(1890-1937)

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) has, in the sixty years since his death, become both a legend and an enigma. He has come to be regarded as the leading American writer of horror fiction in this century and continues to be a major influence upon the field today; but his life, work, and thought remain poorly understood, and many myths about the man and his work persist. In this, the first full-scale biography in more than twenty years, S.T. Joshi--the leading authority on Lovecraft--has gone back to primary sources to set the record straight on the many-faceted "gentleman from Providence": his early interests in science, mythology, and literature; his involvement in the "amateur journalism" movement; his towering presence in the pulp magazines of the 1920s and the fantasy fandom of the 1930s; and the posthumous rescue of his work by friends and devotees. Along the way, Joshi probes the literary, philosophical, cultural, and historical forces that shaped Lovecraft's work and thought, provides capsule portraits of his close friends and colleagues, and studies the growth and development of all aspects of his creative work.

Here's what reviewers are saying of this work:

Written from a sympathetic but critical perspective, Joshi's biography will dispel many of the myths about Lovecraft the man and win new converts to his distinctive literary work.

"A magificent book which supersedes every other study of Lovecraft's life--the definitive biography of Lovecraft, full of insights into his work. I found it compulsively readable and endlessly fascinating. It deserves to be classed with the major literary biographies." -- Ramsey Campbell

"S.T. Joshi's impressive new biography can only add to his reputation as the most formidable scholar in the Lovecraft field." -- Jack Sullivan

"Lovecraft has finally found his Boswell; erudite, insightful, comprehensive, and--for a change--sympathetic. It's probably the first biography that Lovecraft himself would have approved of." -- T. E. D. Klein