The Cosmic Horror Subgenre, Explained

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Human beings have been coming up with stories to scare each other for longer than any written history could ever chronicle, and a lot of unique styles have developed in that time. Sometimes, through a unique series of circumstances, one very specific type of story finds itself tied inextricably to one name, even as it grows far beyond its original bounds.

H. P. Lovecraft penned 65 works of fiction, with an additional 34 written in collaboration or as a ghost behind another author's name. Though his brief 46-year lifespan saw no significant return in fame or fortune for his work, scholars working in the 1970s and beyond have placed him amongst the most important names in American literature.

5 Hidden Horror Gems Inspired By H.P. Lovecraft

Everyone knows Lovecraft's name today, most people probably either knew or were someone who was almost problematically obsessed with him in high school. The author has an almost ethereal mythos that surrounds him as the father of both a groundbreaking style of literature and an attendant philosophical movement. As with most achievements credited to a single man, however, the unique style of Lovecraft was influenced by a few key earlier writers.

Algernon Blackwood was referenced by name by the author, and his 1907 novella The Willows has many of the hallmarks of Lovecraft's developments. Though more terrestrially focused, the works of Edgar Allan Poe have a substantial impact on Lovecraft's philosophy. Like most movements in literature, cosmic horror and cosmicism were the collaborative work of many great creators, which were perfected only by the one who brought everything together.

Cosmic horror eschews the traditional threat of death that underpins most horror. No serial murderers, no