Howard Phillips Lovecraft Biography. Lovecraft Howard Philips: A Literary Legacy. Life after death

Howard Phillips Lovecraft Born August 20, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. His parents, mother Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft and father Winfield Scott Lovecraft, then lived at 454 (then 194) Angell Street.

When Howard was three years old, his father suffered a nervous breakdown while in a hotel in Chicago (he worked as a traveling salesman) and after that was institutionalized, where he spent five years, until his death on July 19, 1898.

After the death of his father, the boy was raised by his mother, two aunts and, especially, grandfather - Whipple Van Buren Phillips. My grandfather had the largest library in the city (and perhaps in the entire state), and this played a significant role in shaping Howard's reading habits. He began to read and write early on his own (even earlier, he began to simply compose oral poetry). And one of the first works that he noted as the most beloved and impressed him were "Tales of 1001 Nights" (Arabian Nights), read for the first time by him at the age of five. It was from there that Abdul Alhazred was born, who later became the pseudonym of the author himself, and even later - the character of his stories, the author of the Necronomicon. And it is to this book that Lovecraft owes oriental motifs in his subsequent work. Also, the author was loved from childhood Greek myths, the Iliad and the Odyssey, reflections of which we can also meet later in his poetry and prose.

WITH early childhood, Lovecraft was in poor health. Having practically no friends, he spent most of his time with his grandfather in the library. But his interests were not limited to literature as a profession. He seriously studied chemistry, astronomy, history (especially the history of his native state and New England). Also in school age independently began to publish newspapers and magazines dedicated to his scientific interests and research (The Scientific Gazette (1899-1907) and The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy (1903-07)). They were distributed mainly among classmates and subsequent friends and associates.

At school (Hope Street High School), his interests and research are approved by teachers who replace Howard's friends among peers. And in 1906, his article on astronomy was first published by The Providence Sunday Journal. Later, he became a regular columnist for The Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner on astronomy. And still later in such publications as The Providence Tribune (1906-08), The Providence Evening News (1914-18) and The Asheville (N.C.) Gazette-News (1915).

Howard's grandfather died in 1904. She and her mother, experiencing financial difficulties, are forced to leave the mansion in which they lived and move to a cramped apartment at 598 Angell Steert. Howard was very upset by the loss of his home, in which he was born and which was his native. In 1908, Howard himself had a nervous breakdown, which forced him to leave school without finishing it. An attempt to get into Brown University fails, leading to an even more reclusive Lovecraft lifestyle.

From 1908 to 1913 Lovecraft practically did not leave the house, continuing to study astronomy and poetry. The way out of seclusion occurred in a very original way. Reading a lot of old "cheap" magazines, among which was The Argosy, he came across love stories a Fred Jackson. This prompted him to write an angry letter to the magazine. It was published in 1913 and caused a storm of protest from Jackson's admirers. This led to a whole correspondence in the pages of the magazine, in which many people and authors were involved. Among them was Edward F. Daas, president of the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA). It was an organization that included young authors from all over the country who wrote and published their own magazines. He invites Lovecraft to become a member of UAPA. And in 1914 his proposal was accepted.

Lovecraft began publishing his own magazine, The Conservative (1915-23), in which he published his poetry, as well as articles and essays written specifically for this publication, as well as those that he sent to other magazines. There are 13 issues of The Conservative in total. The Necronomicon Press would later reprint these issues among Lovecraft's other works. Later, Lovecraft became President and Editor-in-Chief of UAPA.

Already experienced in writing fiction previously ("The Beast in the Cave" (1905) and "The Alchemist" (1908)) and now plunged into the world of amateur prose, Lovecraft again takes up the pen as a science fiction writer. For the first time since 1908. In 1917 "The Tomb" and "Dagon" were successfully published. Now the main occupation and hobby of the author is prose, poetry and journalism.

In 1919, Lovecraft's mother had a nervous attack. And, just like his father, she is placed in a clinic, from where she does not leave until her death. She dies on May 24, 1921. Lovecraft is very upset by the death of his mother, but a few weeks later a serious change takes place in his life - at a conference of amateur journalists in Boston on July 4, 1921, he meets a woman who will later become his wife. It was Sonya Haft Green, a Russian-born Jewess, seven years older than Howard himself. From the first meeting, they find a lot in common in each other and Lovecraft often visits her in Brooklyn in 1922. Their relationship was not a secret, and therefore the announcement of the wedding on March 3, 1924 was not a surprise to their friends. But this was a complete surprise for his aunts, whom he notified only in writing, and then after the marriage had already taken place.

Lovecraft moves to his wife in Brooklyn and things in their family are not going badly - he then already earns as a professional writer by publishing his early work in Weird Tales, and Sonia runs a thriving hat shop on Fifth Avenue in New York.

But later, the store goes bankrupt, and Lovecraft loses his job as an editor at Weird Tales. In addition, Sonino's health is deteriorating and she is admitted to a New Jersey hospital. On January 1, 1925, Sonya leaves for Cleveland to start a business there, and Lovecraft moves into a one-room apartment in one of the Brooklyn neighborhoods called Red Hook. Having many acquaintances in the city, he does not feel completely alien and abandoned. At this time, such things as "The Shunned House" (1924), "The Horror at Red Hook" and "He" (both also 1924) come out from under his pen.

In early 1926, Lovecraft plans to return to Providence, which he has missed all this time. At the same moment, his marriage cracks and later (in 1929) breaks up completely.

Returning to Providence on April 17, 1926, Lovecraft does not lead a hermitic life, as he did in the period from 1908 to 1913. On the contrary, he travels a lot to ancient places (Quebec, New England, Philadelphia, Charleston, St. Augustine) and works fruitfully . During this time, he wrote some of his best things, including "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926), "At the Mountains of Madness" (1931), "The Shadow out of Time" (1934-35). At the same time, he has an extensive correspondence both with his old friends and with many young authors who owe their careers in this field largely to Lovecraft (August Derleth, Donald Wandrei, Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber). At this time, he wrote many articles on politics and economics, as well as on all those subjects that continued to interest him - from philosophy and literature to history and architecture.

The last two or three years of the author's life are especially difficult. In 1932, one of his aunts, Miss Clark, dies, and Lovecraft moves into a room at 66 College Street in 1933 with his second aunt, Miss Gunwell. After the suicide of Robert Howard, one of his closest pen pals, Lovecraft becomes depressed. At the same time, the disease progresses, which will later cause his death - intestinal cancer.

In the winter of 1936-1937, the disease progressed so much that Lovecraft was admitted to the hospital (Jane Brown Memorial Hospital) on March 10, 1937. Where he died five days later.

Lovecraft was buried on March 18, 1937 in the family plot at Swan Point Cemetery. On a simple tombstone, in addition to the name, dates of birth and death, there is only one inscription - "I AM PROVIDENCE" ...

Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
In the 1920s, the American science fiction and horror magazine Supernatural Stories began publishing stories by a then-unknown author named G.F. Lovecraft. And, as his collaboration with the magazine became permanent, these stories began to take the form of a coherent and coherent mythology, created from the literary realization of the author's dreams and intuitive impulses. Although outwardly he maintained a completely rational and skeptical view of the universe, his experience in dreamland allowed him to look at spaces and entities beyond the world of earthly reality, and behind his grandiloqueous and verbose prose is the vision and understanding of the secret forces that are directly related to Magic Tradition.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on January 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island, at 454 Angell Street, the home of his maternal grandfather, Whipple W. Phillips. His parents, Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Phillips, were of English descent, and throughout his life Lovecraft remained a keen Anglophile. Winfield Lovecraft, a traveling salesman, spent much time away from the family home, and as a result had little to no influence on the young Lovecraft. Three years after the birth of his son, he was placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he died in 1898 from "progressive paralysis of the mentally ill", the final stage of syphilis. As a result, Lovecraft spent the rest of his personality-forming years under the care of his mother and her two unmarried sisters, who completely shielded him from hardship and need. Everyday life, but at the same time they considered the boy to be extremely ugly in appearance, which they constantly repeated to him, causing the child mental pain.

Lovecraft soon began to show clear signs of "otherness" - at the age of four he could read fluently and spent hours in his grandfather's extensive library studying volumes of history and mythology. Grandpa also introduced him to the local folk stories and the myths that he later sketched in his memoirs of imaginary New England landscapes of Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth.

Lovecraft began his studies at the Hope High School in Providence, but with poor health that led to long periods of absence from school, he was forced to educate himself. He preferred the company of adults, rather than peers who did not like him because of his refined nature and precocious intelligence.

Instead of joining their youthful amusements, he developed his own inner world imagination, trying to compose, and at the age of 15 he created his first story "The Beast in the Cave". By 1914, he had submitted a number of articles to the United Amateur Press Agency and local newspapers, ranging from astronomy and philosophy to the occult and the supernatural; similar topics were the subject of his early work. At this time, he also became interested in epistolary communication, which became one of the main entertainments of his life. He was in touch with more than a hundred regular correspondents at a time, and in fact, his letters that have come down to us far exceed his fiction in volume (by one estimate, the total number of letters written by Lovecraft exceeds 100,000).

However, it was not until 1917 that writing was taken seriously by Lovecraft. The family was forced to leave their house on Angell Street due to financial difficulties, and Lovecraft soon found himself unable to earn a living. (In fact, he spent the best part of his life in a state of financial need and semi-starvation, surviving on less than $15 a week.) And his mother's mind and material conditions quickly declined. In 1919, the mother was admitted to the Butler Hospital, where she died in May 1921 after a long illness.

Lovecraft's short story "Dagon", written in 1917, was published in Supernatural Histories in October 1923, the same year the magazine was published. In the same year, the writer made his first trip to New York to visit the poet Samuel Loveman and meet Sonia H. Green, a fellow member of the Amateur Printing Agency. Lovecraft had corresponded since 1921 with Sonya, a woman several years older than him, and worked on correcting her own writings. Following the first meeting, their friendship grew into more romantic relationship and they married on March 3rd, 1924. However, this new life became a great test for Lovecraft, and after only two years they broke up. The urban metropolis of New York seemed unbearable to Lovecraft, and feelings of disgust for the city inspired him to write the story "The Horror at Red Hook".

After the breakup of his marriage, Lovecraft returned to Providence, where he lived as a semi-hermit at the home of his aunt, Ann Phillips Gamville. With the exception of travel to various parts of the country for antiquarian research (including visits to Boston, Quebec, New Orleans, and Philadelphia), and short trips within New England to study ancient sites (such as the prehistoric megaliths in Shutsbury, Massachusetts), for the rest of your life he remained in Providence.

After returning to hometown Lovecraft concentrated exclusively on creativity, working through the night and relaxing during the day with the shutters closed. As he embarked on long nightly wanderings, he dreamed of scenes from his childhood when his first stories were written; childhood, which has always fascinated an already adult writer and caused nostalgia. In winter, he rarely left the boundaries of the house due to a pathological fear of temperatures below 70? F. There is an anecdote that tells about the case when he decided to leave the house at 30? F and immediately fell ill, needing resuscitation. He showed a clear aversion to the sea, suffered from terrible headaches, and his physical appearance showed signs of malnutrition.

He was also prone to extremely vivid and lucid dreams, suffering from nightmares almost every night. In his childhood, he was visited in a dream by beings whom he called "Night Mverzi". These faceless, bat-winged ghosts carried him to high, spiky mountain peaks, an archetypal landscape that was called in his prose "the loathsome plateau of Lang." And what happened during such nocturnal events that gave rise to many of the most vivid images Lovecraft, is often left on paper in a manner virtually identical to that of "automatic writing", which took place in the arrangement of his poem "Nyarlathotep" in prose.

“Nyarlathotep is a nightmare, a true phantom of myself, creating the first paragraph that was written before I was fully awake. IN Lately I felt terrible - whole weeks passed without getting rid of headaches and dizziness, and for a long time three hours was the maximum limit of continuous work ... Added to my constant misfortunes was an unusual eye attack that prevented me from reading fine print - a curious tension of nerves and muscles which, to tell the truth, alarmed me. And this went on for weeks.

In the midst of this gloom arrived a nightmare of nightmares - the most realistic and terrifying of those I have often experienced since coming of age - whose absolute abomination and extremely oppressive atmosphere I was able, albeit imperfectly, to reflect in my written fantasy ... As I fell into the abyss, then screamed heart-rendingly, after which the vision disappeared. I was in great pain (spasms in my forehead and ringing in my ears), but, on an unconscious impulse, I rushed to the light and began frantically writing down what I saw, trying to maintain an atmosphere of unprecedented fright. When I woke up, I remembered all the events of the dream, but completely lost the unbearable feeling of fear - the real feeling of the presence of a disgusting stranger. Of what I have just written down, I owned the smallest part directly, and after a while I stopped and poured water over my head. When I reviewed the text I had written, I was surprised by its consistency. It consisted of one paragraph of the completed manuscript, later I changed only three words.

Lovecraft is an extremely curious case of the dissemination of "occult knowledge" through the dream, he was one of the few able to write effectively about the supernatural without conscious faith in the data he conveyed. On the contrary, he categorically denied the possibility of the existence of occult phenomena, although he used their manifestations as a fictional device. However, this intellectual refutation, expressed in his letters and conversations with friends, contradicts the subjective confidence with which he described the things attested in his work (this is an indication of the dynamic dichotomy between the rational and intuitive aspects of his psyche).

With the advent of subsequent stories, a hidden pattern began to take shape in Lovecraft's work. The story "The Call of Cthulhu", written in 1926, reveals this plan. The plot of this story suggests that at certain times when the constellations take on a special position, some dark forces can influence sensitive people, sending them images of the "Great Old Ones", god-like aliens of extraterrestrial origin. These beings are in another dimension or vibrational level, and can only enter this universe through specific "open zones" or psychic gates - a concept fundamental in many occult traditions. Cthulhu is the High Priest of the Ancients, buried in the sunken city of R "Layh, where he awaits the time of their return. He is depicted as a huge winged anthropoid with tentacles, consisting of a semi-viscous substance that can reunite again after an apparent destruction at the end of the story. The narrative also testifies , using various archaeological and mythological sources, of the continued existence of a cult dedicated to the return of the Ancients, whose worshipers can be found ranging from the inhabitants of the South Seas to the angakoks of Greenland and those who practice voodoo in the southern states of the United States.

