HAPPY BIRTHDAY, H.P. LOVECRAFT (AUGUST 20, 1890)

Birthday salutations are in order for HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT, the legendary "Rhode Island Recluse" who suffused the American literary tradition with what is arguably the best horror and science fiction of modern times. Within his concept of "cosmic horror", Lovecraft produced some of the most inventive and original ideas in fantastic literature. In a letter to Farnswroth Wright, then editor of the famous WEIRD TALES magazine, he elaborated: "Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large.....one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all."

It is Lovecraft who has given us such unsavory characters as Cthulhu, Nyarlothotep, Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth. He is also the creator of the dread NECRONOMICON, a book of eldritch magic by the Mad Arab Abdul-Alhazred. It is plain to see that Lovecraft's legacy is firmly planted in the canon of fantastic literature.

Following is a monster magazine tribute to H.P. Lovecraft from RUE MORGUE #50. You will see just how far Lovecraft's ideas and characters have permeated into world of literature, films, and pop culture.