Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American author of horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy stories, including many works in the aptly named weird fiction Wikipedia genre. He is best known as the creator of the Cthulhu mythos, which figures prominently in many of his stories.
Much of Lovecraft’s writing is concerned with the post-Enlightenment horrors of cosmic irrelevance and the idea that civilization is fragile and fleeting. Many misunderstand the common theme of people going mad upon seeing the alien beings in his work; the idea is that sanity is the denial of the true nature of the world and that seeing the creatures conflicts with one’s deeply held beliefs (which takes on a whole new significance when you consider that the man was an extreme racist and xenophobe even by the standards of his day), not that the monster is just that scary.
The most influential horror writers of all time. His novels have had a tremendous impact on a huge chunk of the genre: literature as well as cinematography and video games. and appealing. Lovecraft is known as the father of cosmic horror, at that time, a new category in the horror genre.
Lovecraft is considered to be one of the most influential horror authors of the twentieth century. His writing and style have been instrumental in inspiring writers in all fields, not to mention many imitators. Notable authors who have owed their success and inspiration to Lovecraft include Alan Moore, Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Robert E. Howard (the creator of Conan the Barbarian), to name just a few. Howard and Lovecraft were actually good friends in life and collaborated on more than one story together.
When Lovecraft was 5 years old he was given a cat with a racial epithet for a name. Being 5, it’s doubtful that he named it, but that it was named by his parents or other adult relatives. He owned it until he was 14. He never owned another animal, but he did make friends with many strays, which he gave such names as “Little Sam Perkins” and “Old Man”. He invented a fraternity for the strays to belong to and filled his letters with the antics of the members of the Kappa Alpha Tau (Kompson Ailouron Taxis, or Company of Elegant Cats). While there can be no question that HPL had racist beliefs, I don’t think the name of his childhood cat can be laid at his door, and he never called any other cat by an epithet name, though he did put the pet of his youth in two stories, THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD and THE RATS IN THE WALLS.