His father, a traveling salesman who suffered from syphilis, died in 1898 following five years of institutionalization for general paresis, a type of paralysis. His grandfather, who was the dominant intellectual influence on his life, died in 1904. There followed poor financial management of the family's holdings, with the result that Lovecraft and his mother, Sarah Phillips Lovecraft, were forced to abandon the Phillips family mansion for more meager accommodations in a nearby duplex. The house left a mark on him, however: "Here I spent the best years of my childhood," he would later write. "The house was a beautiful and spacious edifice, with stable and grounds, the latter approaching a park in the beauty of the walk and trees." Critics and commentators on his work in later years would site that environment as a prominent and powerful element of and influence on the author's work.
Lovecraft was a sickly child, possibly because of a nervous, overprotective mother who doted on her only son. Whatever the reason for his illness, the result was that Lovecraft attended school only sporadically.
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