1920s, who probably shared his views as well as the other family members.

He adopted the concept of White Supremacy from various authors with whom he worked. In his early poem De Triumpho Naturae: The Triumph of Nature over Northern Ignorance from July 1905, dedicated to William Benjamin Smith, there are explicitly racist theses in which he rejects the consequences of the American Civil War , compared African Americans with monkeys and classed the liberation of slaves as godless madness . Smith, a professor of mathematics at Tulane University , had advocated the notion of the biological inferiority of blacks, which would ultimately lead to their downfall and, among other things , in his paper The Color Line: A Brief on Behalf of the Unborn , published in 1905 WB Willcox appointed. Medical studies have shown that black people are more likely to suffer from typhoid fever and consumption, as well as sexually transmitted diseases , and that crime among them is increasing rapidly. The lower, rebellious “classes of negroes” are facing a dubious future.

On the other hand, this attitude goes back to the 18th century, as can be found in Voltaire , Thomas Jefferson and other authors, so that it is difficult to look at them in isolation. In the 19th century Robert Chambers developed a pre-Darwinian " theory of evolution " according to which human races gradually develop from primitive blacks to the crowning glory of the Caucasians . A copy of his widely read Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was in Lovecraft's library. When Abraham Lincoln spoke of physical differences which he believed made it impossible “that both races would ever live in a state of social and political equality”, Theodore Roosevelt believed in 1906 that blacks were “considered race [...] in the crowd deeper than the whites ”. If these examples show that such views were also widespread among the educated, an opposing movement can be observed especially at the time of Lovecraft's early racist poem, for example with WEB Du Bois or Paul Laurence Dunbar . However, African-American authors led a shadowy existence until the 1920s, which only changed with writers such as Zora Neale Hurston , Claude McKay , Jean Toomer and Langston Hughes , a literature of which Lovecraft took no notice.

Racist thoughts can also be seen in the 1915 essay The Crime of the Century , in which Lovecraft lamented World War I from an idiosyncratic perspective. He attributed a leading role in the world to the "Teutonic race" , described the Germanic peoples as the "pinnacle of evolution" and regretted the senseless "suicide" of the British and Germans , who were both supposed to take on a leading role in the world. Lovecraft already used the term "Xanthochroi" coined by Thomas Henry Huxley , which referred to light-skinned northern Europeans from a now outdated perspective.

At the turn of the century, the scientific refutation of racist ideas, for example by the anthropologist Franz Boas , was still in its infancy. According to Sunand T. Joshi, the fifteen-year-old cannot be expected to have followed developments closely; it was less excusable to ignore them even as a forty-year-old.

style

Lovecraft referred to himself as an "18th century man" as this epoch seemed to him the best with its views, noble gestures and manners. The 20th century, however, seemed to him to be a time of barbarism . He usually dated his letters back 200 years, to the colonial days before the American declaration of independence . This predilection for the ancient is reflected in his writing style and choice of words, which deliberately appear antiquated. As a self-proclaimed Anglophile , he also used older English expressions and terms instead of the Americanized ones. The short novel The Fall of Charles Dexter Ward , the title character of which climbs into ancient ways of thinking and speaking, can be seen as Lovecraft's self-deprecating reflection on himself.

Critics criticized Lovecraft's excessive use of adjectives and his often archaic style, while well-meaning reviewers pointed out that his language was precise and calculated for impact. Favorite words like "blasphemous", "cyclopean" and "abominable" always repeating and increasing to a bombastic finale, combine these style elements, together with the often cunningly constructed framework, the ritualistically repeated set pieces, mysterious hints and the obvious care and love for his subject to a whole that still casts its spell on many readers today.

For Rein A. Zondergeld, for example, the style, characterized by an adjective addiction, indulges in “obsolete expressions and archaisms” and is rarely convincing. This language often turns horror into ridiculous.

Jörg Drews, on the other hand, considers the style to be very entertaining, despite the sometimes questionable construction of many stories: When in the short story Pickman's model "dogged beings [...] with the texture of tough slime and gray, warmly flowing rubber" penetrate earthly reality, " Not a dry eye. ”Figures and images such as“ nameless soul-wracking corpse stench ”,“ fog-chewed cemeteries ”with“ cursed unholy faces ”that would look“ with the smear of the deepest swamp of hell ”are what one has his joy.

Fritz Leiber, on the other hand, speaks of “scientific-realistic” elements and later changes to his style. In his early work, Lovecraft used a melodious lyrical prose and adjectives "almost Byzantine". Although in the course of time he switched to a more neutral mode of representation, he was never able to completely overcome the tendency to vividly depict the events in this way. In this context, Leiber differentiates between three techniques (“artifacts”) Lovecrafts: Confirmation , a term that he owes to Henry Kuttner , the (final) climax and the orchestrated prose associated with it. Because the reader suspects the hidden reason of the threatening mysteries that will later reveal themselves, it is not a surprise , but the long-awaited and final conviction . In short stories like Die Lauernde Furcht or the famous short story The Outsider , Lovecraft used the surprising disclosure model, but later increasingly switched to the more haunting type of confirmation.

