H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of horror stories. He did not achieve any significant fame during his lifetime, but has posthumously become an extremely influential author of his time period. Growing up, Lovecraft suffered from night terrors, which would later inspire some of his fiction. He was a reclusive adult – a night owl who lived with his mother. After writing into the pulp magazine The Argosy , he gained the attention of Edward F. Daas (President of the United Amateur Press Association), who encouraged him to start writing poems and essays. Sadly, he lived out his final days in immense pain due to small intestine cancer and malnutrition. Stephen King referred to Lovecraft as “the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”