Lovecraft also gives short description world after the coming of the Great Old Ones:

“This time will be easy to recognize, because then people will become like the Great Old Ones - wild and free, on the other side of good and evil, they will abandon laws and morality, everyone will scream, kill and have fun. Then the liberated Ancients will open up new ways for them to scream, kill, have fun and enjoy, and the whole earth will burn in a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

There are clear similarities between this passage and the teachings of many actual secret societies of the past, including the Assassins, Gnostics, and Templars, but especially the "Law of Thelema" as expounded by Lovecraft's contemporary Aleister Crowley. The main difference is in the moral interpretation. While Lovecraft considered the ancient gods to be the embodiment of evil, Crowley saw such a return of the atavistic deities as an event entirely consistent with the "succession of the Aeons".

After The Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft wrote more than a dozen stories containing the central core of the interconnected mythology that later became known as the Cthulhu Mythos. In these stories, he describes various rituals that have existed since the time of the ancient domination of the Ancients, and preserved to the present day in esoteric grimoires such as the Necronomicon, with which the ritual of evocation of extraterrestrial gods could be performed. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, by attributing a single source to many divergent branches of occult belief, Lovecraft hints that the real roots of the magical arts lie in the ritual worship of entities beyond dimensions. These ceremonies have been observed for centuries and have been misinterpreted in terms of black magic and devil worship.

It should be noted here that Lovecraft never used the term "Cthulhu Mythos", which was introduced by his protégé Augustus Derleth after the writer's death. Cthulhu is just one representative of a whole pantheon of deities that includes Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath and others. The manifestations of these entities change from story to story. Sometimes they are depicted as being supernatural, while at other times they appear as space aliens in a specific physical form. A particular deity may be mentioned in both ways within the same text. Comparing the mentions of each of the deities in the stories of the "Myths", one can restore their relationship and hierarchy, explore the relationship between Lovecraft's imaginary pantheon and the religious-mythological systems that existed in the past.

Basically, the gods of the Cthulhu Myths are divided into two groups - the Great Ancient and the Most Ancient Gods, of the latter, only Nodens has a name. Between the Ultimate Chaos and the Physical World are Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth, who share power over lower deities, subhuman races and people.

Yog-Sothoth is the outer manifestation of the Primordial Chaos, the gate through which those who exist beyond must enter. In The Dunwich Horror, Lovecraft writes:

“The Ancients were, the Ancients are, and the Ancients will be. Not in the spaces we know about, but in between. They go imperturbable and primordial, dimensionless and invisible to us. Yog-Sothoth knows the gates. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is both the key and the guardian of the gates. Past, present, future, everything is in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones came from in the past, and He knows where They will come from in the future.

The law of its existence is parallel to the concept of the universe described in Hindu and Eastern mysticism, limitless being and essence, All-in-One and One-in-All. A specific physical form as such cannot be attributed to Yog-Sothoth, although in The Dunwich Horror his offspring from mating with Lavinia Whatley is compared to an octopus, centipede, or spider. The formula for the evocation of Yog-Sothoth is given in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, where it forms part of the necromantic practices of the sorcerer Joseph Curwen.

The British occultist Kenneth Grant described Yog-Sothoth as the embodiment of "the highest and ultimate blasphemy in the form of the Aeon (yogi or yuga) Set (Sothoth = Set + Thoth)". On the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, Yog-Sothoth can be correlated with Da "at, the seventh (or "hidden") Sephira, and identified with Choronzon, the Guardian of the Abyss, whom Crowley called "the very first and most deadly of the forces of evil", whose number is 333, number of Chaos and Dispersion.

From the side of the elements, Yog-Sothoth can be considered as the absolute manifestation of Fire; magically - attributed to the active Spirit. Its main location is the extreme South.

Azathoth rules this universe:

"blind idiot god... Lord of All Things, surrounded by a horde of insane and amorphous dancers, lulled by the high and monotonous whistle of a demonic flute held by the paws of one who cannot be given a name" .

While Yog-Sothoth encompasses the space of infinity, Azathoth symbolizes the opposite principle: he rules at the heart of Chaos, the central point of the universe, saturated with the influence of Yog-Sothoth. Their relationship can be represented as an agreement of infinite expansion and infinite contraction. In physical terms, Azathoth manifests as the colossal destructive energy inherent in an atomic particle that is released through nuclear fusion. He is the complete opposite of creation, the extremely negative aspect of the Element of Fire. Magically, it refers to the passive Spirit.

Amorphous dancers, subject to the idiot god Azathoth and accompanying him at the throne of Chaos, belong to the "Other Gods". Their soul and messenger is Nyarlathotep, "Crawling Chaos", who mediates between the Ancients and their human followers. His avatar manifests as a black-clad man with jet-black skin, but by all other indications, belongs to the white race. In this form, he can be identified as the "Black Man of the Witches' Sabbath" - an incarnation usually associated with Satan. In treatises on witchcraft of the seventeenth century, he is depicted as a being with pitch skin, wearing a long black priestly robe and a conical hat - a description supported by the testimony of people both in Europe and in Lovecraft's New England.

The physical appearance of Nyarlathotep is also strikingly similar to that of that astral entity, Aiwaz, who dictated to Aleister Crowley the text known as The Book of the Law, thus marking the beginning of the Aeon of Horus. Crowley describes Aiwaz as

"a tall dark man, about thirty years old, with the face of a master of savages and eyes covered with a veil so that their gaze would not destroy what they saw."

According to Grant, the cult of Aiwaz "can be traced back to a period inspired by the age-old Draconian Tradition of Egypt, which lived in the dark dynasties, whose monuments were filled with the ashes of opponents of the most ancient cult." It is interesting to note that Lovecraft himself pointed out the connection of the worship of Nyarlathotep with "pre-dynastic Egypt" in the prose poem of the same name.

Nyarlathotep's element is Ether, a means of communication in interstellar space (or, in Lovecraft's terminology, the "Attentive Void").

Shub-Niggurath - "The Black Goat of the Forests with the Legion of the Young" - a name meaning the reproduction of creatures on Earth. He is the Horned God of the pagan agricultural communities of the ancient world, symbolizing abundance and sexual energy. In Greek mythology, his archetype is Pan, half-man, half-goat. At the time of the change of paganism to Christianity, the image of Pan became the prototype for the Christian devil and was associated with the practice of Satanism, although the worship of the Horned God is older than Christianity by at least a thousand years.

In 1919 Aleister Crowley published a poem entitled "Hymn to Pan", evoking a flow of sexual energy, as is customary in ceremonial magic, and which he often incorporated into his own magical practice. The exclamation “Io, Pan!”, the final poem corresponds to the exclamation “Ya! Shub-Niggurath!" found in several of Lovecraft's stories about the worship of a goat-like god. This correspondence raises the question of Lovecraft's close acquaintance with Crowley's work. He could read The Equinox (Crowley's collected essays) in the Harvard Library, which received a copy in December 1917, of which Hymn to Pan is the first. However, other than the occasional mention of Crowley in one of Lovecraft's letters identifying him with a character in Wakefield's story, it seems unlikely that Lovecraft knew anything more about the "Great Beast" than rumors about his reputation.

