H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1890, he wrote tales, essays, and a huge number of letters, building a body of work that blended horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Many of his best-known stories first appeared in pulp magazines, especially Weird Tales, and his fiction helped define what readers now call cosmic horror.

His work often centers on the idea that human beings are small and fragile in an immense, indifferent universe. That outlook runs through famous stories such as The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and At the Mountains of Madness, and it also shaped the larger shared mythology later known as the Cthulhu Mythos.

Although he was not widely celebrated during his lifetime and died in 1937, his reputation grew steadily after his death. Today he is remembered as a major influence on horror, fantasy, and science fiction, even as modern readers also reckon with the prejudices expressed in parts of his writing and personal views.