Shunned House, The

H. P. Lovecraft was not a very popular writer during his lifetime but achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Today he is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in the genre of horror and the supernatural. The title of this story came from an actual house in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft's hometown. It was built around 1763 and still stands on Benefit Street. The story is a masterpiece of supernatural horror and was descripted by Robert Weinberg as "one of Lovecraft's best short novels."