The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.

And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

This is what HP Lovecraft wrote in his essay,

Supernatural Horror in Literature,

first published in 1927.

And if there's one thing HP Lovecraft knew about,

it was fear.

The man lived in fear, afraid of his neighbors,

afraid of the world changing around him,

afraid of losing his sanity,

maybe even afraid of the mysterious monsters he wrote about.

He sure knew how to write about monsters that scared others.

He knew how to create monsters that were so terrifying,

they become the basis for monsters and film and TV,

nearly a century after he wrote about them.

He knew how to blend details about the normal world we know

with the details of a fictional world

just beyond our comprehension that he made seem all too real.

He knew how to make us doubt our perception of reality

and our ability to use words to describe things.

HP Lovecraft was a master at mysterious,

deeply unsettling horror.

...