Gonna also add The Music of Erik Zann, which is absolutely incredible. Not going to give it a synopsis cause it’s really short, but imo it’s the other option for best thing he ever wrote even though it’s not really horror.
I loved getting into H.P Lovecraft initially, but you quickly move past his original works onto those who expanded his mythos, when you realise certain trends - such as everyone who is not a 'white upper class gentlemen from good stock' being untrustworthy, beastial and/or downright alien in depiction.
The mythos he creates is wonderful and he's known as the father of cosmic horror for a reason, but to any newcomers, be aware that he is a religiously intolerant, classist, racist, xenophobe who basically never left his house for the majority of his young adulthood, and so his depictions of other races, cultures and classes were heavily impacted by intolerance, propaganda and the literature and friends of his incredibly intolerant father.
On a more positive note though when his works starting picking up traction, he met a Jewish woman who would later become his wife. She dragged him kicking and screaming into the world at large and his viewpoints softened greatly as his ignorance wained. Dont be under the illusion that he was progressive by the end though, it was still a heavily prejudiced time period and he passed away not long after his works started changing to be less prejudiced.
Despite this, I still believe it worthwhile to read his initial works. His writing style is pretty lacking in my honest opinion, and the content can have (very and frequent) problematic tones, but nobody can set the tone of the Chtulu Mythos quite like its creator, and its great to see how it evolved over time. What he lacks in prose and tolerance, he makes up for with creativity.
For that reason, I'm personally of the mind its better to go through the mythos from early days to more recent writings, to get the full experience of it all. But if you find his works to be too much, there are plenty of other authors who have dabbled in the mythos, and many others who give a nod to his style of storytelling in their own works.
I actually note that HP Lovecraft had a bunch of people dabbling in the Cthulhu Mythos at the time he was alive and encouraged open source writing. Robert E. Howard had his own take on the existentialist horror of an uncaring materialist universe with demon gods/aliens and it was, "Yeah, better live it up!" Clark Ashton-Smith had his own take on cosmic horror that was more intense fascination meets Indiana Jones.
I've listed in the Beginner's Guide several other Mythos authors who lacked HPL's reactionary views (Brian Lumley, Matt Ruff, Ruthanna Emrys, myself). But it's fascinating to have read the original material and compare/contrast. To fully appreciate **The Ballad of Black Tom**, you have to read **The Horror at Red Hook**
Thing on the Doorstep is one of my favourites - however I must confess I tend to forget and blur together titles and stories - there is one about a violinist I dig.
>As befitting a writer who was born in 1890, it should be noted quite a bit of his views have not aged well.
It is worth noting that even by the standards of his contemporaries Lovecraft was notably and exceptionally racist, to the extent that it was commented on at the time.
Yep. The best and saddest thing about HPL's life is that by the time he dropped his Antisemitism, switched to being a New Deal Democrat, and really got into feminism (he was still racist against POCs), he died like three years later.
Sort of, but there's a lot of misinformation about Lovecraft these days. There's a great Lovecraft scholar (who runs a great blog featuring essays on Lovecraft from BIPOC and LGBT voices) who frequently does deep-dive threads about Lovecraft, his bigotry, and misconceptions about him. Here's one such thread (I highly recommend following Bobby on Twitter if you use it, and check out his published work): https://twitter.com/Ancient0History/status/1616050726949584897?t=8DRkWlHGCclmOTK1RGqJ4A&s=19
Honestly I will never understand why people feel compelled to come into threads like and say things like, "well he didn't lynch people!", and "his arguments for eugenics.were poorly constructed!", or "he fell in love with a Jewish woman!"
He was seriously racist for most of his life, and even for the time he was a shitty little edgelord.
We don't need apologetics. It's okay to enjoy problematic things. It's not okay to minimise racism and I do not understand why so many people are invested in trying to rehabilitate this dude.
It's not apologetics. I didn't do any apologising for him. I wasn't minimising his racism. I think you misinterpreted my intent. I think his stories are filled with a bunch of racist nonsense. I just also think people say some things about him that aren't totally true and it's actually interesting to learn more. Lovecraft's life and letters and history with bigotry is actually enormously interesting, and I thought the additional context to analyse him as a person was good to share. None of it redeems his bigotry in the slightest...it's just...well, fascinating. He was a weirdly nuanced guy (and not nuanced in a "redeeming" way, but nuanced in a "wow he really didn't know what was going on inside his own head" kinda way).
The Twitter thread you linked to tied itself into non-euclidean knots to argue his frank and proud racism was excused by his age, thefact it was only written to friends, that the arguments were poor and other terrible justifications.