The element of Shub-Niggurath is Earth, symbolized by the sign of Taurus. Its location is the North.

The god Dagon was taken by Lovecraft from the Hebrew texts, in which he appears as the god of the Philistines. In the Myths, he is the Source of the Seas, the aquatic equivalent of Shub-Niggurath, and also the Lord of the amphibious Deep Ones. His element is Water and his number is 777.

Cthulhu is referred to as the "High Priest of the Great Old Ones". His other names are "He who will appear", "Lord of R" Layha "and" Lord of the Water Abyss. "Cthulhu is the initiator of dreams sent to mankind from the crypt city of R" Layha. The formula for addressing him is given by Lovecraft in a curious ritual phrase of non-human origin, which is sung by fans of the Cthulhu cult:

"P" nglui mglv "naf Cthulhu R" Layh vga "arrogant ftagn".

Cthulhu corresponds to the Abyss of the subconscious or the sleeping mind and is astrologically associated with the sign of Scorpio. In ceremonies, it refers to the West (Amenta or the Abode of the Dead in the ancient Egyptian religion), its geographical location is R "Layh in the South Pacific Ocean (exact coordinates can be found in the story "Call of Cthulhu").

As already mentioned, Nodens is the only one of the Oldest Gods who has a name. Lovecraft does not give any further information about him.

The sign of the Ancient Gods was depicted as a straight pentagram, in which a symbol shaped like an eye is inscribed. The rays of the pentagram symbolize the four elements plus Spirit (the fifth or "hidden" element). Combined, they balance the unified nature of the Ancient Ones, hinting that the Elder Gods may exist at a higher level. "Eye" refers to the opening of the ajna chakra, or Third Eye, symbolizing the power of astral vision.

The entities described above are called "gods" because they are worshiped by innumerable hordes of other entities, both humans and nonhumans. Among them are the "Elder Races", those who inhabited the Earth in prehistoric times, and whose invisible presence is the reason for the existence of people.

The first of these races to visit Earth were the "Ancients", who descended from the stars and built a city of black stone in Antarctica. They are depicted as starfish-shaped creatures with tubular bodies covered in tentacles and cilia. Their servants are mindless, protoplasmic "shoggoths". In the story The Ridges of Madness, Lovecraft describes wars between the Ancients and other extraterrestrial races at the dawn of time, including the Cthulhu Offspring (the winged cephalopod creatures that built the sunken city of R'Lyh).

The Deep Ones, described by Lovecraft in The Shadow Over Innsmouth, are the semi-humanoid aquatic servants of Dagon. In the past, they dared to land and copulate with humans, producing degenerate offspring that possessed the fish-like physical traits known as the "Innsmouth look" after the inhabitants of the New England port bred with the Deep Ones.

The story "The Whisperer in the Dark" tells about the third group of non-human creatures from the planet Yuggoth (or Pluto). They are essentially mushroom crab-like creatures that Lovecraft associates with Mi-Go, or the Himalayan Bigfoot.

The last type that Lovecraft describes in detail is the "Great Race" that took over Australia about 150,000 years ago. Unlike the other aforementioned races, this group appears to have been indigenous to Earth. They were cone-shaped creatures with heads and organs attached to stretchable limbs. According to the story "Shadow from Timelessness", the Great Race, capable of exchanging consciousness with any form of life, has accumulated vast knowledge about the various cultures that inhabit the universe.

Here the pantheon of non-human entities ends. Worship of the Great Old Ones is continued on earth by secret societies whose traditions and rituals preserve the hidden knowledge of these Ancient Races. Lovecraft certifies three such cults: the "Cult of Cthulhu", the "Esoteric Order of Dagon", located in Innsmouth (actually - in Newburyport, Massachusetts), and the "Sect of the Celestial Wisdom". In The Drifter of Darkness, Lovecraft describes how this latter sect held meetings in a church in Providence, where its followers communicated with an avatar of Nyarlathotep through an object known as the Shining Trapezohedron.

The name "Astral Wisdom" brings us back to Crowley and the "Argentum Astrum" or "Order of the Silver Star" founded by him in 1907. The "Silver Star" symbolizes Sirius, from where a magical stream flows, the representative of which on Earth is the essence of Aiwaz.

Another contemporary of Lovecraft whose writings contain many similarities and correspondences with his work is Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a famous occultist, theosophist and author of The Secret Doctrine. This extensive work is essentially an extended commentary on the Book of Dzyan, a fragment of the Mani Kumburm ( scriptures Jugarians, an ancient race that inhabited the mountainous regions of northern Tibet). These texts begin to talk about how the earth was once ruled by the aforementioned chaotic entities who crossed the abyss to come from another universe, simultaneously preceding the appearance of man, and continue to talk about how they were expelled from this universe by the intervention of forces, allies of the Order . This cosmic story, detailing subsequent battles with other primordial lifeforms, shows obvious parallels to that described in the Cthulhu Mythos.

“the other day my friend from New Orleans E. Hoffman Price…discovered an extremely picturesque cycle of myths about the early eras of the earth, the lost continents of Kush (Atlantis) and Shalmali (Lemuria), about the population of the earth who arrived from other planets. It speaks of a secret book in some eastern shrine, fragments of which are older than the earth itself ... Price assures me that this is genuine folklore and promises to send more detailed information.

In another letter, Lovecraft discovers the identity of that secret book and the "Book of Dzyan" and identifies the Eastern shrine with "Shambhala".

Madame Blavatsky died on May 8, 1891 from inflammation of the kidneys, the same disease that affected Lovecraft and was one of the causes of his early death.

An explanation for many of the "occult" correspondences found in Lovecraft's work is given in Kenneth Grant's Typhonian Trilogy. He suggests that Lovecraft's Necronomicon grimoire does indeed exist in the Akash, or Astral Light space. This etheric storage surrounds the earth and retains in its structure the imprint of every event that has occurred since the formation of the planet. It can be accessed by people with certain psychic abilities and who perceive visions sent by someone else's will. Blavatsky wrote The Book of Dzyan, and Crowley wrote The Book of the Elements of the Qliphoth under the influence of the Akashic records. Could it be that Lovecraft was subconsciously given The Book of Dead Names from the same source?

In creating the Cthulhu Mythos, Lovecraft drew on a wide range of sources, from the authentic occult tradition to literary materials related to it. In his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" he mentions academic works such as Fraser's Golden Bough and Margaret Murray's The Witch Cult in Western Europe, as well as genuine grimoires such as The Keys of Solomon, John Dee's Book of Enoch , or "Liber Logaeth". He also studied Waite's collection of medieval texts, The Book of Black Magic and Treaties, The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Sage translated by MacGregor Mathers, and Miracles of the Invisible World»Cotton Mathers on events related to witchcraft that occurred in 1692 in Salem. The names of these books were reflected in the grimoires created by Lovecraft himself and other authors of the Cthulhu Mythos: "De Vermis Misteriis" ("Mysteries of the Worm"), "Pnakotic Manuscripts", "Les Cultes des Ghoules" ("Cults of the Ghouls") and "The Book of Eibon" .