The final climax is connected to this in that the expected climax coincides with the last movement. The horror is condensed in the end in sentences like “But by God, Eliot, it was a flash of life” in Pickman's model or “It was his twin brother - but more like his father than him” from the horror of Dunwich . With its orchestrated Lovecraft prose enhances the final effect by phrases repeated and sometimes whole paragraphs and adds them "strong" adverbs, adjectives and phrases, similar to the thicker and louder expectant orchestra use in a symphony .

reception

Lovecraft's effect can be seen in other areas and art genres in addition to the eerie literature .

Writers such as Clark Ashton Smith , August Derleth , Neil Gaiman , Alan Moore , Ljubko Deresch , Wolfgang Hohlbein , Stephen King , Brian Lumley and Clive Barker were influenced by him or wrote stories that are located in his universe. Some visual artists and film directors were also inspired by him. The influence is unmistakable in numerous paintings by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger ; so in the illustrated book HR Giger's Necronomicon , which already suggests this with the title. The development stages of the monster designed by him and other sets of the influential film Alien - The uncanny creature from a strange world reveal Lovecraft's traces very clearly.

Lovecraft's tales of extraterrestrial beings who ruled the earth before humans and threatened to return, may have influenced some authors of the pseudoscientific pre-astronautical theory (e.g. Erich von Däniken ). Here, however, the creatures that Lovecraft had conceived as misanthropic were converted into 'divine development aid workers'. The audio book adaptation of Der Cthulhu Mythos was awarded the German Fantasy Prize in 2002. In 2014 the German Lovecraft Society was founded in Flensburg . a. RPG - hosts conventions and sponsors projects related to the world of HP Lovecraft.

literature

Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch and Frank Belknap Long can be regarded as literary descendants of Lovecraft . Authors such as HC Artmann , who translated some stories into German, Jorge Luis Borges , Michel Houellebecq and Colin Wilson as well as the American comic book authors Richard Corben and Mike Mignola were also influenced by his work.

In Germany, Arno Schmidt used Lovecraft's stories in Julia, or the paintings . He saw a kind of kinship between Lovecraft and himself. In 2002 Michael Marrak created with Imagon an updated, quite free analogy to Berge des Wahnsinns , which takes place in the present day Greenland and was awarded the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis in 2003. The artist Reinhard Kleist implemented some of Lovecraft's stories as comics. Arthur C. Clarke published in 1973 a parody of the Mountains of Madness , entitled At the Mountains of murkiness (about: mountains of gloom ) and Neil Gaiman wrote the short story I Cthulhu (dt. I, Cthulhu ). The 2016 novel, Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff is both a tribute to the work as well as a critique of Lovecraft's racism.

The graphic novel Neonomicon by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, first published in 2010, contains numerous allusions to Lovecraft and his work. The plot is based on the assumption that the “blasphemous rituals” mentioned in several of his stories are about sex with non-human monsters, which is explicitly depicted in the comic.

Film adaptations

Lovecraft's works have often been made into films. Some films stick closely to the template, but mostly only a few themes or characters are taken up. The largest number of these films can be classified as B-movies or genre films for fans of horror films . Similar to attempts by his literary epigones, they often work on the model and yet miss the target by far.

A more successful adaptation is Roger Corman's The Torture Chamber of the Witch Hunters , despite the original Poe title The Haunted Palace, a film adaptation of Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward . Three of the better newer films are Re-Animator from 1985, Hemoglobin from 1997 and Dagon from 2001. A work-appropriate film adaptation of the story The Call of Cthulhu was released in 2005 by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society (HPLHS). This is a black and white silent film in the style of the 1920s (the original story is from 1926). The model for the actors and the trick technique used is the expressionist German film. In 2010/11, Die Farbe aus dem All (film title: Die Farbe ) was implemented as a German independent film from its own funds. The film adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness followed in 2011 , again by the HPLHS. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro has been planning a film adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness for years . The project is on hold due to funding difficulties.

In 2015, the Braunschweig International Film Festival showed 4 full-length and 15 short films based on stories from Lovecraft, among others. a. Shadow of the Unnamable (Sascha Renninger, DE 2011) with Robert Lyons .

music

Lovecraft and his work are received in pop and rock music. In 1967, for example, a psychedelic rock band was formed under the name H. P. Lovecraft . The members worked some stories and elements from Lovecraft's literary work into various pieces of music.

Lovecraft is also very well received in the metal sector, see for example The Call of Ktulu (1984), The Thing That Should Not Be (1986) and All Nightmare Long (2008) by Metallica , the concept album by the German band Payne's Gray Kadath Decoded (1995 ) or various songs by The Vision Bleak ( Horror of Antarctica , Dreams in the Witch-House , The Black Pharaoh Trilogy , The Outsider , Mother Nothingness ). In the gothic rock to find bonds of Lovecraft's works among others bands like Fields of the Nephilim , Garden of Delight and Whispers in the Shadow .

Lovecraft's work also offers inspiration in contemporary serious music . The composer Olga Neuwirth wrote about the orchestra piece Cthulhu Ludium - Before the Darkness (1991) for orchestra, Moritz Eggert set to music Lovecraft's story The Outsider ( The Outsider ) and melodrama ( The Other ). John Zorn's band Electric Masada released the album At the Mountains of Madness in 2005 .

