August Derleth was born in 1909 in Sauk City, Wisconsin, USA.
At the age of seventeen, he published his short story Bat’s Belfry in Weird Tales, the magazine through whose pages readers first encountered the work of many of the great writers of fantasy and weird fiction.
August Derleth spent most of his life in his hometown of Sauk City, Wisconsin, devoting the greater part of his time to writing.
Over the course of his career, Derleth authored more than 100 books, 150 short stories, and countless poems, essays, studies, and newspaper and magazine articles on a wide variety of subjects. The defining aspect of his life, however, was his passion for horror and weird fiction, as well as his friendship with the great master of the genre, H. P. Lovecraft.
The two writers maintained a warm mentor–student relationship through correspondence, although they never managed to meet in person.
After Lovecraft’s death in 1937, Derleth resolved to do everything possible to preserve the work of his friend and teacher, who had died poor and largely unknown. After several unsuccessful attempts to find publishers for Lovecraft’s writings, Derleth and his friend Donald Wandrei founded the legendary publishing house Arkham House in December 1939.
Derleth also completed several unfinished Lovecraft stories, drawing on notes and fragments that he was able to locate after his mentor’s death.
He continued writing and publishing until his own death on July 4, 1971.
