Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

LOVECRAFT, Howard Phillips (1890-1937)

H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft was born in his family home at 194 (then 454) Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island. His father was Winfield Scott Lovecraft, a traveling salesman. His mother was Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft, who could trace her ancestors in America back to their arrival in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

When Lovecraft was three his father was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown in a hotel room in Chicago and was brought back to Butler Hospital, where he remained for five years. The story of mental collapse was merely a cover, however, to save the family from embarrassment - Lovecraft's father was admitted because syphilis was killing him and affecting his mental cohesion.

Lovecraft was raised by his mother, two aunts (Lillian Delora Phillips and Annie Emeline Phillips), and his doting grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips. Lovecraft was something of a prodigy and was reciting poetry at age two and was writing by six. His grandfather encouraged his reading, providing him with classics such as The Arabian Nights, Bulfinch's Age of Fable, and child's versions of The Iliad and The Odyssey. His grandfather also stirred young Howard's interest in the weird by telling him original tales of Gothic horror.

Lovecraft was frequently ill as a child. He attended school only sporadically but he read much. He produced several hectographed publications with a limited circulation beginning in 1899 with The Scientific Gazette.

Whipple Van Buren Phillips died in 1904, and the family was subsequently impoverished by mismanagement of his property and money. The family was forced to move down Angell Street to much smaller and less comfortable accommodations. Lovecraft was deeply affected by the loss of his home and birthplace and even contemplated suicide for a time. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1908, as a result of which he never received his high school diploma. This failure to complete his education - his hopes of ever entering Brown University dashed - nagged at him for the rest of his life.

Lovecraft's first polished stories began to appear around 1917 with The Tomb and Dagon. Also around this time he began to build up his huge network of correspondents. His lengthy and frequent missives would make him one of the great letter writers of the century. Among his correspondents were the young Forrest J. Ackerman, Robert Bloch (Psycho) and Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian series).

Lovecraft's mother died from surgical complications on May 21, 1921. Shortly after, he attended an amateur journalist convention where he met Sonia Greene. She was Ukrainian, a Jew, and, having been born in 1883, several years older than Lovecraft. They married, though Lovecraft's aunts were unhappy with the arrangement. The couple moved to the Borough of Brooklyn in New York City. He hated it. A few years later he and Greene agreed to an amicable divorce, and he returned to Providence to live with his aunts during their remaining years.

The period after his return to Providence - the last decade of his life - was Lovecraft's most prolific. During this time period he produced almost all of his best known short stories for the leading pulp publications of the day (primarily Weird Tales) as well as longer efforts like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness. He frequently revised work for other authors and did a large amount of ghost-writing.

Despite his best writing efforts, however, he grew ever poorer. He was forced to move to smaller and meaner lodgings with his surviving aunt. He was also deeply affected by Robert E. Howard's suicide. In 1936 he was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine and he also suffered from malnutrition. He lived in constant pain until his death the following year (1937) in Providence, Rhode Island.

Lovecraft's grave in Providence has from time to time been inscribed with a graffito of his most famous turn of phrase, quoted from The Call of Cthulhu (though originating from The Nameless City):

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."

Lovecraft's literature, dating almost a century, clashes with contemporary notions of political correctness, especially on the topic of racial egalitarism. Some modern readers, who interpret his work outside the cultural context of the time, are upset by apparent themes of racism in Lovecraft's stories. Particularly of note are the two pieces "The Horror at Red Hook" and "The Street," in which he describes the immigrants of his day as decadent and potentially dangerous.

Some of his stories, such as The Shadow over Innsmouth and Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, warn against the dangers of miscegenation. Still others, such as Herbert West: Reanimator contain overtly racist depictions of non-white races, Poles, Czechs, Jews and the immigrant population. However, many scholars agree that the racism of his work does not demerit their inherent quality but for a few instances, as in The Street. They are, essentially, a reflection of values and conceptions of that time, much like 20th century values and conceptions are likely to be considered offensive and retrograde by later generations.

Readers who enjoy Lovecraft's work, thus, usually take into account the historical context in which his works were written. Historical revisionists and postmodernists, however, often dismiss Lovecraft's work from a modern, liberal Left political perspective.

Lovecraft's personal correspondence indicates that he did indeed hold racist beliefs, making statements such as, "The Negro is fundamentally the biologically inferior of all White and even Mongolian races." However, Lovecraft's racism seems to have been limited to the theoretical level, and did not have much impact on his behaviour. As noted above, despite his views on mixing races, Lovecraft's wife Sonia was Jewish.

Many Lovecraft historians attribute his racism to xenophobia caused by his insular upbringing, and note that Lovecraft became more accepting of other ethnic backgrounds in his attitudes as he grew older. Indeed, originally strongly traditionalist, towards the end of his life (post-1927) his writings reveal the gradual change in his political beliefs and theories.

Moreover, the overt racism found in his earlier writings all but disappears towards the end of his career. It is notable that these changes occur after his exposure to the contemporary world values in New York City. Further evidence of the almost radical change that he undergoes can be found in Shadow Out of Time where he depicts a perfect society based, according to some interpretations, on a socialistic system, a reflection of his theories on government at the time. Also to be considered is his disavowing of the blatantly xenophobic earlier piece titled The Street. And in many ways, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward seems to be a reworking of The Horror at Red Hook without the prolific xenophobia.

Nevertheless, some observers believe the still maturing Lovecraft had harbored intense feelings of xenophobia and racism. Further to be considered are the protagonist's hereditary situation in Shadow over Innsmouth (1931) and Lovecraft's discovery in 1928 of an Irish strain in his own ancestry.

A thorough self-written summary of his views on race and culture can be found in the book Selected Letters IV, published by Arkham House, in letter 648 to J. Vernon Shea, written September 25, 1933.

The definitive editions (specifically At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, The Dunwich Horror and Others, and The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions) of his prose fiction are published by Arkham House, a publisher originally started with the intent of publishing the work of Lovecraft, but which has since published a lot of other fantastic literature as well.

Lovecraft's poetry is collected in The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft, while much of his juvenilia, various essays on philosophical, political and literary topics, antiquarian travelogues, and other things, can be found in Miscellaneous Writings. Also, Lovecraft's essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, first published in 1927, is an historical survey of horror literature available with endnotes as The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature.

Although purely a fictional invention, Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos has become the centre of a quasi-occult school - though much of it is only semi-serious and calculated more for 'shock' value than any serious occult practice.

His Mythos was a brood of sub-demonic creatures of his creation, Cthulhu, Yuggoth, Yog-Sothoth, and others.

Lovecraft detested modern scientific civilisation and in his novels he created a dark world of magic, horror and mystery in which nameless dread is constantly lurking at the corner. He wrote, 'We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should travel far.'

It is also worth noting that Chaosium, publishers of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game have a trademark on the phrase "The Call of Cthulhu".

Regardless of the legal disagreements surrounding Lovecraft's works, Lovecraft himself was extremely generous with his own works and actively encouraged others to borrow ideas from his stories, particularly with regard to his Cthulhu Mythos. By "wide citation" he hoped to give his works an "air of versimilitude" and actively encouraged other writers to reference his creations, such as the Necronomicon, Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. After his death, many writers have contributed stories and enriched the shared mythology of the Cthulhu Mythos.

see also: CTHULHU; NECRONOMICON

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc