Lovecraft Country is a term coined by Keith Herber for the New England setting, combining real and fictitious locations, used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, and later elaborated by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos. The term was popularized by Chaosium, the producers of the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi refers to the area as the "Miskatonic region", after its fictional river and university, while Lovecraft biographer Lin Carter calls it Miskatonic County, though Lovecraft indicates that at least some of his fictional towns were located in the real-life Essex County of Massachusetts.
In its 1998 supplement Dead Reckonings, Chaosium defined Lovecraft Country as "a land located in the northeast of Massachusetts. The most important portion stretches along the Miskatonic River valley, from Dunwich in the far west to where it enters the Atlantic Ocean between Arkham, Kingsport, and Martin's Beach." If one were to replace Martin's Beach with another seaside town, Innsmouth, one would have a list of the most significant locations in Lovecraft Country.
Sometimes the phrase is used in a more inclusive sense, encompassing not only northeastern Massachusetts but also the southern hills of Vermont (the setting of "The Whisperer in Darkness") as well as Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, where he set such works as The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
Read more about Lovecraft Country: Lovecraft's Fiction, Derleth's Additions, Roleplaying Games, Other Uses
Famous quotes containing the word country:
“So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,—the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their “good breeding” respects only secondary objects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)