Where did you first discover Lovecraft?

[csmithadair]

I'd already answered this question by way of answering the one about how I discovered Call of Cthulhu, but I'll expand slightly. I was vaguely aware of Lovecraft before I first read him. Actually, I was first aware of his creations through the first printing of Deities and Demigods. The hints in there were compelling. In the mid-80s, I began to see advertisements for the game, which is probably how I first heard the name; I knew very little about the horror genre at that point. As my curiosity was piqued, my school library got a copy of the latest printing of Lurking Fear and Other Stories from Del Rey. I stared at the Whelan cover for a moment and checked it out. I spent the day in school feverishly reading it. More books appeared on the new books cart in rapid succession, and I read them at the same pace.

I'm not sure what my relationship to horror would be without my youthful obsession with Lovecraft. Certainly it would be different, if not practically nonexistent.

[AnaWE]

When I was very young I discovered the Forbidden Gateway gamebooks (I still love them even today).

I got very excited about them and that's when my mom told me, after looking at them, that they were based on the BRP and CoC. She had the game and some supplements that she bought the year of my birth (the stars must have been right or something lol) and she made me play my first game (The Haunting). I think I was 8 or 9. Then it was The Fungi From Yuggoth. Then Masks. Then Trail of Tsathoggua and we finished with Spawn Of Azathoth. Damn I love my mom!

I read all the CoC books she had and started to buy my own, as well as some HPL. But I couldn't understand Lovecraft's prose very well back then.

It took me about 3 years before I found interested gamers and become a Keeper myself. Damn you D&D!!!

I also began watching Stuart Gordon's take on Lovecraft as well as other movies like The Resurrected, The Unnamable 1&2, etc.

And of course I also read lots of the other authors that tackled the Mythos.

I remember my first Lovecraft story, it was From Beyond.

[NeferSutekh]

I guess that my first experience with Lovecraft was in 10th-11th grade English class in the early 1980s, when I read "The Haunter of the Dark". At the time, I knew nothing of the man or the Cthulhu mythos, but still remember that the story made quite an impression on me. In much later years, I would go on to read all of his other stories...and eventually write some CoC game scenarios myself.

[Anchorhead]

It would have been in the early 90's in a Swedish scifi-periodical called Jules Verne-magasinet that had a special Lovecraft issue with some short stories translated. Later I found "The lurker at the threshold" and really liked it, but have since then found out that not much of that one was actually written by Lovecraft himself (Derleth based it on some fragments left by HPL)

[Ruth]

I'd heard a bit about Lovecraft/Cthulhu through popular culture (I was born in '85, so it was getting into the mainstream culture by then) but didn't read any until summer of 2009 when I was on a major Neil Gaiman kick. Reading some of the essays he wrote about his stories, I realized how much some of them were influenced by Lovecraft or (for ones like "Old Shoggoth's Peculiar") directly referenced Lovecraft. So, I had to read Lovecraft. The timing coincided perfectly with the start of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and I just ran with it from there. Led me into making Cthulhus, Lovecraft ebook, and all kinds of tentacular adventures.

[dodo]

Late in life, i'd say -I was 16 or 17. It was in an anthology of tales of terror that I found The Whisperer in Darkness; I was sold from page 1. I've been coming back to HPL throughout my reading life and every time I re-read him I find something different "to take home". The latest is a solid determination to re-instate the Shoggoths in their Rightful Place in the Great Disorder of Things.

[Iamthewayfarer]

I have a love/hate relationship with HPL (don't we all?), and I ran across him when I was seventeen years old. My friend mentioned him to me as his font of inspiration, so I decided to check him out. Once I got past the purple prose and all the implicit racism, I was hooked. The first story I read was The Rats in the Walls, and I maintain that it is his best story. The Colour Out of Space is second, and The Call of Cthulhu is third.

[hopfrog]

I have a love/hate relationship with HPL (don't we all?), and I ran across him when I was seventeen years old. My friend mentioned him to me as his font of inspiration, so I decided to check him out. Once I got past the purple prose and all the implicit racism, I was hooked. The first story I read was The Rats in the Walls, and I maintain that it is his best story. The Colour Out of Space is second, and The Call of Cthulhu is third.

My relationship with Lovecraft is love/love! I am an utter H. P. Lovecraft fanboy, and I read his fiction incessantly. It's not only his fiction that enthralls me, but the study of his fiction by Lovecraft scholars, who reveal aspects of HPL's work that I wou'd never notice on my own. This excitement for Lovecraft has lasted for 40 years, and it grows stronger and stronger as I age. He is Eternal indeed!

[BaneOfNyarlathotep]

I have a love/hate relationship with HPL (don't we all?), and I ran across him when I was seventeen years old. My friend mentioned him to me as his font of inspiration, so I decided to check him out. Once I got past the purple prose and all the implicit racism, I was hooked. The first story I read was The Rats in the Walls, and I maintain that it is his best story. The Colour Out of Space is second, and The Call of Cthulhu is third.

I wasn't really paying attention during The Rats in the Walls. I was too busy snickering every time he mentioned the cat's name because it was so ridiculous.

[hopfrog]

I wasn't really paying attention during The Rats in the Walls. I was too busy snickering every time he mentioned the cat's name because it was so ridiculous.

Nigger-Man was the name of Lovecraft's childhood pet, whom he loved deeply and who vanished after the family was forced to move. HPL never owned another cat. I think he used the name in the story as a way of remembering the only cat he ever owned, whom he loved.

[Iamthewayfarer]

Nigger-Man was the name of Lovecraft's childhood pet, whom he loved deeply and who vanished after the family was forced to move. HPL never owned another cat. I think he used the name in the story as a way of remembering the only cat he ever owned, whom he loved.

I was actually going to say that. So, thank you for pointing that out. I don't know about the "never owned another cat" part, but I did know he was quite fond of him. As an aside, I've been trying to read his poetry and the scholarly works on him too - I'm actually going to write a paper on Lovecraft in one of my college courses next semester. It doesn't matter if its a Poe class, Lovecraft will work.

[deuce]

The Weekly Reader collection, ca. 1979.

[Follmann]

I have been a deranged cultist only for a couple years now. For most of my adolescence (not that long ago, I'm 21) I read basically only fantasy. I can't really remember where I first heard about Lovecraft, as today there are many references to his work in popular culture. But I really got interested when two friends of mine, one of which is majoring in literature, started talking about it. Then we all went to read the stories, watch some movies, and so on... And I'm the one that got the most hooked into it. After reading almost all of Lovecraft's tales (I just can't stand the Dream Cycle), I started looking for his inspirations and successors, and the roleplaying games, of course. Albeit a very recent journey compared to most, it's being awesome so far.

[Hemplow]

I came to Lovecraft, what, 20 years ago, via references by more mainstream authors, death metal lyrics, and really digging the cover art for tCoC rule books that were advertised in magazines I read.

[Sjroby]

New forum member here. I first read about HPL in 1975 in Lin Carter's book Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings, which discussed The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath as a "what to read next" suggestion. Then more mentions of him in introductions to books by Robert E. Howard, who I started reading circa 1978. And then I picked up the October 1979 Lovecraft issue of Heavy Metal. In December 1979 I decided it was time to buy an actual HPL book, so I got The Doom That Came to Sarnath and Other Stories, only to learn from the introduction that the stories therein were considered his weaker stuff and they weren't generally connected to the Cthulhu stuff... and I loved the book anyway, and began decades of reading Lovecraftiana.