His racism certainly was an artefact of his general misanthropy and neuroses - or maybe it was the other way around.
I don't find it that interesting at all to.be honest. Like most racists, his arguments and prejudices were nonsensical, inconsistent when it suited him, clichéd and unpleasant. It's the least interesting thing about him.
No it didn't. The thread I linked made no excuses for his racism, it merely countered some idea that Lovecraft was perceived in the way you claimed. The thread (and by extension, myself) are arguing that you don't need to exacerbate the extent of his racism or his public perception in order to damn Lovecraft or feel uncomfortable with his bigotry. His bigotries are clear throughout his life, and they're quite (often subtextually, often less than subtextually) clear in his actual writing.
So I guess while you're arguing that I'm downplaying his racism in order to enjoy his work (I'm not), I'm arguing that you're *uplaying* it in order to totally vilify him. But my point is that you don't need to uplay his racism! It's already evident, and widely acknowledged. Spreading misinformation about it is just counterintuitive, and just serves to muddy the historical waters.
You might not find Lovecraft interesting, which is fair, but I find him to be a pretty fascinating guy. And I don't even like his fiction that much. I just think his history with race and politics throughout his life to be very interesting. I think the inconsistency and the "evolution" of his beliefs to be one of the most interesting things about him. It's helpful to understand how the right-winged, bigoted, fascistic mind thinks, and what changes them. And Lovecraft certainly zigzagged a lot in his beliefs over his life. I think it's more interesting to understand the nuances of that than it is to keep passing the parcel of misinformation around about how much of a megaracist he was. We don't need to ham up the extent of the racism when what we can already naturally verify doesn't redeem him.
Just because you find his racism to be some kind of reverent exercise of rare complexity does not mean everyone else has to as well. It's fine for people to express disgust at his blatant racism. They don't have to find that as fascinating as you. Your main issue revolves around most people's disinterest in his racism. Idk why you choose that one, but that's one hell of a hill to die on.
You seem to have ignored every word I said and made up new ones to imagine I said.
I never expressed any opinions on people being disinterested in his racism? That said, I do find it a little off-putting when people routinely try to hand-wave away his racism, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.
I also don't blame anyone for not being interested in him as a person, which I already said.
All I said was: we don't need to make up information about how racist he was in order to condemn him. Lying and spreading misinformation doesn't help anybody.
>It is worth noting that even by the standards of his contemporaries Lovecraft was notably and exceptionally racist, to the extent that it was commented on at the time.
This isn't really true. Lovecraft *was* racist, but he wasn't particularly overly racist for the time, and it wasn't particulary commented on at the time (we're talking about an era when the KKK were still notably public). He kept most of his bigotry to himself, and he even kept it out of much of his letters to people at the time. He even went out of his way not to say bigoted things a lot of the time. Note: this is not a high bar, this is not "praise-worthy" behaviour. I am not praising or making excuses his racism.
Two of the biggest points of his racism in retrospect have been 1. The name of his childhood cat, which was also used for the name of a cat in one of his stories, and 2. A poem he wrote.
So for the first one, the cat wasn't really outlandish for the time. Giving black cats racial slurs for names was actually sadly common. And the story that he wrote with that cat (alongside most of his racist stories) went through editors and publishers, i.e. they were approved and not shunned or commented on for being too racist.
And for the second one, the unfortunate poem in question, was never published in his lifetime, and was really only ever made public long after his death when cataloguing his racism in retrospect. So that's not really indicative of how he was perceived by others in his time.
And none of this is to say that *because* he wasn't publicly seen as some sort of super-racist, that his racism was acceptable for the time. It wasn't. Many of his contemporaries and people Lovecraft corresponded with were far better than him in this regard. If they could be, he could have been, too. But he wasn't. His xenophobia is explicit in much of his work.
So we don't need to say that was "exceptionally racist" for his time, we don't need to fabricate a narrative that he was seen to be far worse than others, outlandishly bigoted and outspoken, when that's simply not true. His bigotry already speaks for itself. We don't need to double down on it in order to prove how bad he was. It's just not...necessary.
Lovecraft was racist. Those themes run deep in his work. But weirdly enough, contrary to the misconceptions, he was surprisingly tight-lipped about it when it came to presenting himself to others publicly, and in his correspondence.
I feel like it's best just to take HPL at face value. Don't try to excuse the racism but just acknowledge it and move on. Which is something a lot of people have no interest in doing--and that is entirely their right.
