The Book Shelf: H.P. Lovecraft on This Day in History

Sunday, March 15, 2020

H.P. Lovecraft on This Day in History

Supernatural Horror in Literature by Lovecraft

This Day in History: H.P. Lovecraft died on this day in 1937. He is one of the most significant and influential authors of all time, and certainly one of my favorites. However, like Edgar Allan Poe, he was under-appreciated in his time and died in poverty. He had an amazing way with words: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

As an atheist, he also had good words for the Bible: "An excellent habit to cultivate is the analytical study of the King James Bible. For simple yet rich and forceful English, this masterly production is hard to equal; and even though its Saxon vocabulary and poetic rhythm be unsuited to general composition, it is an invaluable model for writers on quaint or imaginative themes."

If you like audiobooks like I do, make sure you listen to the Lovecraft library with Wayne June as the narrator.