Happy Death Day to HP Lovecraft.

I am a Lovecraft fan. Lovecraft, who died unexpectedly, early and, most unfortunately, never knowing the power of what he created, died effectively penniless and convinced he was a failure. His first book (A Shunned House) had been printed, but not published when he died. As a result, though there are MANY letters by him (he was a prolific letter writer, as many as 20 letters a day) there is only ONE copy of an inscribed book...a set of loose signatures of Shunned House (shown here).

I will not rant about HPL (others do it so well). I will simply state that he died far too young (46) and thank him for creating a genre. I can not recommend reading his cannon highly enough (or early enough, I give Baby's First Mythos as shower gifts (thanks Nate)). I'll leave you to reflect on his passing with the opening paragraph of "The Call of Cthulu".

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.