The Dunwich Horror

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American writer known for his contributions to the genre of horror and science fiction. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to a family of modest means. His father had mental health conditions and was committed to a psychiatric hospital when Lovecraft was just three years old. He was raised by his mother and two aunts, and as a child, he was extremely precocious and imaginative.

Lovecraft was a self-taught writer and from an early age was fascinated by tales of horror and the supernatural. He began writing his own stories when he was just seven years old, and by the time he was a teenager, he had become an avid reader of Gothic and supernatural literature. Lovecraft’s early literary influences included Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Dunsany, and Algernon Blackwood. Lovecraft’s writing was not widely recognized during his lifetime, and he was largely unknown outside of a small circle of literary enthusiasts.

Lovecraft’s writing is characterized by a distinctive style that combines a high degree of technical precision, scrupulous attention to detail, and a sense of creeping dread and foreboding. His stories often feature ancient, malevolent beings that threaten the very fabric of reality. Lovecraft’s best-known works include The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and At the Mountains of Madness. His work was so influential that a new genre, Lovecraftian horror, developed from Lovecraft’s style.

Despite his contributions to the genres of horror and science fiction, Lovecraft’s legacy is also marked by his virulent racism. Lovecraft was a white supremacist who held deeply prejudiced views against people of color, particularly African Americans, Jews, and immigrants. He frequently expressed his racist views in his private letters and in some of his published works. In the words of scholar Wes House, “[Lovecraft’s] bigotry and race-inflected narratives can’t be wished away, cherry-picked, or swept under the rug in favor of his more widely known literary techniques and accomplishments.” (House, Wes. “We Can’t Ignore H.P. Lovecraft’s White Supremacy.” LitHub, 2017).

Lovecraft’s racism was rooted in his belief in the superiority of the “Nordic” or “Aryan” race, which he believed was threatened by the presence of non-white people in America. He was particularly vocal in his opposition to immigration and his belief in the need for racial purity, which his work also expresses through the use of slurs and dehumanizing language toward people with disabilities. In other words, “Lovecraft’s work is deeply marked by racialist science and colonial history, linking them as structural constants that produce the outbreaks of horror in his stories.” (Herrmann, Lee Matthias. “‘Bothersome Forms, of Course, Were Mechanically Exterminated’: Colonialism, Science, Racial Dysgenia, and Extermination in the Work of H.P. Lovecraft, Intertextually and Beyond.” CoSMo, 2019). Lovecraft’s racism was not simply a product of his times; many of his contemporaries, including other writers and intellectuals, were also racist, but Lovecraft’s views were particularly extreme and venomous.

Lovecraft’s racism has had a lasting impact on his legacy and continues to be a subject of controversy and debate. Some scholars and fans of Lovecraft’s work argue that his racism should be overlooked in light of his contributions to the genre of horror and his influence on later writers. Others argue that his racism is so egregious that it cannot be separated from his work and that it undermines the moral and aesthetic value of his writing.

Despite the controversy surrounding his legacy, Lovecraft remains a significant figure in the history of horror and weird fiction. His influence can be seen in the work of many later writers, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Clive Barker. Recent works have referenced Lovecraft’s racism, and works like the television show Lovecraft Country and Victor Lavalle’s novel The Ballad of Black Tom deliberately blend Lovecraftian themes and imagery with discussions of racism in American culture.