H. P. Lovecraft
American horror writer whose Cthulhu Mythos gave later writers characters and settings to build on Show bio
Bio
H. P. Lovecraft had recurring nightmares from about age five of creatures he called "night-gaunts." He lost his grandfather and the family fortune in 1904, and saw no point in living.
Lovecraft found his way into pulp fiction through a critical letter to a magazine in 1913. He built his stories on his belief that humanity is an insignificant part of the cosmos. Lovecraft brought the night-gaunts of his childhood into his fiction thirty years later.
He never earned enough from writing to support himself, and died virtually unknown. Lovecraft gained his standing only after scholars revived his work in the 1970s.