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Peter H. Cannon (born 1951 in California) is an H. P. Lovecraft scholar and an author of Cthulhu Mythos fiction. Cannon works as an editor for Publishers Weekly , specializing in thrillers and mystery. He lives in New York City and is married with three children.
Cannon first made his name as a critic in H. P. Lovecraft studies with his graduate theses written in the 1970s - A Case for Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Honors thesis, Stanford, 1973) and Lovecraft's New England (M.A. thesis, Brown University, June 1974). Lovecraft's Old Men appeared in a mailing of the Esoteric Order of Dagon in 1977; another by him, "You Have Been in Providence, I Perceive", published in Nyctalops (March 1978), studies the influences of Sherlock Holmes upon Lovecraft. Another article re: the Sherlock Holmes/Lovecraft influence, "Parallel Passages in 'The Adventure of the Copper Beeches' and 'The Picture in the House'" was published in Lovecraft Studies 1, No 1 (Fall 1979).
Two essays on Lovecraft appear in S.T. Joshi's critical anthology H.P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism (1980), respectively examining the influence of Vathek and of Nathaniel Hawthorne upon Lovecraft. Cannon later published a definitive critical study on Lovecraft, H.P. Lovecraft (Twayne's US Authors Series No 549, 1989).
Cannon's writings on Lovecraft include the books The Chronology Out of Time: Dates in the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and Sunset Terrace Imagery in Lovecraft (both from Necronomicon Press). He edited Lovecraft Remembered (Arkham House, 1998), a collection of reminiscences by friends and acquaintances of Lovecraft, and co-edited More Annotated Lovecraft with S. T. Joshi.
He also wrote a personal memoir about another writer in the Lovecraft Circle, Long Memories: Recollections of Frank Belknap Long (British Fantasy Society, 1997).
Cannon's column "The Cannonical Lovecraft" appeared in The New Lovecraft Collector (Necronomicon Press) in issues 12-26 inclusive (Fall 1995-Spring 1999). Occasional critical articles on the weird fiction genre still appear, e.g. Better Than Half a Yard I Think: Arthur Machen and Real Tennis in Faunus: The Journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen (Autumn, 2000).
Cannon provides the Introduction to The Essential H.P. Lovecraft (Knickerbocker Classics/Race Point Books, 2016) and to Leigh Blackmore's collection Horrors of Sherlock Holmes (R'lyeh Texts, 2017)
His fiction includes Pulptime (W,. Paul Ganley, Publisher), in which Lovecraft, Long and Sherlock Holmes team up to solve a mystery; Scream for Jeeves: A Parody (Wodecraft Press, 1994), which retells some of Lovecraft's stories in the voice of P. G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster. An omnibus of these two titles has been issued as The Lovecraft Papers (Science Fiction Book Club, 1996); this contains the corrected/expanded version of Pulptime.
He has also penned Lovecraft Chronicles (Subterranean Press, 2008), a novel based on Lovecraft's personal life. Later stories are collected Forever Azathoth and Other Horrors (Tartarus Press, 1999; rev. ed. Subterranean Press, 2011 (as Forever Azathoth: Pastiches and Parodies); rev. ed. Hippocampus Press, 2012 (as Forever Azathoth: Parodies and Pastiches). He has also issued The Sky Garden (a chapbook; Richmond, VA: Dementia, 1989) and Episode of Pulptime and One Other (W. Paul Ganley: publisher, 2003 - two stories, one Lovecraftian, the other a story called "Vid" in which Count Dracula attempts to land a publishing contract. According to the copyright page of Episode of Pulptime & One Other, the edition was limited to 150 signed, numbered copies, of which "several" were bound in hardcover.
He has also written several short stories in the Cthulhu Mythos genre, often with an element of parody. These include "Azathoth in Arkham" and "The Revenge of Azathoth", two sequels to "The Thing on the Doorstep"; "The Undercliffe Sentences", a takeoff on Ramsey Campbell; and "The Madness Out of Space", originally presented as a "lost" story by Lovecraft. Numerous other similar stories are collected in two chapbooks - The Thing in the Bathtub and Other Lovecraftian Tales: The Early Cannon Volume One (Tsathoggua Press, 1997) and its companion volume Tales of Lovecraftian Horror and Humor: The Early Cannon Volume Two (Tsathoggua Press, 1997). The latter contains a checklist of Cannon's tales between 1979 and 1995.
