H.P. LOVECRAFT (b. 1890) was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, known then simply as weird fiction. As a character in his own life Lovecraft was called by his peers "the Gentleman from Providence." He was reserved and introverted. He spent his life very quietly.
In his essay on the Lovecraftian supernatural tale, Michel Houllebecq differentiates Lovecraft from his predecessors and contemporaries as a writer of the supernatural tale because his structure is based is a leap of the imagination. Lovecraft rejects all notions of the mundane and the everyday and plunges directly into the strange. He himself states in his essay entitled, “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” that the viewership for the supernatural is narrower because it requires an effort of the intellect that is often uncomfortable or too demanding. However, the reward is large, and the ability for stories of the supernatural to distill truths about human nature and its condition is jarring. He introduces the topic by saying: The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
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