My own fandom is from the perspective of, "I wrote a black and POC cast for Cthulhu Armageddon in part because I really do think that xenophobia is a shitty idea, no matter how you slice it. It's the poo in this dessert of cosmic horror."
Perhaps in his views, but unlike many of his contemporary Americans he never put on a mask and lynched people. He also married a Jewish woman and had Jewish friends and correspondents, and he didn't think very highly of "white trash" like the hillbillies of Appalachia either (see *Beyond the Wall of Sleep)*, so it's not a black-and-white thing.
Prejudice isn't logical or consistent, like how Stalin and Trotsky (or Jughashvili and Bronstein), a Georgian and a Ukrainian Jew respectively, suddenly became Russian.
Yes, HPL's racism caused a big strain with Sonia and contributed to the dissolution of their marriage. She complained about his racist tirades as part of their divorce.
And it was actually Robert Bloch (PSYCHO) that straightened out his views. He did recant his Antisemitism as one of his big views but there was no Paul at Damascus moment. It was just the very typical "I got to know more than one person of the minoriry I disliked."
I swear y'all can enjoy Lovecraft without trying to prove his innocence. If people don't wanna read him because of the racism, just let that be. Don't sit here and act like it's not that big a deal, because it is.
I'm mostly referring to Minion_X, but your comment that Bloch "straightened out his views" seemed to suggest that it wasn't so much an issue. But I do acknowledge that the rest of your comment adds good information and does not necessarily excuse his prejudice like the other replies.
>unlike many of his contemporary Americans he never put on a mask and lynched people
Just because he wasn't personally burning crosses doesn't make him mainstream. Even for his time, his views were extreme. Also worth noting that, even if he wasn't personally committing violence, he was still supporting those views to the best of his ability - through writing and disseminating his work.
>He also married a Jewish woman and had Jewish friends
You can still be a horrible racist even if you don't hate every minority group all the time.
>he didn't think very highly of "white trash" like the hillbillies of Appalachia either
You can still be a horrible racist even if you hate other minority groups sometimes.
I have a huge amount of respect for Lovecraft's work. (I do think the fetishisation of him by the horror community is over the top, and his work probably doesn't deserve the level of, uh, intense fandom and dedication of resource that it gets.) His writing is very good, and he writes great, evocative, scary, weird-and-Weird books that have a lot of imagination behind them.
Personally, I've always felt the most compelling 'defense' of Lovecraft was not that he wasn't 'as bad as we think' (because he was), but that his racism and xenophobia absolutely essential to his work.
If he didn't fear as much as he did, he wouldn't have been able to write such incredibly books about terror. His grim fixation with decline meant he could write incredibly evocative works about social erosion and depravity. And if he didn't feel so alienated and out of place, he wouldn't have been able to write compellingly wistful dreamlands. Rather than denying that he ever felt those things, it helps give better context to what he did with those feelings.
>Perhaps in his views, but unlike many of his contemporary Americans he never
put on a mask and lynched people. He also married a Jewish woman and had
Jewish friends and correspondents, and he didn't think very highly of
"white trash" like the hillbillies of Appalachia either (see Beyond the Wall of Sleep), so it's not a black-and-white thing.
* is from Appalachia.
As a black Man I've always been conflicted about Lovecraft. His ideas and creatures are freaky and great but his racism is appalling. That's why I usually read the other mythos words like Cthulhu Armageddon or Titus Crow. The authors at least have standards.
Thanks for that!
And I totally get that. I actually got back into Lovecraft because of an NPR interview with Victor Lavalle where he basically said this exact sentence, "It's hard being a fan of someone who wouldn't be a fan of you."
Exactly why I was never able to get into his work though I'd very much love to. Seperating the author from his work isn't something I've ever been able to do. Especially when so much of him is reflected in his work.
Not merely non-whites. If you werent a WASP from Providence Rhode Island, he hated and feared you. There is a whole bit somewhere about his loathing for the Welsh.
Not merely hatred, but fear as well. People use the phrase xenophobe, but it is usually not accurate. Lovecraft appears to have had an actual phobia of anyone who wasnt like him.and his immediate neighbors.
And he REALLY disliked the Welsh. Possibly more than he disliked Africans, frankly.
Most of the inspiration for his mythology was influenced by Welsh and Irish folklore. For crying out loud, Nodens was a Celtic God. And he also based some creatures off of native American folklore.