Games and computer games

The American pen-and-paper role-playing game Call of Cthulhu by the US publisher Chaosium , which relates directly to Lovecraft's world, is considered one of the most influential role-playing games of all because it broke with the "superhuman" abilities of classic fantasy role-playing games and instead focuses on normal people who are almost always hopelessly inferior to the monsters of the Cthulhu myth. Call of Cthulhu was also the godfather of various board and card games that are still very popular today, such as the collectible card game Call of Cthulhu and the cooperative board games Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror .

Lovecraft's work forms the basis for a large number of computer games . The game database MobyGames lists 56 games that are either based directly on a text by Lovecraft or use the Cthulhu myth as the basis and background for independent works. In June 2019 , the digital distribution platform Steam listed 91 games for sale under the keyword "Lovecraftian". Most of these games belong to the genres of adventure , action-adventure or role-playing games , and since the widespread use of high-performance graphics cards, they also increasingly belong to the survival horror genre . The first computer game related to Lovecraft was Kadath , a game book adaptation that was published in 1979 by a hobby programmer for the Altair 8800 home computer and gradually commercialized for other home computers.

bibliography

Because of his relatively early death, Lovecraft left behind a rather narrow fiction work, which was also scattered in numerous magazines, as well as a very extensive correspondence. Less known are his essays , parts of his reviews, his plays and poems. Thanks to his friends and colleagues Robert H. Barlow , August Derleth and Donald Wandrei , who collected his works, published them in the specially founded Arkham House publishing house and thus saved them from being forgotten, Lovecraft is now one of the most famous authors of horror literature.

stories

The first anthologies with stories from Lovecraft appeared from 1939 in the Arkham House publishing house, founded by August Derleth and others with the aim of publishing the works of Lovecraft and related weird fiction authors . The first collections were:

  • The Outsider and Others. 1939. With the introductory essay Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Outsider by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei.
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep. 1943. Short stories, poems and essays.
  • Marginalia. 1944. Edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Contains collaborations, several short stories, and memoirs and essays about Lovecraft.
  • Something About Cats and Other Pieces. 1949. Contains essays by and about Lovecraft, as well as some poems and revisions.
  • The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces. 1949. Contains only partial works by Lovecraft, mainly smaller works and juvenilia, otherwise essays about and memories of Lovecraft. Not to be confused with The Shuttered Room and Other Tales of Terror (1971), a volume with “posthumous collaborations” by Derleth.

A three-volume collection of the stories Lovecrafts appeared from 1963. Derleth divided the prose into three volumes. Chronological or thematic categories obviously did not play a major role:

  • The Dunwich Horror and Others (1963): Contains a mix of traditional short stories and mythical stories, including The Call of Cthulhu, as well as The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Shadow out of Time .
  • At the Mountains of Madness, and Other Novels (1964): Contains most of the longer stories as well as the eponymous story, plus The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and several dream stories about Randolph Carter.
  • Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. (1965): Contains the rest of the dream world stories and many traditional short stories of inferior quality. The volume is filled with fragments and early works.

Other volumes contain so-called collaborations between HP Lovecraft and August Derleth:

  • The Lurker at the Threshold. 1945.
  • The Survivor and Others. 1957.
  • The Watchers out of Time, and Others. 1974.

In fact, they are Derleth's works using notes and designs from Lovecraft.

A textually revised new edition of Derleth's three volumes, edited by S. T. Joshi, appeared from 1984 and was the authoritative edition for a long time:

  • The Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft. Selected by August Derleth . Edited by S. T. Joshi. Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisc.
    • The Dunwich Horror and Others. Introduction by Robert Bloch. 1984, ISBN 0-87054-037-8 .
    • At the Mountains of Madness, and Other Novels. Introduction by James Turner. 1985, ISBN 0-87054-038-6 .
    • Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. 1965. Introduction of TED Klein. 1986, ISBN 0-87054-039-4 .

A three-volume edition of Lovecraft's stories was published by Hippocampus Press in 2015. The hardback edition was limited to 750 copies.

  • HP Lovecraft: Collected fiction: A Variorum Edition. Published by ST Joshi. 3 vols. Hippocampus Press, New York, NY 2015, ISBN 978-1-61498-108-4 .
    • Volume 1: 1905-1925, 530 pp.
    • Volume 2: 1926-1930, 538 pp.
    • Volume 3: 1931-1936, 520 pp.

Lovecraft lived in modest circumstances and made a living mainly editing the manuscripts of other authors. Most of these texts were initially only printed in amateur magazines. However, some stories (after several revisions) could also be published commercially. His edits were mostly limited to correcting syntax, language and punctuation. But there were also manuscripts that interested him so much that he took an active part in them. Some stories have been reworked by him in such a way that they should actually be classified as own works. Only the topic and the basic plot were taken from the original foreign manuscript . Lovecraft saw himself more as a co-author than an editor . Many of the works written with other authors contain his own ideas, but are of very different quality in terms of style and content. Some of Lovecraft's own works were posthumously edited by other authors. All such collaborations (if known) are noted at the top right.

