History

 

Here is a timeline of H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction, covering the period 1916 through 1944, including work that was published posthumously.  (Lovecraft died in 1937.)  Publication dates of his various works of fiction are juxtaposed with the work of some of his contemporaries, as well as some important historical or cultural events from the same time period. 

The listings cannot be exhaustive—so much was happening in the country at this point in history.  We can only speculate about factors which may have influenced Lovecraft and his career in weird fiction.  Hopefully this table will provide some context for readers interested in his writing .

I hope to update this timeline with additional detail or corrections as they become available.  If you know of significant literary, cultural or historical material that I have overlooked, I would be happy to include it here.

Year	H.P. Lovecraft	Contemporaries	Current Events
1916	The Alchemist	Tales of Wonder By Lord Dunsany	World War I in progress, stainless steel invented, end of Progressive Era
1917	A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson	The Son of Tarzan By Edgar Rice Burroughs	Woodrow Wilson’s second term, Women’s Suffrage, zipper is patented
1918	The Beast in the Cave The Poe-ets Nightmare	The Moon Pool By Abraham Merritt The Decline of the West By Oswald Spengler	Influenza epidemic, World War I ends, first fortune cookies
1919	Memory Despair The Picture in the House Beyond the Wall of Sleep Psychopompos: A Tale in Rhyme The White Ship The House The Nightmare Lake Dagon	Unseen—Unfeared By Francis Stevens In the Penal Colony By Franz Kafka	RCA is founded, pop up toasters invented, soldiers return from the Great War
1920	Poetry and the Gods Nyarlathotep Polaris The Street The Statement of Randolph Carter The Doom That Came to Sarnath The Cats of Ulthar	Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ( film) The Golem (film) Swanee Sung by Al Jolsen	Babe Ruth sold to the Yankees, Prohibition, labor unions struggle
1921	Ex Oblivione Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family To A Dreamer The Nameless City The Crawling Chaos The Terrible Old Man The Tree	Tarzan the Terrible By Edgar Rice Burroughs	Emergence of Hitler and Mussolini, Ku Klux Klan active, first robot, lie detector is invented, first religious service broadcast by radio
1922	The Tomb Celephaïs Herbert West—Reanimator The Music of Eric Zahn	Negotium Perambulans By E.F. Benson Nosferatu (film) The Wasteland By T.S. Eliot Ulysses By James Joyce	USSR forms, insulin developed
1923	Hypnos What the Moon Brings The Horror at Martin’s Beach The Invisible Monster The Lurking Fear	First issue of Weird Tales The Thing From Outside By George Allen England The Hunchback of Notre Dame (film) R.U.R. By Karol Capek	First traffic signals, primitive TV (cathode ray invented), frozen food appears
1924	The Hound The Rats in the Walls Under the Pyramids (aka Imprisoned with the Pharaohs)	The Amulet of Hell By Robert Leonard Russell Rhapsody in Blue By George Gershwin	Dinosaur bones found in Gobi Desert, Calvin Coolidge is president, Will Rogers, spiral notebooks, loudspeakers
1925	The Festival The Temple The Unnamable In the Vault	Lukundoo By Edward Lucas White A Warning to the Curious By M.R. James The Lost World (film) The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald	Surrealism in Art,  Realism, Art Deco
1926	Hallowe’en in a Suburb The Moon Bog He Festival (aka Yule Horror) The Outsider	Winnie the Pooh By A.A. Milne The Woman of the Wood By A. Merritt	Liquid fueled rockets
1927	The Green Meadow Nathicana Two Black Bottles The Horror at Red Hook The Colour Out of Space Pickman’s Model Supernatural Horror in Literature (Essay)	The Villa Désirée, By May Sinclair	The Jazz Singer, (film) Showboat (musical) Lindbergh flies the “Spirit of St. Louis” monoplane
1928	The Last Test The Call of Cthulhu Cool Air The Shunned House	The Red Lodge, By H.R. Wakefield The Beast With Five Fingers, By William Fryer Harvey	First Mickey Mouse films Charlie Chaplin Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” Maurice Ravel composes “Bolero” Color TV invented Geiger Counter invented Black Friday—U.S. Stock Exchange Collapses
1929	The Wood The Silver Key The Dunwich Horror	The Deserted Garden, By August Derleth	Alfred Hitchcock directs “Blackmail” Einstein’s Unified Field Theory St Valentine’s Day Massacre “Singing in the Rain”
