History Creator / HPLovecraft

* His ''Dreamlands'' stories, among them "Literature/TheCatsOfUlthar", "Celephais", "The Quest of Iranon", "The Silver Key", "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" and ''Literature/TheDreamQuestOfUnknownKadath''. The last encompassed a number of characters from Lovecraft's other stories, "Literature/PickmansModel" in particular.

** Swami Chandraputra [[spoiler:or, as he is more commonly known, Randolph Carter himself]] in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", since by then [[spoiler:he was no longer human.]]

* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: In "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", Randolph Carter gets to have a friendly chat with Yog-Sothoth.

* TheDragon: Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu.

* HumansAreCthulhu: In "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", the second half deals with a space alien named Zkauba being [[spoiler:posessed]] by the human sorcerer Randolph Carter, and who is "...disgusted by the thought of the repellant Earth-mammal" until Carter discovers a way to [[spoiler:suppress Zkauba's personality entirely, and then proceeds to enter suspended animation until his host's homeworld is cold and dead, then travel thousands of lightyears to earth just so he can try to return to his body shortly after he left it, all while holding Zkauba prisoner in his own body.]]

* PerfectPacifistPeople: Made fun of in the poem, "Pacifist War Song".
* PiecesOfGod: In "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", Randolph Carter learns that all conscious beings are actually tiny aspects of Eldritch Abominations outside time and space, granted the illusion of individuality by their limited perception of the universe. Facing the Outer God Yog-Sothoth, he realizes that he and it are the same being.

** ''[[http://www.hplhs.org/ The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society]]'' [[LovecraftOnFilm adapted]] this story [[http://www.hplhs.org/mpcoc.php to film]] in 2005, faithful to the original, in the style of a classic 1920s black-and-white silent movie. A must-see.[[/index]]

He earned most of his living as an editor and ghostwriter. He was reluctant to sell his own stories, fearing they would not be well-received, but he was a prolific correspondent with other writers of the time, including Creator/RobertEHoward and Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith (not to mention the teenage Creator/RobertBloch),[[note]]Thousands of those letters have been found and are slowly coming out in print thanks to S. Joshi and David E. Schultz, in volumes sorted by who he was writing to rather than chronological order.[[/note]] and heavily rewrote many of their stories for them, inserting his own themes. While Lovecraft was indeed very much TheShutIn, his correspondences reveal that [[ByronicHero he forged extremely close friendships with those who shared his interests, and his colleagues describe him as being very amicable to those he knew very well]]. Creator/LordDunsany, Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, Creator/RobertWChambers' ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and Creator/ArthurMachen are frequently cited as major influences on Lovecraft's work. Less often cited but no less influential was the half-a-generation older Creator/AlgernonBlackwood, whom Lovecraft once described as "a modern master". Another relatively obscure and quite underrated as an inspiration was Abraham Merritt, author of Literature/TheMoonPool, one basis for Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu (Describing himself as a long-time admirer, Lovecraft lauded Merritt's "peculiar power of working up an atmosphere and investing a region with an aura of unholy dread". No summary of Lovecraft's life is complete without a mention of his passionate [[KindheartedCatLover devotion to cats]] and to his hometown of [[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/travel/hp-lovecraft-providence.html Providence, Rhode Island]]. He only owned one cat in his lifetime, but fed and named every alley cat he found. Contrary to popular belief, his cat's infamously and outrageously racist name (yes, his cat's name was literally ''the N-word'') was not his creation: his father was the one who named it (granted, Lovecraft does use the name generically to refer to other black cats in his letters, so evidently he had no problem with it). His words ''I Am Providence'' are engraved on his tombstone.

** Plot also used in the movie ''Film/TheCurse'', starring John Schneider, Claude Akins, and Wil Wheaton. Rather faithful to the original, under the circumstances.