Cannon's story "The Letters of Halpin Chalmers", a direct sequel to Frank Belknap Long's "The Hounds of Tindalos", in which the main characters are thinly disguised versions of Frank and Lyda Long, appears in Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg, 100 Crooked Little Crime Stories (NY: Barnes and Noble, 1994).
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August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the cosmic horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House, Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography.
The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name Cthulhu derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928.
Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, this creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in a shape like a green octopus, dragon, and a caricature of human form. Its name was given to the Lovecraft-inspired universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, where it exists with its fellow entities.
Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in Arkham, a fictional town in Essex County, Massachusetts. It is named after the Miskatonic River. After first appearing in H. P. Lovecraft's 1922 story "Herbert West–Reanimator", the school appeared in numerous Cthulhu Mythos stories by Lovecraft and other writers. The story "The Dunwich Horror" implies that Miskatonic University is a highly prestigious university, on par with Harvard University, and that Harvard and Miskatonic are the two most popular schools for the children of the Massachusetts "Old Gentry". The university also appears in role-playing games and board games based on the mythos.
Arkham House is an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The colophon for Arkham House was designed by Frank Utpatel.
"The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in February 1928.
Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of writer H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. He is the ruler of the Outer Gods, and may be seen as a symbol for primordial chaos.
Tsathoggua is a supernatural entity in the Cthulhu Mythos shared fictional universe. He is the creation of American writer Clark Ashton Smith and is part of his Hyperborean cycle.
Frank Belknap Long was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
The Hyperborean cycle is a series of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith that take place in the fictional prehistoric setting of Hyperborea. Smith's cycle takes cues from his friends, H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard and their works. Lovecraft wrote to Smith in a letter dated 3 December 1929: "I must not delay in expressing my well-nigh delirious delight at The Tale of Satampra Zeiros [Smith's short story]... [W]hat an atmosphere! I can see & feel & smell the jungle around immemorial Commoriom, which I am sure must lie buried today in glacial ice near Olathoe, in the Land of Lomar!". Soon afterward, Lovecraft included Smith's Tsathoggua in the story "The Mound", ghostwritten for Zelia Reed in December 1929. Lovecraft also mentioned Tsathoggua in "The Whisperer in Darkness", which he began on February 24, 1930. Because Smith in turn borrowed numerous Lovecraftian elements, the cycle itself may be regarded as a branch of the Cthulhu Mythos. In a letter to August Derleth dated 26 July 1944, Smith wrote: "In common with other weird tales writers, I have ... made a few passing references to some of the Lovecraftian deities. My Hyperborean tales, it seems to me, with their primordial, prehuman and sometimes premundane background and figures, are the closest to the Cthulhu Mythos, but most of them are written in a vein of grotesque humor that differentiates them vastly. However, such a tale as "The Coming of the White Worm" might be regarded as a direct contribution to the Mythos.".
Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror" is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror film, horror games and comics.
The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-Go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.
"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales.
"Azathoth" is the beginning of a never-completed novel written by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in June 1922 and published as a fragment in the journal Leaves in 1938, after Lovecraft's death. It is the first piece of fiction to mention the fictional being Azathoth, one of the major entities in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, though the entity only appears in the title.
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
Joseph Vernon Shea (1912–1981) was an American author of horror, fantasy, poetry, and essays; and a correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and August Derleth.
Move Under Ground is a horror novel mashup by American writer Nick Mamatas, which combines the Beat style of Jack Kerouac with the cosmic horror of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It is available as a free download via a Creative Commons license, CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 according to the License information in the CC version of the book.
American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) created a number of fictional deities throughout the course of his literary career. These entities are usually depicted as immensely powerful and utterly indifferent to humans who can barely begin to comprehend them, though some entities are worshipped by humans. These deities include the "Great Old Ones" and extraterrestrials, such as the "Elder Things", with sporadic references to other miscellaneous deities. The "Elder Gods" are a later creation of other prolific writers who expanded on Lovecraft's concepts, such as August Derleth, who was credited with formalizing the Cthulhu Mythos. Most of these deities were Lovecraft's original creations, but he also adapted words or concepts from earlier writers such as Ambrose Bierce, and later writers in turn used Lovecraft's concepts and expanded his fictional universe.
Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows is a mystery novel by James Lovegrove. It is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that involves H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It is the first book in the Cthulhu Casebooks trilogy. The second novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities, was released in November 2017 and the third, Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils, in November 2018.
Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils is a mystery novel by James Lovegrove. It is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that involves H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It is the third and final book in The Cthulhu Casebooks trilogy following Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows and Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities.
