[Randolph]

Unfortunately, Lovecraft was a racist, plain and simple. Even a casaul perusal of his work shows this (skim through "The Horror at Red Hook" or "Call of Cthulhu" for instance.) The idea that he was just "a product of his times" is also false. True, racism was much more common then than it is today, but Lovecraft goes way beyond what was the norm of the time (which was based more on ignorance and stereotypes) by classing immigrants, African-Americans, and people of mixed-race as basically subhuman. Read through a lot of his correspondence and essays and you'll find that this is true. I don't say this to try to make old Ech Pi look bad - he's my favorite author - I just want to dispell any misconception that he was not something which he very plainly was. The important thing is that he wrote well enough that his work shines through this flaw.