By S.T. Joshi

Back Cover Text

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) has, in the over 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. Written from a sympathetic but critical perspective, Joshi’s biography dispels many of the myths about Lovecraft the man and win new converts to his distinctive literary work.

Winner of the 1997 Bram Stoker Award (HWA)
for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

“Even for a reader relatively familiar with Lovecraft’s work and with the gothic legend of his life, H.P. Lovecraft: A Life will contain illuminating surprises.” — Joyce Carol Oates

“S.T. Joshi’s admirable biographical study of Lovecraft provides the inevitable foundation for all future study of that enigmatic author.” — Harold Bloom

“A magnificent 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

Reviews

• Nightscapes (Paul T. Riddell)
• Nova Express (Don Webb)
• The San Francisco Bay Guardian Literary Supplement (John Marr)

Bibliographic Information

H.P. Lovecraft: A Life. By S.T. Joshi. West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press; 2004; ISBN 0-940884-88-7 (trade paperback).

Purchasing This Book

This book may be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or directly from the publisher, Necronomicon Press.