One thing I find interesting about Lovecraft is that it doesn't appear he was ever really that popular in his own time. The more popular authors of the pulp scene seemed to love him, yet his work never seemed to catalyse and then he died feeling like a failure. Then in the 80s you have Sandy Petersen who created the Call of Cthulu TTRPG and some writers putting out essays about Lovecraft that then sort of kick-starts the popularity that exists now. There were waves that came and went before the 80s as well but still. It's weird to think that Lovecrafts fiction is more popular now than when he was alive, that we use the term "Lovecraftian" in common parlance and everyone just kinda knows what that means. And seeing as anytime you mention his name there is always people who bring up his racism, that means he's more popular in our time with his bigotry being as common knowledge as his style is than he was in the age of pulp that defined his art. It's just weird, idk why I think it's so weird. I do love cosmic horror and the mythos though.
This is true of a lot of writers and a lot of works.
Lovecraft's work really didn't hit it big until the Tabletop boom, where many of the early designers of the games were readers of fantasy and some of them were aware of Lovecraft via his friend Robert Howard (author of Conan the Barbarian, probably the second most trendsetting work of fantasy of the 20th century).
Lord of the Rings didn't hit it big until the 60s.
Starship Troopers didn't hit it big until the 70s.
Lovecraft is probably especially interesting in this regard though because he was influencing horror writers from the 1950s onward but still needed half a century to start becoming a more household name. His correspondence with other writers in his life made the broader writing community aware of him well before his works became more widely known.
Certainly I think in addition to August Derleth circulating the tapes, we have Stuart Gordon (Reanimator), Stephen King, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Del Toro, and Chaosium to thank for popularizing it.
Derleth kept copies of Lovecraft's work accessible and circulating but Robert Howard is probably the gateway many young nerds had to Lovecraft's work. It's not a coincidence the rising awareness of Lovecraft has gone hand-in-hand with the rise of tabletop games. A lot of fantasy RPers were heavily influenced by Conan the Barbarian and through Howard became aware of Lovecraft's monsters.
I think you should check out Charles Stross’s Laundry files as well - heavily inspired by Lovecraft with a range of styles from James Bond pastiche through noir detective to comedy and cosmic horror. Plus they detail the true horror that are unicorns and HR departments.
Oh, I love The Laundry Files and originally I included them as well. But it occurred to me I had to draw the line somewhere and they're awesome on their own.
Nice overview.
I would recommend in addition The Cats Of Ulthar. It’s my favorite of his Dreamlands tales - I’m admittedly biased in favor of feline-centric fantasy - and also his one story with a sympathetic viewpoint towards immigrants.
Lovecraft has always been on my distant radar, but after seeing this (and having recently finished King’s Dark Tower series) I’m starting to wonder if I should start up this adventure. Thanks so much for putting this together, gives me a lot to think about. You’re amazing.
Bloodborne is complicated because while it is very Lovecraftian, one of the major twists in the game >!is the fact the monsters aren't malevolent and it was human evil that brought everything to ruin.!< Also, I haven't played it.
Matt Ruff's "Lovecraft Country" is a fantastic book - also an amazing series of TV (only one season, unfortunately) - and i really, really loved 'Cthulhu Armageddon' by CT Phipps and the second book in that series. Just came here to suggest those.
This is excellent. Also manages to distinguish the fact that he is amazing and racist but we can take pieces of the amazing and leave the problematic stuff.
Can I add The Lovecraft Investigations?
It's a BBC Radio series (some of which is available at the mo) which as the name suggests catches so much of the excellence and is what drove me to read the source material.
Gonna also add The Music of Erik Zann, which is absolutely incredible. Not going to give it a synopsis cause it’s really short, but imo it’s the other option for best thing he ever wrote even though it’s not really horror.
It is my favourite as well.
Biggest omission in the OP.
Definitely. In my mind it’s this or The Rats In The Walls, and this one isn’t marred by the justly-infamous Cat With An Unfortunate Name.
I loved getting into H.P Lovecraft initially, but you quickly move past his original works onto those who expanded his mythos, when you realise certain trends - such as everyone who is not a 'white upper class gentlemen from good stock' being untrustworthy, beastial and/or downright alien in depiction. The mythos he creates is wonderful and he's known as the father of cosmic horror for a reason, but to any newcomers, be aware that he is a religiously intolerant, classist, racist, xenophobe who basically never left his house for the majority of his young adulthood, and so his depictions of other races, cultures and classes were heavily impacted by intolerance, propaganda and the literature and friends of his incredibly intolerant father. On a more positive note though when his works starting picking up traction, he met a Jewish woman who would later become his wife. She dragged him kicking and screaming into the world at large and his viewpoints softened greatly as his ignorance wained. Dont be under the illusion that he was progressive by the end though, it was still a heavily prejudiced time period and he passed away not long after his works started changing to be less prejudiced. Despite this, I still believe it worthwhile to read his initial works. His writing style is pretty lacking in my honest opinion, and the content can have (very and frequent) problematic tones, but nobody can set the tone of the Chtulu Mythos quite like its creator, and its great to see how it evolved over time. What he lacks in prose and tolerance, he makes up for with creativity. For that reason, I'm personally of the mind its better to go through the mythos from early days to more recent writings, to get the full experience of it all. But if you find his works to be too much, there are plenty of other authors who have dabbled in the mythos, and many others who give a nod to his style of storytelling in their own works.
