洛夫克拉夫特於1890年8月20日早上9点出生在美國普罗维登斯安格爾街（英语：Angell Street）194号（现454号）的家宅里。他是珠宝推销员温菲尔德·斯科特·洛夫克拉夫特（Winfield Scott Lovecraft）与其妻莎拉·苏珊·菲利普斯·洛夫克拉夫特（Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft）的獨生子。可追溯到的母系祖先于1630年抵达马萨诸塞湾殖民地。他的父母在30岁左右才成婚，且双方都是初次结婚，这在当时并不常见。1893年，洛夫克拉夫特三岁时，他的父亲在推销旅行途中於芝加哥的一家旅馆精神失常，其后被送往普罗维登斯的巴特勒医院；老洛夫克拉夫特在那里一直待到1898年过世。洛夫克拉夫特一生都坚称父亲发疯的原因是工作过度引起的“神经衰弱”，但是现代观点认为其父失常的真正原因是麻痹性痴呆[6]。洛夫克拉夫特到底是否了解父亲的疾病及其真正成因（梅毒），今天已无从稽考，但他的母亲很可能曾使用过含砷的酊剂（当时治疗梅毒的常用药物）作为“预防药物”。
洛夫克拉夫特的外祖父惠普尔·范·布伦
在父亲住院后，洛夫克拉夫特由母亲、两个姨母（莉莉安·德萝拉·菲利普斯与安妮·埃米丽妮·菲利普斯，Lillian Delora Phillips & Annie Emeline Phillips）以及商人外祖父惠普尔·范·布伦·菲利普斯（Whipple Van Buren Phillips）照看，五人住在一间屋子里。洛夫克拉夫特小时候就表现出与众不同的文學天赋，他三岁时即能背诵诗歌，六岁时已能写出完整的诗篇。他的外祖父经常給他一些文学经典鼓励他阅读（如《一千零一夜》，布尔芬奇的《神话时代》，还有儿童版本的《伊利亚特》与《奥德赛》）。他的外祖父也時常向洛夫克拉夫特讲述一些自编的哥特式恐怖故事，這引起了他对怪奇小说的兴趣。不过，洛夫克拉夫特的母亲时常担心这些故事会给他带来不良影响。
大约9岁时的洛夫克拉夫特
洛夫克拉夫特童年时经常患病，虽然他总是将原因歸咎于自己身体孱弱，但其中有一些疾病可以肯定为心身疾病。早前的猜测认为他在胎儿时从父母处感染了梅毒，但这种看法现已被摒弃。由于身体状况和好斗的天性，洛夫克拉夫特在八岁前基本没有接受过学校教育，八岁时入学一年后又旋即退学。这一时期他广泛地阅读各类书籍，对化学和天文学展现了浓厚的兴趣。他於1899年起自己編輯出版了几期胶版印刷刊物《科学公报》（The Scientific Gazette）。四年后，他進入當地的霍普街高中（英语：Hope High School (Rhode Island)））就读。一般认为洛夫克拉夫特早年患有夜驚（一种睡眠疾病）；他相信自己曾被恐怖的“暗夜幽灵”袭击过。他很多作品的灵感可能都来自于这一时期受到的惊吓。
母亲去世后数月，洛夫克拉夫特前往波士顿参加一次业余记者集会，会上他遇見了索尼娅·格林。索尼娅出生于1883年，比洛夫克拉夫特年长7岁，她的祖先是乌克兰裔犹太人。两人於1924年结婚，婚后移居至纽约布鲁克林。洛夫克拉夫特的姨母們对这场婚姻不甚满意，因为她们不希望洛夫克拉夫特娶一个商人为妻（索尼娅开有一间帽店）。婚姻伊始，洛夫克拉夫特被纽约的生活彻底迷住，但很快夫妇两人就遇到了财务危机。索尼娅变卖了帽店，其後又出现了健康问题。由於洛夫克拉夫特的薪水不足供两人開銷，他的妻子不得不搬到克利夫兰求职。此后洛夫克拉夫特独自一人住在布鲁克林的雷德胡克社区，逐渐对纽约生活起了厌恶之情[7]。而在移民大潮中无法找到任何工作这一严峻的现实，与他對自身盎格魯-撒克遜人血統的認同相抵触，這激起了他的种族主义观点，具體体现在了他的短篇故事《雷德胡克恐怖事件（英语：The Horror at Red Hook）》（The Horror at Red Hook）之中[8]。
洛夫克拉夫特和他父母一起葬於菲利普斯家族墓地。1977年，他的一个读者团体出资为他在天鹅角（Swan Point）重修了一座坟墓，墓碑上刻了洛夫克拉夫特的姓名、出生与死亡日期，以及一句话：“I AM PROVIDENCE”（雙關語，可译为“我是普罗维登斯人”或“吾乃天命之人”），这句话出自他的私人信件。
Wilson, Colin. The Strength to Dream: Literature and the Imagination. : 8. ISBN 1600250203. He hated modern civilization, particularly its confident belief in progress and science.