In addition to these well-known and documented Lovecraft collaborations, there are a number of works in which Lovecraft's involvement has been alleged or assumed. In some other works, especially Derleth's collaborations, it is known that only Lovecraft's ideas were incorporated. In this context, the following authors and texts should be mentioned:

Robert Bloch

  • Satan's Servants ("The Servants of Satan")

Donald Burleson

  • The Pool ("The Pond")

Lin Carter

  • The Bell in the Tower ("The Bell in the Tower")

August Derleth

  • The Peabody Heritage ("The Legacy of the Peabodies")
  • The Gable Window (" The Gable Window ")
  • The Horror from the Middle Span ("The horror of the middle bridge arch")
  • Witches 'Hollow ("The Witches' Hole")
  • The Lurker at the Threshold ("The Gate of Corruption")
  • The Shuttered Room ( "The boarded-room")
  • The Watcher Out of Time ( "The observer from the period")
  • The Fisherman of Falcon Point ("The Fisherman of Falcon Point")
  • The Survivor ("The Descendant")
  • The Shadow out of Space (" The Shadow out of Space ")
  • The Shadow in the Attic (" The Shadow in the Attic ")
  • The Ancestor ( "The Ancestor")
  • The Dark Brotherhood ("The Dark Brotherhood")
  • The Lamp of Alhazred ("The Lamp of Alhazred")
  • The Return of Hastur ( "Hasturs return")
  • Innsmouth Clay ("Innsmouth Clay")
  • Wentworth's Day ("Wentworth's Day")

Sonia Greene

  • Four o'Clock ("Four o'clock")

E. Hoffmann Price

  • The Vermont Horror (" The Vermont Horror ")

Duane W. Rimel

  • The Sorcery of Aphlar ("The Sorcerer of Aphlar")

Richard F. Searight

  • The Sealed Casket ("The Sealed Urn")

Henry S. Whitehead

  • Bothon ("Bothon")

Poetry

Little of Lovecraft's poetry was published during his lifetime, and then only in Lovecraft's own magazines such as The Conservative or in those of other amateurs. These include the first print of The Crime of Crimes , published in 1915 by the Welshman Arthur Harris as part of his amateur magazine Interesting Items , as well as the HPL booklet sent in 1937 by Corwin F. Stickney to his amateur press circle with an edition of 75 copies . Both publications are now among the rarest and highest paid Lovecraftiana.

The first regular publication of Lovecraft's poems took place as part of the Beyond the Wall of Sleep collection published by August Derleth in 1943 , which contained 70 Lovecraft poems, including the cycle of sonnets Fungi from Yuggoth . In 1963, a collection dedicated exclusively to Lovecraft's poetry was also published by Arkham House. Other early publications were the two booklets edited by ST Joshi in the fanzine Crypt of Cthulhu edited by Robert M. Price .

In 2001, The Ancient Track was published, edited by ST Joshi, until further notice the authoritative edition of Lovecraft's poems. In 2013, The Ancient Track was reissued by Hippocampus Press.

Other editions of Lovecraft's poems:

  • The Crime of Crimes. A. Harris, Llandudno, Wales [1915].
  • HPL. Corwin F. Stickney, Bellville, NJ 1937.
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep. Edited by August Derleth. Arkham House, Sauk City, WI 1943.
  • Fungi from Yuggoth. FAPA [Fantasy Amateur Press Association] (Bill Evans), 1943.
  • Collected poems. Edited by August Derleth. Arkham House, Sauk City, WI 1963.
  • A winter wish. Edited by Tom Collins. Whispers Press, Chapel Hill, NC 1977.
  • Saturnalia and Other Poems. Edited by ST Joshi. Crypt of Cthulhu # 21 Eastertide 1984. Cryptic Publications, Bloomfield, NJ 1984.
  • Medusa and Other Poems. Edited by ST Joshi. Crypt of Cthulhu # 44 Yuletide 1986. Cryptic Publications, Mount Olive, NC 1986.
  • The Fantastic Poetry. Edited by ST Joshi. Necronomicon Press, West Warwick, RI 1990.
  • The Ancient Track: Complete Poetical Works. Edited by ST Joshi. Night Shade Books, San Francisco 2001. New edition: Hippocampus Press, New York 2013, ISBN 1-61498-070-5 .

German translation:

  • Seed from the Stars = Fungi from Yuggoth. Re-poems by Michael Siefener. Ed. Phantasia, Bellheim 1999, ISBN 3-924959-55-2 .

Lovecraft's poems were published in two selected volumes:

Essays

A 5-volume edition of Lovecraft's essays edited by ST Joshi was published by Hippocampus Press from 2004 to 2006:

In 1985 and 1995, respectively, a German edition of Lovecraft's almost 140-page essay Supernatural Horror in Literature was published in Edition Phantasia or by Suhrkamp:

Letters

A first collection of selected letters from Lovecraft appeared in 1962:

  • Dreams and Fancies. Edited by August Derleth. Arkham House, Sauk City 1962.