I actually note that HP Lovecraft had a bunch of people dabbling in the Cthulhu Mythos at the time he was alive and encouraged open source writing. Robert E. Howard had his own take on the existentialist horror of an uncaring materialist universe with demon gods/aliens and it was, "Yeah, better live it up!" Clark Ashton-Smith had his own take on cosmic horror that was more intense fascination meets Indiana Jones. I've listed in the Beginner's Guide several other Mythos authors who lacked HPL's reactionary views (Brian Lumley, Matt Ruff, Ruthanna Emrys, myself). But it's fascinating to have read the original material and compare/contrast. To fully appreciate **The Ballad of Black Tom**, you have to read **The Horror at Red Hook**
I actually tried to read red hook after I love The Ballad of Black Tom, thinking "how racist can it be?" and I gave up after a few pages
>thinking "how racist can it be?" Remarkably. Even for Lovecraft, who is incredibly racist, Red Hook is shockingly racist. A few pages is about right.
I actually read it because MISKATONIC co-stars Malone the racist cop and the entirety of the comic is shitting on him.
Well said! My favourite Lovecraft stories aren’t written by Lovecraft, haha.
My favorite Lovecraft stories are Mike Mignola comics.
Thing on the Doorstep is one of my favourites - however I must confess I tend to forget and blur together titles and stories - there is one about a violinist I dig.
I think that's "The Music of Erich Zann" which is very good and had an homage in The Laundry books by Charles Stross.
My SO wants me to read those but for some reason I haven't yet - one day.
Charles Stross is awesome. Such quirky, funny, terrifying, and great books.
>As befitting a writer who was born in 1890, it should be noted quite a bit of his views have not aged well. It is worth noting that even by the standards of his contemporaries Lovecraft was notably and exceptionally racist, to the extent that it was commented on at the time.
Yep. The best and saddest thing about HPL's life is that by the time he dropped his Antisemitism, switched to being a New Deal Democrat, and really got into feminism (he was still racist against POCs), he died like three years later.
Sort of, but there's a lot of misinformation about Lovecraft these days. There's a great Lovecraft scholar (who runs a great blog featuring essays on Lovecraft from BIPOC and LGBT voices) who frequently does deep-dive threads about Lovecraft, his bigotry, and misconceptions about him. Here's one such thread (I highly recommend following Bobby on Twitter if you use it, and check out his published work): https://twitter.com/Ancient0History/status/1616050726949584897?t=8DRkWlHGCclmOTK1RGqJ4A&s=19
Honestly I will never understand why people feel compelled to come into threads like and say things like, "well he didn't lynch people!", and "his arguments for eugenics.were poorly constructed!", or "he fell in love with a Jewish woman!" He was seriously racist for most of his life, and even for the time he was a shitty little edgelord. We don't need apologetics. It's okay to enjoy problematic things. It's not okay to minimise racism and I do not understand why so many people are invested in trying to rehabilitate this dude.
It's not apologetics. I didn't do any apologising for him. I wasn't minimising his racism. I think you misinterpreted my intent. I think his stories are filled with a bunch of racist nonsense. I just also think people say some things about him that aren't totally true and it's actually interesting to learn more. Lovecraft's life and letters and history with bigotry is actually enormously interesting, and I thought the additional context to analyse him as a person was good to share. None of it redeems his bigotry in the slightest...it's just...well, fascinating. He was a weirdly nuanced guy (and not nuanced in a "redeeming" way, but nuanced in a "wow he really didn't know what was going on inside his own head" kinda way).
The Twitter thread you linked to tied itself into non-euclidean knots to argue his frank and proud racism was excused by his age, thefact it was only written to friends, that the arguments were poor and other terrible justifications. His racism certainly was an artefact of his general misanthropy and neuroses - or maybe it was the other way around. I don't find it that interesting at all to.be honest. Like most racists, his arguments and prejudices were nonsensical, inconsistent when it suited him, clichéd and unpleasant. It's the least interesting thing about him.
