A short summary of his life:
- 1890 — Born in Providence, Rhode Island.
- 1902 — Enters High-School.
- 1904 — Traumatic experience with the loss of his grandfather.
- 1905 — Writes his first tale: The Beast in the Cave.
- 1911 — Lovecraft's letters to editors began appearing in pulp and weird-fiction magazines.
- 1914 — Becomes a member of the United Amateur Press Association.
- 1916 — First short story published: The Alchemist.
- 1920 — He began publishing the earliest Cthulhu Mythos stories.
- 1921 — Meets his future wife Sonia Greene at an amateur journalists convention.
- 1924 — In spite of Lovecraft's family's disapproval, they both get married and move to New York.
- 1924 — Gets a formal job as a professional writer.
- 1925 — Writes The Red Hook, He, the outline for The Call of Cthulhu, with its theme of the insignificance of all humanity, and Supernatural Horror in Literature.
- 1926 — Times of trouble and depression: Howard and Sonia part ways. He returns to Providence.
- 1927 — Somehow manages to get out of that terrible abyss of sadness and emptiness, and starts to flowrish humanly as a writer.
- 1928 — Publishes The Call of Cthulhu in the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
- 1932 — Tragic loss of his aunt, Mrs. Clark.
- 1933 — Moves with his other aunt, Mrs. Gamwell. Finding it hard to sell tales that were difficult to read, starts to work as a ghostwritter.
- 1936 — Publishes At the Mountains of Madness. In the same year, his close friend Robert Howard commits suicide. Depression and confusion make a come back.
- 1937 — After seeing a doctor, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the small intestine. He lived in constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937, in Providence.
I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.— H. P. Lovecraft