1930	The Electric Executioner The Ancient Track Fungi From Yuggoth  (various poems published throughout the 30s)	A Rose for Emily, By William Faulkner The Book, By Margaret Irwin	Grant Woods painting of “American Gothic”
1931	The Whisperer in Darkness The Strange High House in the Mist		Formation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Nautilus submarine explores the Arctic Ocean
1932	The Trap	The Hunters From Beyond, By Clark Ashton Smith	Famine in the USSR Dashiell Hammett publishes “The Thin Man” First Tarzan Film “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”
1933	The Other Gods The Dreams in the Witch House	The Double Shadow, By Clark Ashton Smith The Chadbourne Episode By Henry S. Whitehead White Zombie By Vivian Meik	Hitler granted dictatorial powers “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (film) Byrd’s second Expedition to the South Pole
1934	From Beyond Through the Gates of the Silver Key		Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” (musical) FBI shoots John Dillinger, “Public Enemy #1”
1935	The Quest of Iranon The Challenge from Beyond		Formation of AA Radar to detect aircraft developed
1936	In a Sequester’d Providence Churchyard       Where Poe Once Walk’d At the Mountains of Madness The Shadow Over Innsmouth The Shadow Out of Time The Haunter of the Dark	The Tarn, By Hugh Walpole	Boulder Dam is built “Pennies From Heaven” Hitler and Mussolini form Rome-Berlin axis
1937	The Thing on the Doorstep Notes on Writing Weird Fiction (Essay)	The Seeds From Outside, By Edmond Hamilton The Werewolf Snarls, By Manley Wade Wellman	Picasso’s “Guernica” Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” First jet engine Hindenburg disaster (dirigible)
	Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937.
1938	History of the Necronomicon Ibid Azathoth The Descendant The Book The Messenger	“Golden Age of Science Fiction” begins Hollerbochen’s Dilemma, by Ray Bradbury, (first story published) Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (film) Universal Studios’ original line of movie monsters, (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, etc.) Mother of Toads, by Clark Ashton Smith	S.S. Queen Elizabeth launched 40-hour work week becomes law Beginnings of World War II
1939	The Evil Clergyman The Outsider and Others (Arkham anthology)	Ether Breather, by Theodore Sturgeon, (first story published). Marooned Off Vesta, by Isaac Asimov, (first story published) The Wizard of Oz (film) The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck	First televised baseball game Radar used in Britain to warn of air attack Arkham House is founded.
1940	The Very Old Folk	Fantasia, (film) Duke Ellington becomes well known jazz composer “When You Wish Upon a Star” (song) The Lesser Brethren Mourn, by Seabury Quinn	The Lascaux cave paintings are discovered in France First successful helicopter
1941	The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Thing in the Moonlight	The Wolf Man (film) Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (film) “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”, (song) Evening Primrose, by John Collier The Smoke Ghost, by Fritz Leiber	U.S. enters World War II Manhattan Project begins
1942	?	The Ghost of Frankenstein (film) The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis Mimic, by Donald A. Wollheim	Sugar, gasoline and coffee rationed in the U.S. First jet airplane
1943	The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath The Pigeon-Flyers St. Toads Expectancy Evening Star Beyond the Wall of Sleep (Arkham anthology)	Son of Dracula (film) Casablanca, (film) Oklahoma! (musical) Frogfather, by Manly Wade Wellman Baynter’s Imp, by August Derleth Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, by Robert Bloch The Crowd, by Ray Bradbury	Race riots break out as African Americans move north into big cities Rent, wage and price freezes; more extensive rationing of shoes, meat, cheese, fats, and canned goods Penicillin and streptomycin discovered
1944	The Transition of Juan Romero Marginalia (Arkham anthology)	The Mummy’s Curse (film) The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, (play) Appalachian Spring, by Aaron Copland, (symphony)	Cost of living increases 30% Batman and Robin comic strip begins D-Day World’s largest circus tent catches fire