However, the most significant of these fictional tomes is Lovecraft's own creation, Al Azif by the mad Arab Abdul Al Hazred, or, to use its Latin name, the Necronomicon. This name, which came to Lovecraft in a dream, is translated as follows:

NEKROS - corpse, NOMOS - law, EIKON - image.

Hence, "Depiction (or Description) of the Law of the Dead."

In a pamphlet titled The Necronomicon Chronology, published in 1936, Lovecraft gives the supposed history of this accursed book. According to this essay, the original text was transcribed by the poet Alhazred in 730 BC in Damascus. The name "Al Azif" refers to the night sounds of insects, which, according to Arab beliefs, are considered to be the howling of demons. (According to Kabbalistic numerology, his number is 129, which means, among other things, "the space of hungry creatures" and corresponds to the Egyptian word "a tem", "destroy".) Alhazred spent ten years alone in the vast desert in southern Arabia, Roba - El - Ehaliyeh or "Empty Space" of the ancients, which was rumored to be inhabited by evil spirits. He explored the ruins of Babylon and the underground tombs of Memphis, and also visited a certain forbidden city. Under the remains of a nameless city in the desert, he discovered the chronicles of a race older than mankind, and wrote them down in Asif.

In 950 AD, the book was secretly translated into Greek by Theodore of Philetus of Constantinople under the title "Necronomicon", and in 1228 Olaus Wormius made a translation into Latin. This translation was published twice, the first time in Gothic in 15th century Germany, the second time in 17th century Spain. Soon after the appearance of the Latin translation, the Necronomicon was banned by Pope Gregory IX, and not a trace of the Greek copy remained after the burning of the library in Salem in 1692. Dee's translation was never printed and exists only as restored fragments of the original manuscript. Of the two Latin texts now in existence, one is supposedly preserved in british museum, and the second - in the National Library in Paris. The 17th century edition is in the Harvard Widener Library. Many other copies of this book, banned by the authorities of most countries and all branches of organized religion, also probably exist.

The mention of Dee's name in connection with the Necronomicon is noteworthy, as he was one of the few adepts in the magic of the past who could provide us with genuine facts of communication with non-human entities. Dr. John Dee was an astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, who collaborated with many seers and experts in spirit vision, the most talented of which was the Irishman Sir Edward Kelly. With the help of the magic mirror of the Maya Indians, Kelly began to contact with certain spirits, reporting through it a series of magical "appeals" or keys in a language called "Enochian". This language has been studied and analyzed by many historians, who confirm that it is indeed a genuine and consistent idiom, unlike any other language in existence today. Even more surprising is the fact that in the recently transcribed passages of the Book of Enoch, words were found that are very similar to the names of the Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos.

Since 1930, Lovecraft has occasionally convinced those with whom he has corresponded that as soon as he is about to stop composing, something is forcing him to continue creating new works. In 1935 (a year after its completion last story"Shadow From Timelessness"), he was diagnosed with a disease that was finally diagnosed in 1937 as intestinal cancer. By this time, the disease had spread to the whole body. Lovecraft was admitted to the Jane Brown Memorial Hospital, where he died on March 15, 1937 at the age of 46. Three days later, he was buried in the family plot of Swat Point Cemetary.

After Lovecraft's death, August Derleth, a friend of the writer, founded Arkham House to save his work from the obscurity of the cheap magazines in which Lovecraft's stories first appeared, and to bring his writings to the attention of a wider audience. (During Lovecraft's lifetime, only one of his stories, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, appeared in book form, published by a small private publisher.) In 1939 Arkham House published the first collection of his stories, The Outsider and Others. Since then, many authors have contributed to the growing chronicles of the Cthulhu Mythos, adding their own deities to the pantheon and adding macabre tomes to the list of blasphemous grimoires. Many of these authors are people with whom Lovecraft corresponded personally: Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, Robert Bloch, and Derleth himself. Later, elements of the Cthulhu Mythos were used in the work of Con Wilson, Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley.

"Myths" have also been borrowed for practical use by some modern magical and occult groups and organizations. Anton LaVey, head of the California-based Church of Satan, published his book Satanic Rituals in 1972, in which he devoted an entire chapter to Lovecraft's metaphysics, including detailed description two Lovecraftian rituals, the Ceremony of the Nine Angles and the Invocation of Cthulhu. These rituals were reproduced in the original language of the Necronomicon and translated into English language LaVey's fellow Satanist Michael Aquino.

Another group using Lovecraftian elements in their practice is the Cult of the Black Serpent or "La Couleuvre Noir", voodoo worshipers who combine left-hand path rituals and archetypes from the Cthulhu Mythos. Their leader, Michel Berthier - one of the leaders of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua and its offshoot, the Monastery of the Seven Rays - was initiated as a Gnostic voodoo master in Haiti in 1963. In Shadow Cults, while exploring modern voodoo, Kenneth Grant describes a ritual practiced to contact the Deep Ones on a deserted lake in Wisconsin:

“The cult of the Deep Ones thrives in a damp and cold atmosphere, in stark contrast to the fire and heat generated by the opening ceremonies, which include lycanthropic rituals that summon the inhabitants of the lake. At this stage, participants are actually immersed in icy water, where the transfer of sexual magical energy between priests and priestesses into the element of water takes place.

With the help of this magical ritual, according to Berthier, it is possible to establish contact with these creatures, which "take on an almost material essence."

Lovecraft has left us with a more than unsatisfactory explanation of the true origin of the Cthulhu Mythos. And this is probably of great value to those currently practicing the Black Art. Word to Kenneth Grant, head of the Typhonian O. T. O.:

“Lovecraft’s great contribution to the occult is to demonstrate (indirectly, as it most likely was) the power to control the dream and be able to project into other dimensions, revealing the gate through which flows (in the form of inspiration, intuition and visions) an authentic stream of magical consciousness » .

The occult experience of Lovecraft, hidden under the shell of fiction, testifies to the invasion of forces in full accordance with the archetypes and symbols in Blavatsky and Crowley, obtained during contact with "otherworldly" astral entities. He became the receiver and transmitter of hidden knowledge, although, in Lovecraft's case, this process was more intuitive than conscious. The internal contradictions generated in this way could be the cause of the physical and mental characteristics of the writer; the reasons could also be the very traits of character that kept him apart from the rest of society, making him an ideal channel for communication with transcendent forces.

______________________________________________

Letter no. 94, Selected Letters Volume I, H. P. Lovecraft. Arkham House, 1965.

"The Call of Cthulhu", The Dunwich Horror and Others, H. P. Lovecraft. Arkham House, 1963.

"The Dunwich Horror", The Dunwich Horror and Others, H. P. Lovecraft.

Outside the Circles of Time, Kenneth Grant, page 296. Muller, 1980.

"The Haunter of the Dark", The Dunwich Horror and Others, H. P. Lovecraft.

"He Cometh and He Passeth By", H. R. Wakefield.

Letter no. 610, to Miss Elizabeth Toldridge, Selected Letters Volume IV. Arkham House, 1976.

