H.P. Lovecraft in Popular Culture: The Works and Their Adaptations in Film, Television, Comics, Music and Games

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born late in the nineteenth century, but it was not until after his death in 1937 that he became a worldwide icon of horror and supernatural fiction. Influenced largely by Lord Dunsany and Edgar Allen Poe, Lovecraft’s stories are known for their unique assimilation of gothic themes into the science fiction genre. For this reason Lovecraft is considered as valuable to the twentieth century as gothic novelists and Romantic poets were to the eighteenth century. Lovecraft’s influence has stretched far beyond the literary horror genre, however. A number of his works have been adapted for feature films, television episodes, comic book tales and, in recent years, video games. This scholarly study of Lovecraft’s work highlights his profound impact on popular twentieth century culture. Early chapters introduce the complete writings of H.P. Lovecraft, providing an annotated bibliography of the author’s horror and science fiction tales. The works are discussed in the context of the Cthulhu Mythos, an invented mythology centering on ancient and alien beings interacting with the terrestrial world.~ Later chapters provide a filmography of motion pictures that credit Lovecraft or are identifiably adapted from his works, as well as a discussion of the works that have been adapted for television, comic books, role-playing video games, and modern musical endeavors. The book concludes with a close examination of the Lovecraft legacy, commenting on his specific social and metaphysical ideologies and placing the author in context among such notable literary personalities as Mary Shelley, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Robert Louis Stevenson.