Howard Phillips LOVECRAFT (1890-1937) American occult and horror-fiction author who became a cult figure in underground literature in the 1960´s. Lovecraft developed a mythology around "the dread Cthulhu", in which powers of evil and darkness threatened to break through to control the world, and he was obsessed with the theme of global threat ("The Colours out of Space", The Dunwich Horror", "The Shadow over Innsmouth"). Lovecraft invented the concept of the legendary occult text "The Necronomicon", and at least two versions of this text now exist, both purporting to be authentic. Lovecraft´s supernatural tales have been collected into a number of volumes, including "The Tomb", "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Haunter of the Dark", and "The Lurker at the Threshold".