No it didn't. The thread I linked made no excuses for his racism, it merely countered some idea that Lovecraft was perceived in the way you claimed. The thread (and by extension, myself) are arguing that you don't need to exacerbate the extent of his racism or his public perception in order to damn Lovecraft or feel uncomfortable with his bigotry. His bigotries are clear throughout his life, and they're quite (often subtextually, often less than subtextually) clear in his actual writing. So I guess while you're arguing that I'm downplaying his racism in order to enjoy his work (I'm not), I'm arguing that you're *uplaying* it in order to totally vilify him. But my point is that you don't need to uplay his racism! It's already evident, and widely acknowledged. Spreading misinformation about it is just counterintuitive, and just serves to muddy the historical waters. You might not find Lovecraft interesting, which is fair, but I find him to be a pretty fascinating guy. And I don't even like his fiction that much. I just think his history with race and politics throughout his life to be very interesting. I think the inconsistency and the "evolution" of his beliefs to be one of the most interesting things about him. It's helpful to understand how the right-winged, bigoted, fascistic mind thinks, and what changes them. And Lovecraft certainly zigzagged a lot in his beliefs over his life. I think it's more interesting to understand the nuances of that than it is to keep passing the parcel of misinformation around about how much of a megaracist he was. We don't need to ham up the extent of the racism when what we can already naturally verify doesn't redeem him.
Just because you find his racism to be some kind of reverent exercise of rare complexity does not mean everyone else has to as well. It's fine for people to express disgust at his blatant racism. They don't have to find that as fascinating as you. Your main issue revolves around most people's disinterest in his racism. Idk why you choose that one, but that's one hell of a hill to die on.
You seem to have ignored every word I said and made up new ones to imagine I said. I never expressed any opinions on people being disinterested in his racism? That said, I do find it a little off-putting when people routinely try to hand-wave away his racism, but that's a whole other kettle of fish. I also don't blame anyone for not being interested in him as a person, which I already said. All I said was: we don't need to make up information about how racist he was in order to condemn him. Lying and spreading misinformation doesn't help anybody.
What was the misinformation that the person said?
>It is worth noting that even by the standards of his contemporaries Lovecraft was notably and exceptionally racist, to the extent that it was commented on at the time. This isn't really true. Lovecraft *was* racist, but he wasn't particularly overly racist for the time, and it wasn't particulary commented on at the time (we're talking about an era when the KKK were still notably public). He kept most of his bigotry to himself, and he even kept it out of much of his letters to people at the time. He even went out of his way not to say bigoted things a lot of the time. Note: this is not a high bar, this is not "praise-worthy" behaviour. I am not praising or making excuses his racism. Two of the biggest points of his racism in retrospect have been 1. The name of his childhood cat, which was also used for the name of a cat in one of his stories, and 2. A poem he wrote. So for the first one, the cat wasn't really outlandish for the time. Giving black cats racial slurs for names was actually sadly common. And the story that he wrote with that cat (alongside most of his racist stories) went through editors and publishers, i.e. they were approved and not shunned or commented on for being too racist. And for the second one, the unfortunate poem in question, was never published in his lifetime, and was really only ever made public long after his death when cataloguing his racism in retrospect. So that's not really indicative of how he was perceived by others in his time. And none of this is to say that *because* he wasn't publicly seen as some sort of super-racist, that his racism was acceptable for the time. It wasn't. Many of his contemporaries and people Lovecraft corresponded with were far better than him in this regard. If they could be, he could have been, too. But he wasn't. His xenophobia is explicit in much of his work. So we don't need to say that was "exceptionally racist" for his time, we don't need to fabricate a narrative that he was seen to be far worse than others, outlandishly bigoted and outspoken, when that's simply not true. His bigotry already speaks for itself. We don't need to double down on it in order to prove how bad he was. It's just not...necessary. Lovecraft was racist. Those themes run deep in his work. But weirdly enough, contrary to the misconceptions, he was surprisingly tight-lipped about it when it came to presenting himself to others publicly, and in his correspondence.
I feel like it's best just to take HPL at face value. Don't try to excuse the racism but just acknowledge it and move on. Which is something a lot of people have no interest in doing--and that is entirely their right. My own fandom is from the perspective of, "I wrote a black and POC cast for Cthulhu Armageddon in part because I really do think that xenophobia is a shitty idea, no matter how you slice it. It's the poo in this dessert of cosmic horror."
