Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born August 20, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, a setting that he used for much of his fiction. His high-strung father was a traveling salesman who went insane in 1893 and eventually died in 1898. His mother seems to have gone dotty from the strain of her husband's illness; later, grief compounded her already neurotic behavior. She treated her son like a daughter, making him wear short pants and a girlish hairstyle until he was six. Smothered by his overly protective mother, aunts, and grandparents, he had a nervous breakdown while in high school. He lived with two of his aunts for most of his adult life and was dependent on them for emotional support.

Lovecraft was a lonely boy who occupied his time by reading books and fantasizing. As a teen-ager, he began writing stories for his own amusement, and throughout his life...