From 1965 to 1967 a five-volume, chronological selection from the correspondence was published:

In the following years a number of collections of certain correspondence or selected volumes with a specific time and theme appeared:

  • Uncollected letters. Ed. ST Joshi. Necronomicon Press, West Warwick, RI 1986.
  • Yr Obt Servt: Some Postcards of Howard Phillips Lovecraft Sent to Wilfred Blanch Talman. Edited by R. Alain Everts. The Strange Co., Madison, WI 1988.
  • Letters to Henry Kuttner. Eds. David E. Schultz and ST Joshi. Necronomicon Press, West Warwick, RI 1990.
  • Letters to Richard F. Searight. Eds. David E. Schultz and ST Joshi, with Franklyn Searight. Necronomicon Press, West Warwick, RI 1992.
  • Letters to Samuel Loveman and Vincent Starrett. Eds. ST Joshi and David E. Schultz. Necronomicon Press, West Warwick, RI 1994.
  • Letters to Robert Bloch. Eds. David E. Schultz and ST Joshi. Necronomicon Press, West Warwick, RI 1993.
  • Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters. Eds. ST Joshi and David E. Schultz. Ohio University Press, Athens 2000.
  • Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The Letters of HP Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei. Eds. ST Joshi and David E. Schultz. Night Shade Books, San Francisco 2002.
  • Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner. Eds. ST Joshi and David E. Schultz. Hippocampus Press, New York 2003.
  • Letters from New York. Eds. ST Joshi and David E. Schultz. Night Shade Books, San Francisco 2005.
  • Letters to Alfred Galpin. Eds. ST Joshi and David E. Schultz. Hippocampus Press, New York 2005.
  • O Fortunate Floridian: HP Lovecraft's Letters to RH Barlow. Eds. ST Joshi and David E. Schultz. University of Florida Press, Tampa 2007.
  • Essential Solitude: The Letters of HP Lovecraft and August Derleth. Eds. David E. Schultz and ST Joshi. Hippocampus Press, New York 2008. 2 vols.
  • A Means to Freedom: The Letters of HP Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Eds. ST Joshi, David E. Schultz, and Rusty Burke. Hippocampus Press, New York 2009. 2 vols.

Translations

The first German translations of short stories appeared in 1965 under the title 12 horror stories in the Heyne anthology series. A notable Lovecraft reception in Germany only began with the Lovecraft volumes, which were published as part of the library of the House of Usher published by Kalju Kirde from 1968 in Insel-Verlag and subsequently as reprints in higher editions in the Fantastic Library as Suhrkamp- Paperback published. Well-known translators also contributed to the success:

  • Cthulhu. German by HC Artmann . 1968.
  • The thing on the threshold. German by Rudolf Hermstein . 1969. New translation by Holger Hanowell. In: Classic of horror. Stories for scary hours. Reclam, 2019.
  • Mountains of madness. German by Rudolf Hermstein. 1970.
  • The Charles Dexter Ward case. German by Rudolf Hermstein. 1971.
  • City without a name. German by Charlotte Countess von Klinckowstroem. 1973.

Edition Phantasia has been publishing an edition of the works in German translation aimed at completeness since 2005 (mostly licensed from the volumes of the library of the House of Usher and the Fantastic Library ). The parts already published include the narrative work. Further volumes are in preparation.

Collected works: Edition Phantasia, Bellheim 2005 ff. ( Titles marked with * appear for the first time in German translation)

Overview of the content of the volumes

Work group I. Stories. 5 volumes.

  • Volume 1: The small glass bottle * ; The secret cave * ; The riddle of the cemetery * ; The mysterious ship * ; The beast in the cave, The alchemist; The grave; Dagon; A memory of Dr. Samuel Johnson * ; Polaris; Beyond the wall of sleep; Memory; Old Bugs * ; The disappearance of Juan Romero; The white ship; The street; The ruin that came upon Sarnath; The statement of Randolph Carter; The fair Ermengarde * ; The terrible old man; The tree; The cats of Ulthar; The temple; Arthur Jermyn; Nyarlathotep; Celephaïs; From the beyond; The picture in the house; Ex Oblivione; City with no name; Iranon's Search; The moon bog; The outsider; The other gods; The music of Erich Zann; Azathoth; Herbert West - The reawakening.
  • Volume 2: Hypnos; What the moon brings; The dog; The lurking fear; The rats in the walls; The unnamable; The party; Trapped with the pharaohs; The shunned house; Horror in Red Hook; He; In the crypt; Cool air; Cthulhu's reputation; Pickman's model; The silver key; The strange high house in the fog; The shoot.
  • Volume 3: The dream search for the unknown Kadath; The Charles Dexter Ward case; The color from space.
  • Volume 4: The Ancient People; History and chronology of the Necronomicon; The thing in the moonlight; Ibid * ; The Dunwich Horror; The Whisperer in the Dark; Mountains of madness.
  • Volume 5: Shadows Over Innsmouth; Draft for Shadows over Innsmouth * ; Dreams in the witch house; Through the gates of the silver key; The malicious clergyman; The thing on the threshold; The book; The shadow from time; The luminous trapezoid.

Work group II. Joint work and revisions. 5 volumes.

