The Providence writer H. P. Lovecraft was little more than an obscure pulp author in his lifetime, but after his death he became the single most influential name in twentieth-century horror. He set aside human-centered fear and opened a new one: cosmic indifference.
Through letters he traded gods, books, and place-names with fellow writers, growing a shared mythology. His work is also steeply marked by the racial prejudice of his era, and today is read critically alongside its influence.
His major works include "The Call of Cthulhu" (the starting point of the Mythos), the Antarctic "At the Mountains of Madness," "The Shadow over Innsmouth," "The Dunwich Horror," "The Colour Out of Space," and the dream-cycle novella "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." The related entries below lead to each, or follow the original-text link to read the source.