September 14th, Year XXXX

This year I am looking to investigate H.P. Lovecraft and Cosmic horror. There are a few things I think I know about both of these things, but they are not many. For example, one thing I know about Lovecraft is that his early life was full of death; a lot of his family died or they succumbed to madness, a core theme of his writings. I know that he started his writing in a pulp magazine in the forms of short horror stories. But the biggest thing I know is that he died in obscurity, but in later years his works would go on to inspire many things in modern horror, especially in the video game market. His works inspired the likes of Hellboy and Stephen King. Another thing I know is he has a whole cosmology and mythology named after him and his works called the Lovecraftian Mythos, which expand greatly upon his vaguely mentioned ideas in his stories, such as Cthulhu. Cosmic horror, the genre that sprouted off of his works, mainly deals with the insignificance of mankind, and how we're just an outpost of rock in the grand universe, with beings beyond our comprehension lurking in the deep seas and far reaches of out galaxy.

I know that August Derleth was a friend of Lovecraft who wanted his work to be published. Eventually he formed a publishing firm, Arkham House with the initial purpose of publishing Lovecraft's work in the form of actual books, and not the short stories found in random magazines. (Lovecraft Archive). I also know that he was the one who created the philosophy of cosmicism, the philosophy that states that humans are insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe and that there is no higher power. The idea basically says that the universe is to big to comprehend for humans, both in space and time, so in order to deal with the fear that man may never understand the universe, they created things such as religion and God, despite there being no such thing. (Cosmicism).