A Series of Fishy Events

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1890, and that's about the only boring thing about him. His father was a travelling salesman who developed a mental disorder from untreated syphilis when H.P. was three years old and died at Butler Hospital in 1898. (So, get your syphilis treated, people). 

H.P. was a sickly child, and spent most of his time at home with his books. I imagine he looked something like a protagonist from A Series of Unfortunate Events. His interests included Edgar Allen Poe and astronomy, and it really shows in his work. A nervous breakdown prevented him from finishing high school, so he checked that off on his list of things to do before he was 30. He was a bit of a recluse and a night owl, reading and writing late into the night and sleeping until noon. He started off in journalism and wrote a self-published magazine for a while, but we can only imagine how that went. He got his big break in 1923 when Weird Tales bought some stories from him. 

He enjoyed married bliss with Sonia Greene for two years, and when that went to shit he wrote some of his most famous fiction, including The Call of Cthulhu. A writer scorned in love is truly a powerful weapon. Elements of Cthulhu appeared in other stories throughout his career, and these stories came to be known as the "Cthulhu Mythos." "In these stories, monstrous entities traverse the gulfs of time and space, and humankind cowers in fright at the havoc they wreak" (hplovecraft.com)

Lovecraft couldn't make ends meet at the end of his life, and took lots of crummy writing and editing gigs (which I actually find quite impressive because I can't even get anybody to let me do that). He was not well-acclaimed during his life, and many critics labeled his work as "diseased" and "disgusting". (Well... they weren't wrong. But is that a problem?) Since his death, Lovecraft's work has inspired renowned authors like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman.

Notable Quotables:

• "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." -Good Ol' H.P. himself

• "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wga'nagl fhtagn!" -The Call of Cthulu

Stories I Especially Recommend:

• The Color Out of Space- the land is poisoned by an fallen asteroid that excretes a substance of no known color. It poisons crops, deforms animals, and drives the residence to homicidal madness!

• The Shadow Over Innsmouth- While waiting for a bus in the town of Innsmouth, a young man learns how the reclusive, weird-looking residents obtained immortality by cross-breeding with alien fish-people.

• The Whisperer In Darkness- Aliens with crab-feet promise to take our protagonist to space, but first they have to remove his brain!

Additional sources:

• A Monstrous Primer on the Works of H.P. Lovecraft. A marvelous article by Emma Stefansky from polygon.com, with excellent artwork by Michael Bukowski.

• How to Pronounce Call of Cthulhu Words. The Gentleman Gamer teaches us how to chant like a cultist, a high priest, and Christopher Walken.

• The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft. Got a taste for the weird and unexplainable! Acquire this tome of the complete works. It's Geekery tested and recommended!

• General Geekery Ep. 52: Spooktober: The Works of H.P. Lovecraft.  Listen to the episode, if you so desire.