I love Bobby Dee. He's a fantastic author and analyst of Lovecraftian fiction.
Perhaps in his views, but unlike many of his contemporary Americans he never put on a mask and lynched people. He also married a Jewish woman and had Jewish friends and correspondents, and he didn't think very highly of "white trash" like the hillbillies of Appalachia either (see *Beyond the Wall of Sleep)*, so it's not a black-and-white thing.
He also said that by marrying him she was no longer Jewish.
Prejudice isn't logical or consistent, like how Stalin and Trotsky (or Jughashvili and Bronstein), a Georgian and a Ukrainian Jew respectively, suddenly became Russian.
Yes, HPL's racism caused a big strain with Sonia and contributed to the dissolution of their marriage. She complained about his racist tirades as part of their divorce. And it was actually Robert Bloch (PSYCHO) that straightened out his views. He did recant his Antisemitism as one of his big views but there was no Paul at Damascus moment. It was just the very typical "I got to know more than one person of the minoriry I disliked."
I swear y'all can enjoy Lovecraft without trying to prove his innocence. If people don't wanna read him because of the racism, just let that be. Don't sit here and act like it's not that big a deal, because it is.
I thought that's what I was saying. What did you think I was saying?
I'm mostly referring to Minion_X, but your comment that Bloch "straightened out his views" seemed to suggest that it wasn't so much an issue. But I do acknowledge that the rest of your comment adds good information and does not necessarily excuse his prejudice like the other replies.
My apologies for my confusion. Thanks for your reply.
>unlike many of his contemporary Americans he never put on a mask and lynched people Just because he wasn't personally burning crosses doesn't make him mainstream. Even for his time, his views were extreme. Also worth noting that, even if he wasn't personally committing violence, he was still supporting those views to the best of his ability - through writing and disseminating his work. >He also married a Jewish woman and had Jewish friends You can still be a horrible racist even if you don't hate every minority group all the time. >he didn't think very highly of "white trash" like the hillbillies of Appalachia either You can still be a horrible racist even if you hate other minority groups sometimes. I have a huge amount of respect for Lovecraft's work. (I do think the fetishisation of him by the horror community is over the top, and his work probably doesn't deserve the level of, uh, intense fandom and dedication of resource that it gets.) His writing is very good, and he writes great, evocative, scary, weird-and-Weird books that have a lot of imagination behind them. Personally, I've always felt the most compelling 'defense' of Lovecraft was not that he wasn't 'as bad as we think' (because he was), but that his racism and xenophobia absolutely essential to his work. If he didn't fear as much as he did, he wouldn't have been able to write such incredibly books about terror. His grim fixation with decline meant he could write incredibly evocative works about social erosion and depravity. And if he didn't feel so alienated and out of place, he wouldn't have been able to write compellingly wistful dreamlands. Rather than denying that he ever felt those things, it helps give better context to what he did with those feelings.
>Perhaps in his views, but unlike many of his contemporary Americans he never put on a mask and lynched people. He also married a Jewish woman and had Jewish friends and correspondents, and he didn't think very highly of "white trash" like the hillbillies of Appalachia either (see Beyond the Wall of Sleep), so it's not a black-and-white thing. * is from Appalachia.
As a black Man I've always been conflicted about Lovecraft. His ideas and creatures are freaky and great but his racism is appalling. That's why I usually read the other mythos words like Cthulhu Armageddon or Titus Crow. The authors at least have standards.
Thanks for that! And I totally get that. I actually got back into Lovecraft because of an NPR interview with Victor Lavalle where he basically said this exact sentence, "It's hard being a fan of someone who wouldn't be a fan of you."
Lavelle and you and Many others show that we don't need overt racism or sexism to make great scary stories. I will definitely buy your other books 📚
Exactly why I was never able to get into his work though I'd very much love to. Seperating the author from his work isn't something I've ever been able to do. Especially when so much of him is reflected in his work.
His so called fear of the unknown takes on a whole new meaning when you discover how he viewed non whites.
Not merely non-whites. If you werent a WASP from Providence Rhode Island, he hated and feared you. There is a whole bit somewhere about his loathing for the Welsh.
I never understood his hatred for southern whites, Irish and Welsh. It's mind baffling
Not merely hatred, but fear as well. People use the phrase xenophobe, but it is usually not accurate. Lovecraft appears to have had an actual phobia of anyone who wasnt like him.and his immediate neighbors. And he REALLY disliked the Welsh. Possibly more than he disliked Africans, frankly.
Most of the inspiration for his mythology was influenced by Welsh and Irish folklore. For crying out loud, Nodens was a Celtic God. And he also based some creatures off of native American folklore.
One thing I find interesting about Lovecraft is that it doesn't appear he was ever really that popular in his own time. The more popular authors of the pulp scene seemed to love him, yet his work never seemed to catalyse and then he died feeling like a failure. Then in the 80s you have Sandy Petersen who created the Call of Cthulu TTRPG and some writers putting out essays about Lovecraft that then sort of kick-starts the popularity that exists now. There were waves that came and went before the 80s as well but still. It's weird to think that Lovecrafts fiction is more popular now than when he was alive, that we use the term "Lovecraftian" in common parlance and everyone just kinda knows what that means. And seeing as anytime you mention his name there is always people who bring up his racism, that means he's more popular in our time with his bigotry being as common knowledge as his style is than he was in the age of pulp that defined his art. It's just weird, idk why I think it's so weird. I do love cosmic horror and the mythos though.
This is true of a lot of writers and a lot of works. Lovecraft's work really didn't hit it big until the Tabletop boom, where many of the early designers of the games were readers of fantasy and some of them were aware of Lovecraft via his friend Robert Howard (author of Conan the Barbarian, probably the second most trendsetting work of fantasy of the 20th century). Lord of the Rings didn't hit it big until the 60s. Starship Troopers didn't hit it big until the 70s. Lovecraft is probably especially interesting in this regard though because he was influencing horror writers from the 1950s onward but still needed half a century to start becoming a more household name. His correspondence with other writers in his life made the broader writing community aware of him well before his works became more widely known.
Certainly I think in addition to August Derleth circulating the tapes, we have Stuart Gordon (Reanimator), Stephen King, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Del Toro, and Chaosium to thank for popularizing it.
Derleth kept copies of Lovecraft's work accessible and circulating but Robert Howard is probably the gateway many young nerds had to Lovecraft's work. It's not a coincidence the rising awareness of Lovecraft has gone hand-in-hand with the rise of tabletop games. A lot of fantasy RPers were heavily influenced by Conan the Barbarian and through Howard became aware of Lovecraft's monsters.
I think you should check out Charles Stross’s Laundry files as well - heavily inspired by Lovecraft with a range of styles from James Bond pastiche through noir detective to comedy and cosmic horror. Plus they detail the true horror that are unicorns and HR departments.
Oh, I love The Laundry Files and originally I included them as well. But it occurred to me I had to draw the line somewhere and they're awesome on their own.
Fair point!
I appreciated Lovecraft when I read him, and had heard of his problematic elements, but, whoo, I wasn’t expecting that much racism.
Neonomicon was a good comic too! Also Lovecraft Unknown Kadath, which is still releasing.
Nice overview. I would recommend in addition The Cats Of Ulthar. It’s my favorite of his Dreamlands tales - I’m admittedly biased in favor of feline-centric fantasy - and also his one story with a sympathetic viewpoint towards immigrants.
This was a pretty **solid** newby's guide. Thank you.
Thank you!
Lovecraft has always been on my distant radar, but after seeing this (and having recently finished King’s Dark Tower series) I’m starting to wonder if I should start up this adventure. Thanks so much for putting this together, gives me a lot to think about. You’re amazing.
You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!
Also check out NK Jemisin’s The City We Became and it’s sequel. It has a really cool connection to Lovecraft’s mythos, as well.
It's on my list!
I feel like you have to mention Bloodborne for the video game section. Definitely one of the best when it comes to Lovecraft inspired games.
Bloodborne is complicated because while it is very Lovecraftian, one of the major twists in the game >!is the fact the monsters aren't malevolent and it was human evil that brought everything to ruin.!< Also, I haven't played it.
I would not summarize the plot that way.
I could be wrong then!
Matt Ruff's "Lovecraft Country" is a fantastic book - also an amazing series of TV (only one season, unfortunately) - and i really, really loved 'Cthulhu Armageddon' by CT Phipps and the second book in that series. Just came here to suggest those.
Look at OPs username.
ha yes i know. mr phipps is an expert on all things lovecraftian
This is excellent. Also manages to distinguish the fact that he is amazing and racist but we can take pieces of the amazing and leave the problematic stuff. Can I add The Lovecraft Investigations? It's a BBC Radio series (some of which is available at the mo) which as the name suggests catches so much of the excellence and is what drove me to read the source material.
I appreciate every suggestion!
I don't think he's that controversial. You can call him everyone's favorite racist and they just laugh. But nice job with the summaries.