[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by brsrkrkomdy

There are several other writers who write one or two or more their share of the so-called "Cthulhu Mythos". I've read somewhere Lovecraft himself called most of his stories "Cthulhu Cycles" which made a lot more sense than Derleth's.

Actually, Lovecraft never used any title for a set of tales with "Cthulhu" as part of that title. He did, at one point (with tongue firmly in cheek) call such "Yog-Sothothery", and at another he referred to a tale as part of his "Arkham cycle", indicating he saw those set in Arkham country as particularly related -- not surprisingly, for someone who was intensely aware his physical surroundings and as attached to a particular region as a cat, it is through association with topology rather than theme or mytheme that he makes such an association.

Here are some outside the Lovecraft circle:

Ramsey Campbell
Brian Lumley
Fritz Leiber
Manly Wade Wellman
Karl Edward Wagner
David Drake
Galad Elflandsson
Fred Chappell
Thomas Ligotti
Colin Wilson
Harlan Ellison
Neal Gaiman
Paul Finch
Joseph Payne Brennan
Lin Carter (although his poetry was mediocre IMHO.)

Well, to be honest, Leiber can be counted as a member of the Lovecraft Circle, as he was not only a correspondent of HPL's, but got feedback on some of his early work from him. (The early version of "Adept's Gambit", for instance, included Cthulhuvian connections. Leiber --wisely, I think --decided to delete these from all published versions.) Not read any of Galad Elflandsson, though... could you give me some titles?

Influences on Lovecraft:

Robert W. Chambers
William Hope Hodgson
Algernon Blackwood
M.R. James
Arthur Machen
Lord Dunsany
Erckman & Chatrian
J.S. LeFanu

While Erckman-Chatrian did influence him to some degree, it's very dubious that Le Fanu did. Lovecraft expressed little but disinterest in Le Fanu's work -- possibly because so little of it was available at the time, and he may not have found any tales which would interest him. Then again, Le Fanu's dealing with "traditional" ghosts -- at least on the surface --may have been the factor, as Lovecraft found the typical spectral tale, especially featuring human specters, to be rather trite. This is a pity, as Le Fanu wrote some of the best ghost stories in the English language, and with concepts involved that one would think would have caught at Lovecraft's imagination. Perhaps it was simply a combination of the two factors....

The influence of Hodgson, though, is also rather doubtful, as he did not read Hodgson's work until 1934, by which time his fictional career was nearly over; and there are no notable Hodgson influences on the few remaining tales he did write....