  • Volume 1: Stories 6, Collaborative Work and Revisions 1, (1918-1930)
    • with Elizabeth Berkeley: The Green Meadow
    • with Anna Helen Crofts, as Henry Paget-Low: Poetry And the Gods
    • with Elizabeth Berkeley: The Crawling Chaos
    • with Sonia Greene: Four O'clock; The Horror At Martin's Beach
    • with CM Eddy: The Ghost Eater; The Loved Dead; Ashes; Deaf, dumb and blind
    • with Wilfred Blanch Talman: Two Black Bottles
    • with Zelia Bishop: The Curse of Yig
    • with Adolphe De Castro: The Last Test; The Electric Executioner (with the original version by De Castro)
    • with Zelia Bishop: The Mound
  • Volume 2: Stories 7, Collaborative Work and Revisions 2, (1930-1933)
    • with Zelia Bishop: Medusa's Coil
    • with Frank B. Long: The Horror from the Hills *
    • with Henry S. Whitehead: The Trap; Bothon
    • with Hazel Heald: The Man of Stone; The Horror In the Museum; Winged Death
  • Volume 3: Stories 8, Community Work and Revisions 3, (1933-1936)
    • with E. Hoffmann Price: Through the Gates of the Silver Key (with the original version by Von Hoffmann Price)
    • with Robert H. Barlow: The Slaying of the Monster *
    • with Hazel Heald: Out of the Eons
    • with Robert H. Barlow: The Hoard of the Wizard-beast *
    • with Richard F. Searight: The Sealed Casket
    • with Hazel Heald: The Horror in the Burying Ground; 1932 to 1935
    • with Duane W. Rimel: The Tree on the Hill
    • with RM Farley, D. Keller, CA Smith, H. Vincent, EE Smith, OA Kline, SA Coblentz: Cigarette Characterizations *
    • with Robert H. Barlow: The Battle that Ended the Century *
    • with Duane W. Rimel: The Sorcery of Aphlar
    • with Robert H. Barlow: Till All the Seas
    • with Robert Bloch: Satan's Servants *
    • with Robert E. Howard, Frank B. Long, A. Merritt, CL Moore: The Challenge From Beyond
    • with Robert H. Barlow: Collapsing Cosmoses *
    • with Duane W. Rimel: The Disinterment
    • with William Lumley: The Diary of Alonzo Typer
    • with Kenneth Sterling: In the Walls of Eryx
    • with Robert H. Barlow: The Night Ocean
  • Volume 4: Stories 9, Community Work and Revisions 4, Posthumous Editions (1937-1957)
    • with August Derleth: The Return of Hastur; The Lurker at the Threshold; The Ancestor; The Survivor; The Peabody Heritage; The Gable Window; The Shadow Out of Space
  • Volume 5. Stories 10, Community Work and Revisions 5, Posthumous Editions (1957–1998)
    • with August Derleth: The Lamp of Alhazred; Wentworth's Day; The Fisherman of Falcon Point; The Shuttered Room; Witches' Hollow; The Shadow in the Attic; The Dark Brotherhood; The Horror from the Middle Span; Innsmouth Clay; The Watchers Out of Time *
    • with Lin Carter: The Bell in the Tower *
    • with Donald Burleson: The Pool *
    • with Robert M. Price: The Vermont Horror *

Work group III. Plays and poems. 3 volumes.

Further Lovecraft editions of the Phantasia Verlag:

  • The music of Erich Zann. Translation by HC Artmann . Illustrations by Klaus Hagemeister. Edition Phantasia, Bellheim 2001, ISBN 3-924959-59-5 (limited, color illustrated edition).
  • Seed from the Stars / Funghi from Yuggoth. Re-poems by Michael Siefener. Edition Phantasia , Bellheim 1999, ISBN 3-924959-55-2 (limited, bilingual, color illustrated edition).
  • The literature of horror. Edition Phantasia, Bellheim 1985, ISBN 978-3-924959-01-2 . Translation of Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927, 1945).

Other German translations:

Honors

  • 1975–2015: The World Fantasy Award was presented for 40 years in the form of a bust depicting Lovecraft.
  • 1990: The city of Providence unveils the Lovecraft Memorial in front of the John Hay Library at Brown University , a granite block and metal plaque containing a profile picture and a poem from Fungi from Yuggoth ("Dedicated on the Centennial of his birth August 20, 1990 ").
  • 2013: Providence City Council names a historic intersection "HP Lovecraft Memorial Square". This is where Angell Street and Prospect Street intersect - two locations in The Charles Dexter Ward Case .
  • 2013: Installation of a life-size bronze bust in the Providence Athenaeum , a public library that Lovecraft often used.
  • 2017: Posthumous induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

