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H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. LOVECRAFT

 
H. P. Lovecraft  (born Howard Phillips Lovecraft; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction.  After a short sojourn in New York, Lovecraft returned to his hometown of Providence, RI in 1926.  Over the next nine months, he produced some of his most celebrated tales including “The Call of Cthulhu”, canonical to the Cthulhu Mythos.  Virtually unknown and only published in pulp magazines before he died in poverty, he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in his genre.   (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
The name of a 2011 album by the Dead Milkmen, The King in Yellow is taken from one of my favorite collections of stories, by Robert W. Chambers.  Besides being the title of the collection, The King in Yellow is also said to be a hauntingly beautiful play that is referenced in several stories in the book.  The play has the ability to drive its readers insane, particularly those who peruse Act 2; with only a handful of quotations and limited details on the story line, the play stays in the background but gives the stories a truly sinister air.  The King in Yellow (the imaginary play that is) is an analogue of the forbidden book that was invented by H. P. Lovecraft called the Necronomicon, and Lovecraft handled it in much the same way in his stories.  (I also read that one of the bandmembers in the Dead Milkmen took the name H. P. Hovercraft for a time). 
 
(July 2012)
 
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H. P. Lovecraft is a well regarded psychedelic rock band that was named after one of my very favorite authors, H. P. Lovecraft long before he gained any mainstream recognition.  I knew he had arrived when I went through a big-city Barnes & Noble store 20-some years ago and saw a list of authors in their Horror section, with H. P. Lovecraft listed just below Stephen King.  Their first album, H. P. Lovecraft came out in 1967 and is rated 4½ stars from Allmusic and (as noted in the article on the album by Richie Unterberger) “included an underground FM radio favorite, ‘White Ship’” (named after a Lovecraft short story, “White Ship”). 

 

(June 2014)