Using the substance of colour itself as the cause and manifestation of a disturbing reality is perhaps the most original feature of this tale. This arrangement reflects the story itself, in which the falling star gradually poisons the soil, then the plants, then the animals, then the people, and finally leads on to a blasphemous outlook on a fiendish cosmos. Deeper still, Lovecraft shapes the structure of his plot like a Russian doll, instilling a feeling of step-by-step descent into a realm of intensifying horror. Still, one of Lovecraft’s trademarks (borrowed from Mary Shelley, Edgar Poe, Henry James and others) is to ground his insane stories in material assumptions and provide as many concrete details and particulars as possible - in this case, in the form of a month-by-month chronicle -, to convey a sense of reality and authenticity. The whole thing is a nightmarish invention about some strange alien meteorite fallen from the sky that poisons the well water near a farm and dramatically disrupts the peaceful lives of a few locals. As so often with HPL’s stories, this one takes place around Arkham, an imaginary town in Massachusetts, and involves scientists from Miskatonic University, fictional as well. He wrote it at the height of his career, in between The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror. The Colour Out of Space ( Amazing Stories, 1927) is probably Lovecraft’s most striking and famous tale. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.Īlthough Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity.

Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

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