THE UNCANNY AFTERLIFE OF H.P. LOVECRAFT

EDMUND WILSON, THEN one of America’s top literary critics, took to the pages of The New Yorker in 1945 to denounce a dead horror writer named H.P. Lovecraft. “The only real horror in most of these fictions,” Wilson sniffed, “is the horror of bad taste and bad art.” Wilson was outraged at the thought that Lovecraft, who had died, broke, in 1937, might enjoy posthumous success thanks to the recent publication of his collected writings. These stories, Wilson declared, “were hack-work contributed to such publications as Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, where, in my opinion, they ought to have been left.”

Wilson was a big deal in his day, the sort of critic whose reviews could help make or break an author’s career. But he was simply no match for Lovecraft, who would enjoy the last laugh from beyond the grave. Today, Wilson is largely forgotten and Lovecraft is practically everywhere, his DNA spread far and wide throughout American popular culture.

Perhaps you’re familiar with Lovecraft’s most enduring creation, the towering, tentacle-faced elder god Cthulhu, who lies slumbering deep in his oceanic tomb, waiting for the day when “the stars are right” so that he may rise