H.P. Lovecraft was a man who was born at the wrong time. If he had his way, he would have lived in 18th century New England. One of his favorite portraits, gifted to him by a friend, depicted him as a stern colonial judge.

The reality of his life was a stark contrast to his antiquarian dreams. Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island on August 20, 1890, the only child of Winfield and Sarah Lovecraft. His grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, was a prominent industrialist who supported Lovecraft and his family. When Lovecraft’s father died in 1898, his grief-stricken mother sent young Howard to live with his grandparents. It was there that Lovecraft thrived. He learned to read at age four, devoured mythology and the Arabian Nights at five, taught himself chemistry at eight before moving onto astronomy at age eleven.

His idyllic world collapsed in 1904 when his beloved grandfather died of a stroke. His home life became oppressive, an atmosphere he described in one of his many letters. “The black attire of my mother and aunts terrified me to such an extent that I would surreptitiously pin bits of bright cloth or paper to their skirts for sheer relief.” The situation grew worse when his late grandfather’s fortune collapsed under the weight of his debts. Young Lovecraft was forced to move yet again and took up residence with his aunts.

It was during his childhood that he began to have the nightmares that would inspire his later work. He saw what he called night-gaunts, creatures who “were wont to whirl me through space at a sickening rate of speed, the while fretting and impaling me with their detestable tridents.”

The Nightgaunt by Paul Carrick