Lovecraft Country

Lovecraft Country is a term coined for the New England setting used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, which combines real and fictitious locations. This setting has been elaborated on by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos. The phrase was not in use during Lovecraft's own lifetime; it was coined by Keith Herber for the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The phrase is one of several attempts to label the setting of Lovecraft's works. Alternative phrases include Arkham County, Miskatonic County, and the Miskatonic region. Origin The term was coined by Keith Herber and then popularized by Chaosium, the producers of the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. Alternative phrases Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi refers to the area as the Miskatonic region, after its fictional river and university. Lovecraft biographer Lin Carter calls it Miskatonic County, and the film Color Out of Space refers to it as Arkham County, although Lovecraft indicates that at least some of his fictional towns were located in the real-life Essex County of Massachusetts. Just as Arkham County is fictitious, Matt Ruff places some of the events of his book in the equally fictitious Devon County of Massachusetts.