Tales of Horror

The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of HP Lovecraft. There are rather few masters of horror writing out of the many who write horror. HP Lovecraft along with Edgar Allan Poe have achieved fame because their work is of a standard of excellence that few if any can rival. Here we concentrate on HP Lovecraft, even the name has a sliver of the night about it. Born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island he was a prodigious youth but a sickly one. Raised mainly by his Grandfather and Aunts at 14 he contemplated suicide on the death of his grandfather and the crushing financial blow that brought to himself and his mother. A set of literary spats in a newspaper brought him attention away from his poetry writings. But until the last decade of his life the works for which we is so well know did not arrive. That last decade, writing again in Providence was prolific but with little income his life downgraded rented house by rented house and in 1936, often malnourished he was diagnosed with cancer and succumbed to it the following year.