literature

  • Hans Joachim Alpers (ed.): HP Lovecraft - the poet of horror. Corian-Verlag, Meitingen 1983, ISBN 3-89048-201-5 .
  • Ramsey Campbell : Lovecraft: An Introduction. Translated from the English by Joachim Körber. In: Krachkultur 12, 2008.
  • Lyon Sprague de Camp: Lovecraft. A biography. Doubleday, Garden City 1975.
    • German: Lovecraft. A biography. Translation by Andreas Diesel. Festa, Almersbach 2002, ISBN 3-935822-48-0 .
  • Michel Houellebecq : Against the world, against life. Translation by Ronald Voullié. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-24541-1 (biographical essay).
  • Sunand T. Joshi: I Am Providence. The Life and Times of HP Lovecraft. 2 volumes, Hippocampus Press, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0982429679 (currently the authoritative biography).
    • German: HP Lovecraft - life and work. 2 vols. Translated from the English by Andreas Fliedner. Golkonda-Verlag, Berlin. Volume 1: 1890-1924. 2017, ISBN 978-3944720-51-7 . Volume 2: 1925-1937 , ISBN 978-3-944720-52-4 .
  • Sunand T. Joshi: A Dreamer and a Visionary. H. P. Lovecraft in His Time. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2001, ISBN 0-85323-936-3 .
  • Frank Belknap Long : Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside. Arkham House, Sauk City 1975, ISBN 0-87054-068-8 .
  • Wolfgang H. Müller: Lovecraft. Treasurer of the Forbidden. Schulze, Bergen / Dumme 1992, ISBN 3-89423-113-0 .
  • Franz Rottensteiner : The Hermit of Providence: Lovecraft's Unusual Life. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-518-38126-1 .
  • William Schoell: HP Lovecraft. Master of Weird Fiction. Reynolds, Greensboro 2004, ISBN 1-931798-15-X .
  • Donald Tyson: The dream world of HP Lovecraft: his life, his demons, his universe. Llewellyn, Woodbury, Minn. 2010, ISBN 978-0-7387-2284-9 .
Monographs on individual aspects
  • Hans Joachim Alpers (ed.): HP Lovecraft - the poet of horror. Corian, Meitingen 1983, ISBN 3-89048-201-5 (essays on Lovecraft and anthology of some short stories).
  • Timo Airaksinen: The Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft. The Route to Horror. Peter Lang, New York 1998. ISBN 0-8204-4022-1 .
  • Jens Malte Fischer: Productive disgust. On the work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. In: Christian W. Thomsen, Jens Malte Fischer (Ed.): Fantasticism in literature and art. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1980, ISBN 3-534-08293-1 , pp. 314-332.
  • Gary Hill: The Strange Sound of Cthulhu. Music Inspired by the Writings of HP Lovecraft. Lulu.com, 2006, ISBN 1-84728-776-X .
  • Kezia L'Engle de Figueiredo: Weird Fiction and the Unholy Glee of HP Lovecraft. (PDF; 321 kB) Dissertation. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis (Santa Catarina, Brazil) 2003.
  • Sunand T. Joshi: Lovecraft and a World in Transition: Collected Essays on HP Lovecraft. Hippocampus Press, New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-61498-079-7 .
  • Peter Priskil : Freud's key to poetry. Three examples: Rilke, Lovecraft, Bernd. Ahriman, Freiburg im Breisgau 1996, ISBN 3-89484-807-3 .
  • Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.): About HP Lovecraft. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-37527-X (collection of essays).
  • Susanne Smuda: HP Lovecrafts Mythology. Bricolage and Intertextuality - Narrative Strategies and Their Effects. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1997, ISBN 3-89528-185-9 .
  • Johannes Weyrauch: Racism and White Anxiety in HP Lovecraft's Weird Tales. Longtai, Heuchelheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-938946-18-3 .
  • Thekla Zachrau: Myth and Fantasy. Function and structure of the Cthulhu mythology in the fantastic tales of H. P. Lovecraft. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-8204-8841-3 .
Bibliographies and Reference
  • Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft: A Comprehensive Bibliography. University of Tampa Press, Tampa, FL 2009, ISBN 978-1-59732-068-9 .
  • Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz: To HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press, Westport 2001, ISBN 0-313-31578-7 .
  • Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft and Lovecraft Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography. Kent State University Press, Kent, OH 1981, ISBN 0-87338-248-X .
  • Charles P. Mitchell: The Complete HP Lovecraft Filmography. Greenwood Press, Westport 2001, ISBN 0-313-31641-4 .
  • Mark Owings, Jack L. Chalker: The Revised HP Lovecraft Bibliography. Mirage Press, Baltimore 1973.
Lexicon article

Web links

Commons : HP Lovecraft  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Works
Wikisource: HP Lovecraft  - sources and full texts (English)
Secondary literature
  • Open Lovecraft - the latest international scientific literature online on HP Lovecraft