Letter no. 604, to Clark Ashton Smith, Selected Letters Volume IV.

The Satanic Rituals, Anton Szandor LaVey. Avon Books, 1972.

Cults of the Shadow, Kenneth Grant, page 189. Muller, 1975.

Outside the Circles of Time, Kenneth Grant, page 43.

Abel Foster

0 0 0

The hero of the story "Two Black Bottles", sexton.

Not all residents of Daalbergen have forgotten the story of pastor Vanderhoof and the old church sexton Abel Foster. Local old-timers say in a half whisper that it was thanks to the actions of these two old sorcerers that the unclean one almost entered the house of the Lord...

Abel Harrop

0 0 0

The nephew of the protagonist from Derleth's story "The Nightjars in the Gap", who owned a house there. His disappearance and the sheriff's inaction prompted his brother to investigate on his own.

Abigail Paper

0 0 0

Amos Peiper's sister who turns to psychoanalyst Nathaniel Corey to help her brother overcome his hallucinations.

0 0 0

Belongs to the number of Other gods, is the progenitor of all things, father and mother at the same time. It is called the Source of Unholyness, lives in the Y "Kwaa cave under Mount Vurmisadret, where it constantly breeds. It looks like a dark gray protoplasmic mass, spitting out vile forms. Monsters constantly form in the gray mass of Abot and crawl away from their parent.

Abot is intelligent and cynical, and can communicate with those around him via telepathy. Mentioned by Clark Ashton Smith in the story "The Seven Trials".

Ada Marsh

0 0 0

One of the last representatives of the Marsh clan, the heroine of Derleth's story "The Seal of R'layh". Married to Mrs. Phillips.

Adam Harrison

0 0 0

A character from the story "Shadow in the Attic".

Cousin grandson of Uriah Garrison, who was a dangerous and violent man. With those who got in his way there were various troubles. But one day he died and bequeathed to Adam his large house and a plot of land. In order to receive the inheritance, Adam must live in the house for three months.

0 0 0

The supreme deity of the pantheon of myths Cthulhu. It has many names, such as "blind mad god", "ever-chewing demon sultan" and "nuclear chaos".

Algernon Reginald Jones

0 0 0

Cavalier of Zherdyak, one of the suitors of Ermengarde Stubbs from the story "The Charming Ermengarde".

Two gentlemen are ready to fight for the hand and heart of Ermengarde Stubbs: Cavalier Zherdyak and Jack Muzhik. One purely for financial reasons related to the presence of gold on her parents' farm, and the other for youthful feelings. Unfortunately or fortunately, few people remember that she was not always a blonde.

Alonzo Hasbrouck Typer

0 0 0

A native of Kingston, New York, Alonso Hazbruch Typer, the last representative of the Ulster earl family. The author of the diary in the story "The Diary of Alonso Typer".

Alsophocus

0 0 0

Mentioned in the short story "The Black Book of Alsofocus" co-written with Martin S. Warnes.

The Alchemist

0 0 0

The hero of the story of the same name by G.F. Lovecraft.

The young count, in search of deliverance from the curse imposed on his ancestor many years ago, stumbles upon "an inconspicuous manhole cover with a ring" in a dilapidated castle.

Alfred Clarendon

0 0 0

Alfred Clarendon, a brilliant bacteriologist who served as director of the San Quentin Prison Hospital.

Ambrose Bishop

0 0 0

The character of the story "The Secret of the Middle Span".

He inherited from his grandfather old house and moved to the vicinity of the notorious village of Dunwich. Pretty soon, he finds out that old Septimus Bishop was not popular with these ignorant people, and he himself is offered to get out of these places in good health.

And literally in a couple of days he will have to find out that the anger of the villagers is fully justified.

Ambrose Dewart

0 0 0

A middle-aged man who inherited an estate with which mysterious events were connected. He had a pleasant personality. The character of the story by August Derleth and Howard Lovecraft "Hiding at the doorstep."

Ambrose Sandwin

0 0 0

A character in Derleth's short story "Sandwin's Deal". The first of the Sandwin family who refused to conclude an agreement with secret forces for their descendants - probably the Ancients.

Amos Paper

0 0 0

A character in the short story "The Stranger from Space" by Howard Lovecraft and August Derleth.

Provincial doctor Nathaniel Corey puzzles over how to cure Peiper of painful and realistic hallucinations.

Brother of Abigail Paper.

Amos Tuttle

0 0 0

The owner of a mansion in Arkam on Aylesbury Road, near the turnoff to Innsmouth, who left a will demanding that the mansion and book collection be destroyed after his death. Appears in the story "The Return of Hastur".

0 0 0

The character of the story "The Treasury of the Beast-Sorcerer", a sorcerer.

The ruler of Zeta Hyphat Yalden had a shortage - the treasurer Kishan fled along with the treasury. And so, in order to replenish his treasury, on the advice of the great prophet Oorn, he decided to replenish his treasury at the expense of the treasures of the sorcerer Anatas.

Antoine de Russy

0 0 0

The owner of the estate "Riverbank", where the hero of the story "The Curl of Medusa" once knocks.

An elderly gentleman talks about the fate of his son, who married a very strange woman.

Harlow Morehouse

0 0 0

The hero of the story "Deaf-blind-mute", a doctor.

One day I decided to visit my old patient, a disabled person who lost his hearing, sight and ability to speak in the war, but acquired the wonderful poetic gift of Richard Blake. On the outskirts of the house, the doctor and his companions hear the prosaic chatter of the poet's typewriter. What was their surprise and fear when they found Blake dead more than an hour ago, and a very strange death.

Arthur Jermyn

0 0 0

Arthur Jermyn, the last of his kind, begins to study his family tree. As a result of his research, he will face a mystery that will deprive him of his mind. Protagonist of Lovecraft's short story of the same name.

Arthur Munro

0 0 0

A reporter who went to the squatter settlement with the protagonist of the story "The Lurking Terror".

Arthur Wheeler

0 0 0

A character in the short story "The Stone Man" by Hazel Held and Howard Lovecraft.

A famous sculptor, after whose disappearance his friends Ben Hayden and Jack set out to find him. Ben and Jack only find Arthur's petrified body in a cave and investigate the murder.

Arthur Phillips

0 0 0

The hero of the story "Night Brotherhood" by Lovecraft and Derleth.

On one of the night walks, Arthur Phillips meets the mysterious Mr. Allen, and then with his six twin brothers, who reveal to Phillips the secret of the existence of extraterrestrial life. It turns out that the alien planet is dying, and the earth seems to be in danger of being conquered.

Asenath Waite

0 0 0

The character of the story "The Creature at the Threshold".

Wife of Edward Derby, daughter of the sorcerer Ephraim Waite.

Ephraim, after death, inhabits the body of his daughter, locking her soul in his former dead body, buried underground.

0 0 0

The hero of the story "Other Gods", a priest.

A resident of Ulthar who accompanied Barzai the Wise.

Aphoom Zhah

0 0 0

One of the Ancients who came from Fomalhaut. Being a product of the fiery Ktugh, he is the opposite of this Ancient One and bears the titles of the Ice Flame and the God of the Pole. Trapped like Ithaqua, Afum-Zah is locked in the Arctic Circle.

