An Introduction
I'm a big fan of HPL's stories; several years ago I made it a habit to read his entire catalog of stories twice, all 60 some odd weird horror tales of the bizarre, the eldritch, the gruesome. He's been criticized for too much "purple prose" - flowery, old-fashioned language more in the realm of Edwardian or Gothic novels and poetry and not 20's-30's weird fiction. But the works he created are the foundation of literally thousands of other works, and hundreds of professional writers careers. His stories, most in the public domain, are always in print (actually that's like saying "ice cream tastes good." There are an ENDLESS supply of newly printed books with his 70-80 year old stories and poems in them. How many authors can boast that, save for Edgar Allen Poe?)
Howard Phillips Lovecraft: A (tiny) Primer
You can find all you might want to know about HPL's life and times at wikipedia, or what must be the best site for HPL info - The H.P. Lovecraft Archives. I'm interested in only a handful of important facts that you will need to know in order to appreciate the master's work.
His beliefs
HPL was for all intents and purposes a strict atheist; he believed we live in a hostile universe that cares NOTHING for us. He created horror stories and, more importantly, a strange and terrifying world to set them in. In his stories a cross or vial of holy water will do absolutely nothing to his terrors, except perhaps make them laugh.
His influences
He had many, many influences but a few stand out and can be seen in many of his stories, namely Edgar Allen Poe, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen and William Hope Hodgson. These authors introduced him to the world of "quiet horror" - the whisper of wind through the trees and the soft, barely audible scratching in the floor can be many times more terrifying than a headless horseman or a werewolf on the prowl. They also influenced him to set his stories in other worlds or dream and nightmare. Their stories are absolutely worthy of your time.
His stories
His stories can be broken down into three broad categories. He has his macabre stories, ones that don't relate to any of his other stories (The Outsider and The Picture in the House come to mind.) Then he has the main body of his work, the stories that influenced a world of horror writers, both his contemporaries and writers of today - the stories of The Cthulhu Mythos. These all relate to each other, many in very light ways (the mere mention of the Necronomicon, HPL's fictional tome of all the eldritch secrets in the universe, sets the story in the Mythos.) The place to start might be The Call of Cthulhu, by far his most famous story. And third we have his Dream Cycle, a collection of stories featuring protagonists who travel to the wondrous and strange worlds beyond the wall of sleep. They are not particularly horrific but fall into the "weird" category - though I find them to be quite beautiful sometimes.
The rest of the month - and beyond
OK, this is the task I've set up for myself. I am going to make one post a day (I'm behind already I know!), each with a review of a different HPL story and a link to read it online. Plus! Because I'm sort of a collector of Lovecraftana I have many, many volumes of his stories from over the years - I am going to read each one from a different source, just to keep me and ye on our toes.
Fun, right?
OK, onto the first story, one of my faves... The Music of Erich Zann...
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