By L. Sprague de Camp
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Dust Jacket Text
Few writers have had a more paradoxical, ironic life than
Howard Phillips Lovecraft of Providence, Rhode Island. He never had a
book of stories published in his lifetime, but he became a best-selling
author after his death. Though he died in poverty and obscurity, utterly
convinced he was a complete failure, he is now hailed not only as the
equal of Edgar Allan Poe, but as one of the most important writers of the
twentieth century. He was a self-proclaimed misanthrope, yet he collected
a circle of devoted friends who remember him as one of the kindest, most
delightful people they ever knew.
The son of parents who both died insane, Lovecraft became a
powerful philosophical thinker. A poseur who liked to fancy himself an
eighteenth-century English gentleman, he condemned poses and affectations
in others. A political conservative, he became a Socialist and a believer
in the New Deal. A man who prided himself on reticence, he poured out his
innermost thoughts in over 100,000 letters, making him one of the best and
most prolific letter writers in history.
Here is the story of his strange upbringing: his bizarre
habits and preferences; his tragicomic literary and martial careers; his
key role in the development of science fiction; and his posthumous
triumph. Here also is how he transformed his nightmares and neuroses into
the stories that made him one of this century’s most important literary
figures.
L. Sprague de Camp has written over one hundred books. These
include historical novels, science fiction, fantasy, verse, and
biographies. He has written many hundreds of stories and articles for
magazines, newspapers, and encyclopedias. Among his books are Ancient
Ruins and The Ancient Engineers as well as the classic
science-fiction novels Lest Darkness Fall and Rogue Queen.
L. Sprague de Camp lives with his wife, the writer Catherine Crook de Camp
in Plano, Texas.
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Bibliographic Information
H.P. Lovecraft: A Biography. By L. Sprague de Camp. New York: Barnes & Noble Books;
1996; ISBN 1-56619-994-8; Hardcover.
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