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lyon Sprague de Camp: Lovecraft. A biography. Translation by Rainer Schmidt. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1989 (abridged edition), p. 18.
  2. ↑ De Camp: Lovecraft. A biography . Ullstein, 1989, ISBN 3-548-36561-2 , pp. 59 .
  3. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: The myth maker. In: The Guardian. June 4, 2005
  4. ^ Supernatural Horror in Literature , Dover, New York 1973, p. 15.
  5. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz: Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The. In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia , Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, p. 74
  6. ^ ST Joshi: HP Lovecraft: Life and Thought. In: Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.): About HP Lovecraft. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-37527-X .
  7. ↑ “The benefit received from this affiliation can scarcely be overestimated, for contact with the various members and critics helped me infinitely in toning down the worst archaisms and ponderosities in my style.” Lovecraft in Some Notes on a Nonentity , 1943.
  8. ^ HP Lovecraft: Azathoth · Mixed writings , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1989, pp. 255 ff. ( Notes on writing eerie stories ), 260 ff. ( Some notes on interplanetary stories ) and 268–297 ( Note and Notebook ).
  9. ↑ Johannes Kleinstück: Poe's theory of the short narrative , in: EA Poe: Stories between Day, Dream and Death , Rowohlt, Hamburg 1984, p. 150.
  10. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz: Smith, Clark Ashton. In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia, Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, p. 247
  11. ^ Michael Koseler: Notes on the art of storytelling Howard Philipps Lovecraft. In (Ed.) Franz Rottensteiner : HP Lovecrafts cosmic horror. Fantastic Library, Volume 344, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 109
  12. ^ Michael Koseler: Notes on the art of storytelling Howard Philipps Lovecraft. In (Ed.) Franz Rottensteiner: HP Lovecrafts cosmic horror. Fantastic Library, Volume 344, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 109-110
  13. ↑ Rein A. Zondergeld, Lovecraft, Howard Phillips, in: Lexikon der phantastischen Literatur, Suhrkamp, ​​Fantastische Bibliothek, Frankfurt 1983, p. 161
  14. ↑ a b Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. German by Andreas Fliedner, Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 561
  15. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. German by Andreas Fliedner, Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 27
  16. ^ De Camp: Lovecraft: Eine Biographie , Ullstein 1989, ISBN 3-548-36561-2 , p. 20
  17. ^ HP Lovecraft: Letter to Robert E. Howard . October 4, 1930 ( Quotes Regarding the Necronomicon from Lovecraft's Letters ).
  18. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 137
  19. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 136
  20. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 134
  21. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 135
  22. ↑ Quoted from: Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - Life and Work. Volume 1. Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 137
  23. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, pp. 137-138
  24. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz: Crime of the Century, The . In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia, Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, p. 50
  25. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 138
  26. ↑ Lin Carter: Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Myth . Ballantine Books, 1972, ISBN 0-345-25295-0 . , P. Xiii
  27. ^ Rein A. Zondergeld, Lovecraft, Howard Phillips, in: Lexikon der phantastischen Literatur, Suhrkamp, ​​Fantastische Bibliothek, Frankfurt 1983, p. 160
  28. ↑ HP Lovecraft, Pickmans Modell, in Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten, Fantastische Bibliothek, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 26
  29. ↑ Jörg Drews , Four Reviews, in: About HP Lovecraft , Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 201
  30. ↑ Jörg Drews, Four Reviews, in: About HP Lovecraft , Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 202
  31. ↑ Fritz Leiber Jr. , A literary Copernicus, in: About HP Lovecraft, Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Fantastic Library, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 51
  32. ↑ Fritz Leiber jr., Ein literarischer Kopernikus, in: About HP Lovecraft, Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Fantastic Library, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 52
  33. ^ HP Lovecraft, The Horror of Dunwich, in Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten, Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 192
  34. ↑ Fritz Leiber jr., Ein literarischer Kopernikus, in: About HP Lovecraft, Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Fantastic Library, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 53
  35. ↑ S. T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 2, German by Andreas Fliedner, Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2020, p. 606
  36. ^ Johann Thun: Visit of the old gods. From HP Lovecraft's 'Cthulhu Myth' to Erich von Daniken's 'Pre-Astronautics'. A search for clues from a literary perspective. In: Pawel Walowski (Ed.): The (new) man and his worlds. Fantastic German-language literature and science fiction . 1st edition. Frank & Timme, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-7329-0237-8 , pp. 47-61 .
  37. ↑ Literature Prize Winner of the German Fantastic Prize
  38. ↑ German Lovecraft Society eV, Flensburg Local Court , Register No .: VR 3047 FL. ( Register of associations )
  39. ^ German Lovecraft Society
  40. ↑ Laudation for the Kurd Lasswitz Prize 2003 on michaelmarrak.de
  41. ↑ "About 'At the Mountains of Murkiness'"
  42. ^ Short story "I Cthulhu" by Neil Gaiman at www.neilgaiman.com
  43. ^ Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows: Neonomicon . Panini, Stuttgart 2012, without pagination. The quote in the introduction.
  44. ↑ Film adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, 2005 ( memento of January 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on cthulhulives.org, accessed on January 8, 2019
  45. ^ The Color - Official Film Website
  46. ↑ The Whisperer in Darkness DVD ( January 3, 2012 memento in the Internet Archive )
  47. ↑ Information on herocomplex.latimes.com
  48. ↑ filmfest-braunschweig.de ( memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on January 8, 2019
  49. ^ Archive of the homepage of the Braunschweig Film Festival with detailed descriptions of the films, accessed on January 8, 2019
  50. ↑ MobyGames.com: Inspiration: Author - HP Lovecraft. Retrieved June 11, 2019 .
  51. ↑ Steampowered.com: Title with the tag "Lovecraftian". Retrieved June 11, 2019 .
  52. ^ Renga in Blue (weblog): Kadath: So Black as to Be the Color of Space Itself. Retrieved June 11, 2019 .
  53. ↑ Hans Joachim Alpers (ed.): H. P. Lovecraft - the poet of horror. Corian, Meitingen 1983, p. 176.
  54. ↑ Publishing house of the work edition (accessed on May 4, 2018)
  55. ^ Providence Council names intersection after HP Lovecraft . Retrieved December 15, 2017.
  56. ↑ https://providenceathenaeum.org/collections/art-collection/sculpture/
  57. ^ Science fiction awards database - HP Lovecraft . Retrieved November 24, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Lovecraft, HP
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lovecraft, Howard Phillips (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Providence , Rhode Island
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1937
Place of death Providence , Rhode Island