Last year was the 125th anniversary of his birth and it’s clear that Lovecraft is more studied and more hip than ever, certainly far more than during his relatively short life (he died at 46 in 1937). More than 2,000 people from around the world came last summer to a four-day NecronomiCon (named after a fictional book Lovecraft created) with more than 100 programs; the next convention is already being planned for Aug. 17 to 20, 2017.

Image H.P. Lovecraft was not widely appreciated during his brief writing career in the early 1900s, but his reputation has risen recently in the worlds of horror and science fiction literature.

This summer will see the city host the first H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Providence Aug. 19 to 21 (the weekend of his birthday), showing short and feature-length films based on his life and work, along with walking tours and Lovecraft-inspired gaming.

Lovecraft’s higher visibility has come after a radical reassessment by literary critics. He has gone from an eccentric minor author of fantasy and horror tales for the pulp magazines of the 1920s to one of the seminal figures in the development of the horror and science fiction genres. He is credited as an influence on many writers, including Stephen King and Robert Bloch, best known as the writer of “Psycho.” As Lovecraft’s reputation has grown in recent years, so has the recognition that some of his writing was racist; as a result, the World Fantasy Awards last year stopped using his face as a model for their trophy.

In his lifetime, Lovecraft’s work gained little attention. He worked ceaselessly, spending his days and nights writing stories with layered and complicated prose, and he was paid a pittance to rewrite the fiction of others. On top of that, he spent many hours each day writing letters to fans and favorite correspondents. Estimates are that he wrote a staggering 80,000 letters in his lifetime.

When he wasn’t writing, Lovecraft was known for taking long walks. His fiction, full of high-styled descriptions based on many Providence places, shows that he must have been looking and thinking hard on those rambles.