Ahab Hopkins

0 0 0

Lawyer, family attorney in Lovecraft and Derleth's story "The Peabody Legacy".

Bud Perkins

0 0 0

Jefferson Bates' neighbor in "Valley House".

Barzai the wise

0 0 0

The hero of the story "Other Gods".

A resident of Ulthar who wanted to see the gods of the earth. But they went to the top of Mount Hateg-Kla, where from time to time they performed their dances. And Barzai went to the top of the mountain that night, when, as he knew, the gods would gather there. The young priest Atal accompanied the old man.

The Narrator

0 0 0

canonical main character the work on behalf of which the narration is going on, who did not mention his name.

Ben Heyden

0 0 0

Jack's companion in the story "The Stone Man", who persuaded him to go to the Adirondack mountains.

Binthworth Moore

0 0 0

A character in Lovecraft and Held's story "Out of Time".

Taxidermist. Participated in the study of the mysterious mummy at the Cabot Museum. Missing.

0 0 0

Bitis the Serpentbeard, also known as Biatis, the god of oblivion, the son of Yig, arrived with the Great Old Ones from the stars. He can be summoned through his image brought by the Deep Ones to Earth - if a living being touches him. The look of Bitis plunges the mind into darkness and the victim herself goes into his mouth.

Two Gun Bob

0 0 0

The hero of the story "The battle that ended the century."

The story describes a duel that took place on the eve of 2001. Two-gun Bob, the Plains Horror, and Bernie Knockout, the Wild Wolf of the Western Shokan entered the ring.

0 0 0

Golgoroth's brother, the Elder Gods walled him up in the deep caves of the Moon, where he floats disgustingly and clumsily among the Black Lake Ubboth in the terrible and dark abyss of Nag-yaa and has been dormant since antiquity, sealed by the Elder Sign.

Brown Jenkin

0 0 0

The creature that lives in the witch's house in Howard Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch's House, written in 1932. It belongs to the category of unique bestiary creatures, outwardly it is a hybrid of a rat and a person, it is able to gnaw a passage in a person’s body and eat away his heart while he sleeps.

Belonged to the witch Kezia Mason.

H. F. Lovecraft (full name Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born August 20, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. His parents, mother Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft and father Winfield Scott Lovecraft, then lived at 454 (then 194) Angell Street. In Providence, apart from two years spent in New York, he lived his entire short life.

When Howard was three years old, his father suffered a nervous breakdown while in a hotel in Chicago (he worked as a traveling salesman), and after that he was institutionalized, where he spent five years, until his death on July 19, 1898.

After the death of his father, the boy was raised by his mother, two aunts and, especially, grandfather - Whipple Van Buren Phillips. My grandfather had the most extensive library in the city (and perhaps in the entire state), and this played an important role in shaping Howard's reading habits. He began to read and write early on his own (even earlier, he began to simply compose oral poetry). And one of the first works that he noted as his favorite and impressed him was "Tales of 1001 Nights", read for the first time by him at the age of five. It was from there that Abdul Alhazred was born, who later became the pseudonym of the author himself, and even later - the character of his stories, the author of the Necronomicon. And it is to this book that Lovecraft owes oriental motifs in his subsequent work. Also, the author was fond of Greek myths from childhood, the Iliad and the Odyssey, reflections of which we can also meet later in his poetry and prose.

From early childhood, Lovecraft was distinguished by poor health. Having practically no friends, he spent most of his time with his grandfather in the library. But his interests were not limited to literature as a profession. He seriously studied chemistry, astronomy, history (especially the history of his native state and New England). Even at school age, he independently began to publish newspapers and magazines dedicated to his scientific interests and research ("The Scientific Gazette" (1899-1907) and "The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy" (1903-07)). They were distributed mainly among classmates and subsequent friends and associates.

At school (Hope Street High School), his interests and research are approved by teachers who replace Howard's friends among peers. And in 1906, his article on astronomy was first published by The Providence Sunday Journal. He later became a regular columnist for The Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner on astronomy. And still later in such publications as The Providence Tribune (1906-08), The Providence Evening News (1914-18) and The Asheville (N.C.) Gazette-News (1915).

Howard's grandfather died in 1904. She and her mother, experiencing financial difficulties, are forced to leave the mansion in which they lived and move into a cramped apartment at 598 Angell Steert. Howard was very upset by the loss of his home, in which he was born and which was his native. In 1908, Howard himself had a nervous breakdown, which forced him to leave school without finishing it. An attempt to get into Brown University fails, leading to an even more reclusive Lovecraft lifestyle.

From 1908 to 1913 Lovecraft practically did not leave the house, continuing to study astronomy and poetry. The way out of seclusion occurred in a very original way. While reading a lot of old "cheap" magazines, among which was The Argosy, he came across the love stories of a certain Fred Jackson. This prompted him to write an angry letter to the magazine. It was published in 1913 and caused a storm of protest from Jackson's admirers. This led to a whole correspondence in the pages of the magazine, in which many people and authors were involved. Among them was Edward F. Daas, president of the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA). It was an organization that included young authors from all over the country who wrote and published their own magazines. He invites Lovecraft to become a member of UAPA. And in 1914 his proposal was accepted.

Lovecraft begins publishing his own magazine, The Conservative (1915-23), in which he publishes his poetry, as well as articles and essays written specifically for this publication, as well as those that he sent to other magazines. There are 13 issues of The Conservative in total. The Necronomicon Press would later reprint these issues among Lovecraft's other works. Later, Lovecraft became President and Editor-in-Chief of UAPA.

Having already written fiction previously (The Beast in the Cave, 1905) and The Alchemist (1908) and now plunging into the world of amateur prose, Lovecraft takes up his pen again. , already as a science fiction writer - for the first time since 1908. In 1917, The Tomb and Dagon were successfully published. Now the main occupation and hobby of the author is prose, poetry and journalism.

In 1919, Lovecraft's mother had a nervous attack. And just like his father, she is placed in a clinic, from where she does not leave until her death. She dies on May 24, 1921. Lovecraft is very upset by the death of his mother, but a few weeks later a serious change takes place in his life - at a conference of amateur journalists in Boston on July 4, 1921, he meets a woman who will later become his wife. It was Sonya Haft Green, a Russian-Jewish woman, seven years older than Howard himself. From the first meeting, they find a lot in common in each other, and Lovecraft often visits her in Brooklyn in 1922. Their relationship was not a secret, and therefore the announcement of the wedding on March 3, 1924 did not come as a surprise to their friends. But this was a complete surprise for his aunts, whom he only notified in writing only after the marriage had already taken place.

Lovecraft moves to his wife in Brooklyn, and things are not going badly for their family - he then earns as a professional writer, publishing his early works in Weird Tales, and Sonia runs a quite thriving hat store on Fifth Avenue in New York .

