His Own Most Fantastic Creation

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), the pioneering writer of weird fiction, has himself become an icon in popular culture. Stories, novels, and other works featuring the gaunt, lantern-jawed gentleman from Providence, Rhode Island, have proliferated. These works have been triggered by the incredible amount of knowledge we have on the writer-his family, his friends, his idiosyncrasies and eccentricities-as found in his thousands of surviving letters. This anthology takes the figure of Lovecraft and enmeshes him in a series of bizarre and supernatural adventures. Darrell Schweitzer focuses on Lovecraft's childhood, when he was plagued with dreams of 'night-gaunts' and was left bereft by the early death of his father. John Shirley depicts Lovecraft as a gawky teenager evolving his notions of 'cosmicism,' while Scott Wiley emphasises Lovecraft's devotion to cats. Stephen Woodworth and Donald R. Burleson ring changes on the Lovecraftian theme of personality exchange. Lovecraft famously