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...
Source: Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults, ©1999 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 490 words.)
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