H. P. Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1890. He was self-educated and lived in his birthplace all his life, working as a freelance writer, journalist, and ghostwriter. His best work - including some sixty or so short stories - was published from 1923 onwards in the pulp magazine Weird Tales. He died in 1937, in poverty and virtually unknown; today he is recognized as one of the great masters of supernatural fiction.