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Knowing the unknown, solving mysteries and finding out the correct pieces to a puzzle has always driven mankind in the quest of discovery and exploration, sometimes physically and sometimes with vivid imaginations. Howard Phillips Lovecraft or H.P. Lovecraft was a man of the second category.
Born on August 20th, 1890, Lovecraft was an American writer. But what made him stand out from the crowd? While you were just a child did you ever imagine what will happen if there was really a demon hiding under the bed or in your closet? Now imagine the same situation but as an adult. The demon under your bed has taken a new form and one night it comes out from its hiding and looks at you with its gloomy yellow eyes, waiting for your soul to leave your body. Does this imagination give you goosebumps? Then wait till you have read some of Lovecraft’s stories.
One day I came across a podcast of H.P. Lovecraft. The name was new to me so I thought of giving it a try and that day I realized what horror actually is about. Featuring cannibalism, gruesome murders, otherworldly beings, etc Lovecraft’s stories are bound to increase your anxiety level to such an extent where you will find it difficult to read further but still can’t stop yourself from reading more. His words are so captivating that while reading or listening, your worst nightmares will start appearing in front of your eyes and the end will leave you craving more every time.
The first real-life horror that Lovecraft himself faced was poverty followed by intestine cancer. What many readers including me didn’t notice is the truth hidden in the dusty pages of his books. The pain, and the cruelty, that he witnessed around him, all came meandering up in his mind forming unexplainable images.
But like other writers of that era, his stories and conspiracy theories faced a lot of criticisms. His first story was The Nameless City and the most famous is The Call of Cthulhu, which later on was launched as a survival game. Lovecraft’s books are available in Amazon in both paperback and Kindle format.
So what are you waiting for? Turn the pages of his books but don’t turn off the lights, because you never know what is waiting for you in the darkness.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature
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