But later, the store goes bankrupt, and Lovecraft loses his job as an editor at Weird Tales. In addition, Sonino's health is deteriorating, and she is admitted to a New Jersey hospital. On January 1, 1925, Sonya leaves for Cleveland to start a business there, and Lovecraft moves into a one-room apartment in one of the Brooklyn neighborhoods called Red Hook. Having many acquaintances in the city, he does not feel completely alien and abandoned. At this time, such things as “The Abandoned House” (“The Shunned House”, 1924), “The Nightmare at Red Hook” (“The Horror at Red Hook”) and “He” (“He” ) (both also 1924).

In early 1926, Lovecraft plans to return to Providence, which he has missed all this time. At the same moment, his marriage cracks, and later (in 1929) breaks up completely.

Returning to Providence on April 17, 1926, Lovecraft does not lead a hermitic lifestyle, as he did in the period from 1908 to 1913. On the contrary, he travels a lot to ancient places (Quebec, New England, Philadelphia, Charleston) and works fruitfully. At this time, he writes some of his best things, including The Call of Cthulhu (The Call of Cthulhu, 1926), Ridges of Madness (At the Mountains of Madness, 1931), Shadow from Timelessness ("The Shadow out of Time", 1934-35). At the same time, he maintains an extensive correspondence both with his old friends and with many young authors who owe their careers in this field largely to Lovecraft (August Derleth, Donald Wandrei, Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber). At this time, he wrote many articles on politics and economics, as well as on all those subjects that continued to interest him, from philosophy and literature to history and architecture.

The last two or three years of the author's life are especially difficult. In 1932, one of his aunts, Miss Clarke, died, and Lovecraft moved into a room at 66 College Street in 1933 with his second aunt, Miss Gunwell. After the suicide of Robert Howard, one of his closest pen pals, Lovecraft becomes depressed. At the same time, the disease progresses, which will later cause his death - intestinal cancer.

In the winter of 1936-1937, the disease progressed so much that Lovecraft was admitted to the Jane Brown Memorial Hospital on March 10, 1937, where he died five days later.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft(English) Howard Phillips Lovecraft, August 20, Providence, Rhode Island, USA - March 15, ibid) - American writer and poet who wrote in the genres of horror, mysticism, combining them in an original style. Ancestor of the Cthulhu Mythos. During Lovecraft's lifetime, his works were not very popular, but after his death they had a noticeable impact on the formation of modern mass culture. His work is so unique that Lovecraft's works stand out in a separate subgenre - the so-called Lovecraft horror.

Biography

Lovecraft at the age of 9-10 years.

Lovecraft was raised by his mother, two aunts and grandfather (Whipple Van Buren Phillips), who took in the family of the future writer. Howard was a child prodigy - he recited poetry by heart at the age of two, and from the age of six he was already writing his own. Thanks to his grandfather, who had the largest library in the state, he met classical literature. In addition to the classics, he became interested in Gothic prose and Arabic tales of the Thousand and One Nights.

At the age of 6-8 years, Lovecraft wrote several stories, most of which have not survived to this day. At the age of 14, Lovecraft wrote his first serious work, The Beast in the Cave.

As a child, Lovecraft was often sick, and did not go to school until the age of eight, but a year later he was taken away from there. He read a lot, studied chemistry between times, wrote several works (he reproduced them on a hectograph in a small edition), starting in 1899 (Scientific Newspaper). Four years later he returned to school.

Whipple Van Buren Phillips died in 1904, after which the family became very impoverished and had to move to a smaller house on the same street. Howard was saddened by the departure, and he even considered suicide. Due to a nervous breakdown that happened to him in 1908, he never finished school, which he was very ashamed of.

Lovecraft wrote fiction as a child (“The Beast in the Cave” (), “The Alchemist” ()), but later preferred poetry and essays to her. He returned to this "frivolous" genre only in 1917 with the stories "Dagon", then "The Tomb". "Dagon" became his first published creation, appearing in 1923 in the magazine "Mysterious stories" ( Weird Tales). At the same time, Lovecraft began his correspondence, which eventually became one of the most voluminous in the 20th century. His correspondents included Forrest Ackerman, Robert Bloch and Robert Howard.

Sarah, Howard's mother, after a long hysteria and depression, ended up in the same hospital where her husband died, and died there on May 21, 1921. She wrote to her son until her last days.

Despite his writing successes, Lovecraft was increasingly in need. He moved again, now to a small house. The suicide of Robert Howard made a strong impression on him. In 1936, the writer was diagnosed with bowel cancer, a consequence of malnutrition. Howard Phillips Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.

Literary creativity

predecessors

The writers whose work influenced Lovecraft are primarily Edgar Allan Poe, Edward Dunsany, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Lafcadio Hearn.

Followers

August Derleth

Perhaps the most important of Lovecraft's followers, both in terms of chronology and in terms of continuity, is August Derleth. Despite the fact that later many authors turned to the pantheon of cosmic gods created by Lovecraft, it was Derleth who became the founder and head of the Arkham House publishing house, which published the works of Lovecraft himself, Derleth and everyone who in one way or another came into contact with those created by Lovecraft worlds. Derleth was also quite successful as a writer, although he could not match the power of influence with his teacher. However, he was a publishing genius - Arkham House books from that period are now bibliographic rarities. In addition, it was a rare case when a publishing house was created for the work of a particular person.

Stephen King

Lovecraft's work that influenced popular culture West, left an indelible mark on the work of countless writers who worked and are working in the genre of mysticism and horror. One of the creative heirs of Lovecraft is the famous "King of Horrors" Stephen King. The most striking work in which Stephen King does not imitate the style of Howard Lovecraft's narration, but pays tribute to the talent of the latter, is the story "Crouch End", filmed by the TNT film company in the collection of film novels "Stephen King's Nightmares and Fantasies". In King's work, traces of the influence of Lovecraft's work are clearly visible. So, the novel "It" directly refers the reader to the cosmic horror that came from time immemorial. It should be noted, however, that King's horror can be fairly clearly delineated into three main parts: cosmic (Lovecraft), afterlife, and scientific (Mary Shelley).

Among other things, the action of most of Stephen King's books takes place in small American towns, which is also characteristic of the works of Lovecraft, who believed that the most terrible things happen in quiet places.

"Necronomicon" and books, in the works of Lovecraft

Usually Lovecraft referred to ancient books containing secrets that man should not know. Most of the references were fictitious, but some occult works existed in reality. The combination of fictitious documents with real ones in one context allowed the former to seem real. Lovecraft gave only general references to such books (mostly to create atmosphere) and rarely gave detailed descriptions. The most famous of these fictitious manuscripts is his Necronomicon, about which the writer spoke the most. His explanations about this text were so well thought out that many people still believe in the reality of this book, and this allows some to profit from the ignorance of others.

The Book of Eibon, Livre d'Eibon, or Liber Ivonis

Currently, Lovecraft collections are regularly reprinted in Russia by at least three major publishing houses - Azbuka, AST, Eksmo.

Works by Howard Lovecraft

The most famous and significant works:

Herbert West - Reanimator (1922)

Screen adaptation

Several dozen films have been made based on the works of Lovecraft. The most famous of them were created by directors Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and others:

Currently in Russia, in Vladivostok, the film "Shadow over Arkham" is being filmed (film blog - community.livejournal.com/hpl_movie_blog), also based on the works of Lovecraft.