In what year was H.P. Lovecraft born?

H. P. Lovecraft was born in 1890. His full name was Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and he was born on 20 August 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Lovecraft grew up in a family with English ancestry and was largely educated at home after his father was institutionalised. His grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, encouraged his early interest in literature, astronomy and the Gothic tradition. Lovecraft began writing juvenile stories and essays as a child, but his later reputation came from supernatural horror fiction published in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales.

He lived most of his adult life in poverty and was little known outside specialist readers during his lifetime. His reputation expanded dramatically after his death in 1937, and his invented settings, entities and themes helped shape what is now called the Cthulhu Mythos. A common mix-up is confusing his birth year with the year of his death: Lovecraft died in 1937, aged 46.