King quoted on front cover of 1982 paperback edition of The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre published by Del Rey Books with introduction by Robert Bloch. Other sources quote King as calling this judgement of Lovecraft "undeniable"[1] （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） or "beyond doubt."[2] （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）
This situation is closely paralleled in the semi-autobiographical "He", as noted by Michel Houellebecq in 'H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
"The Woman Who Invented Dark Fantasy" by Gary C. Hoppenstand from Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy by Francis Stevens, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, page xiv. ISBN 978-0-8032-9298-7
The Strange Sound of Cthulhu: Music Inspired by the Writings of H. P. Lovecraft ( ISBN 978-1-84728-776-2), written by Gary Hill
Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe (ISBN 978-0-8131-1728-7), by Donald R. Burleson, PhD, a longtime scholar on Lovecraft and acquaintance of S. T. Joshi, is probably the only book analyzing Lovecraft's literature from a deconstructionist standpoint. University Press of Kentucky, November 1990.
The Gentleman From Angell Street: Memories of H. P. Lovecraft ( ISBN 978-0-9701699-1-4), written by Muriel and C. M. Eddy, Jr. is a collection of personal remembrances and anecdotes from two of Lovecraft's closest friends in Providence. The Eddys were fellow writers, and Mr. Eddy was a frequent contributor to Weird Tales.
Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos (ISBN 978-0-586-04166-6), written by Lin Carter in 1972, is a survey of Lovecraft's work (along with that of other members of the Lovecraft Circle) with considerable information on his life.
The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos by S.T. Joshi (Mythos Books, 2008) is the first full-length critical study since Lin Carter's to examine the development of Lovecraft's Mythos and its outworking in the oeuvres of various modern writers.
The first full-length biography was Lovecraft: a Biography (ISBN 978-0-345-25115-2), written by L. Sprague de Camp; published in 1975, it is now out of print.
Frank Belknap Long's Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside (Arkham House, 1975, ISBN 978-0-87054-068-4) presents a more personal look at Lovecraft's life, combining reminiscence, biography, and literary criticism. Long was a friend and correspondent of Lovecraft, as well as a fellow fantasist who wrote a number of Lovecraft-influenced Cthulhu Mythos stories (including The Hounds of Tindalos).
A newer, more extensive biography is H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (ISBN 978-0-940884-88-5) written by Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi. An alternative is Joshi's abridged A Dreamer & A Visionary: H. P. Lovecraft in His Time (ISBN 978-0-85323-946-8). An unabridged reprint in two volumes of Joshi's biography is forthcoming in 2010 from Hippocampus Press.
An English translation of Michel Houellebecq's H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (ISBN 978-1-932416-18-3) was published by Believer Books in 2005.
Other significant Lovecraft-related works are An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia by Joshi and David S. Schulz; Lovecraft's Library: A Catalogue (a meticulous listing of many of the books in Lovecraft's now scattered library), by Joshi; Lovecraft at Last, an account by Willis Conover of his teenage correspondence with Lovecraft; Joshi's A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft.
Andrew Migliore and John Strysik's Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft and Charles P. Mitchell's The Complete H. P. Lovecraft Filmography both discuss films containing Lovecraftian elements.
Lovecraft's prose fiction has been published numerous times. The "corrected texts" were released by Arkham House in the 1980s, and many other collections of his stories have appeared, including Ballantine Books editions and three popular Del Rey editions. The three collections published by Penguin, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, and The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, incorporate the modifications made in the corrected texts as well as the annotations provided by Joshi.
Lovecraft's ghost-written works are compiled in The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions, edited again by Joshi.
Some of Lovecraft's writings, however, are annotated with footnotes or endnotes. In addition to the Penguin editions mentioned above and The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature, Joshi has produced The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft as well as More Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, both of which are footnoted extensively.
The Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft by Timo Airaksinen is a study of Lovecraft's use of language to analyze the psychology of Lovecraft's writings.
An Epicure in the Terrible (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991), edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi is an anthology of 13 essays on Lovecraft (excluding Joshi's lengthy introduction)on the centennial of Lovecraft's birth. The essays are arranged into 3 sections; Biographical, Thematic Studies and Comparative and Genre Studies. The authors include S. T. Joshi, Kenneth W. Faig, Jr, Jason C. Eckhardt, Will Murray, Donald R. Burleson, Peter Cannon, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Steven J. Mariconda, David E. Schultz, Robert H. Waugh, Robert M. Price, R. Boerem, Norman R. Gatford and Barton Levi St. Armand.
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown is a feature length documentary that looks at the life, work and mind behind the Cthulhu mythos. The film features interviews with Guillermo Del Toro, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Ramsey Campbell, Stuart Gordon, S.T. Joshi, Robert M. Price and Andrew Migliore. Written & Directed by Frank H. Woodward. Produced by William Janczewski, James B. Myers, and Woodward. Lovecraft won Best Documentary at the 2008 Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival.
美国罗得岛州普罗维登斯
美国罗得岛州普罗维登斯
