Interesting little blog entry for i09.com about the above, comparing the long term “fate”, as it were, of Robert Heinlein versus H. P. Lovecraft:

http://observationdeck.io9.com/why-do-some-authors-just-fade-away-1604291883/all

It is interesting how, during his lifetime, Robert Heinlein was one of THE most successful sci-fi authors of them all.  Yet after his death, his works have begun a long fade and today those who know him, if at all, are more familiar with the movie adaptation of the novel Starship Troopers rather than any of his actual works.

On the other hand, H. P. Lovecraft was barely recognized during his lifetime and died in poverty, yet since his death his stories have only grown in popularity.

I posted a response to one of the comments, which I reprint almost entirely here:

We don’t have to look far from the sci-fi genre to find examples of other authors who, in their prime, were extremely popular and today simply are not. When I was young, the steamy works of Harold Robbins were incredibly popular with adults. I don’t think today’s adults remember him, this despite having sold a whopping 750 million copies of his books! In the action/adventure genre, Alistair MacLean was the “go to” guy, with many of his novels being converted into film (the best remembered today probably being The Guns of Navarone, though I have a personal soft spot for the Richard Burton/Clint Eastwood Where Eagles Dare). In the hard boiled detective genre, you have Mickey Spillane and Ross MacDonald, the former of which created the very well known P.I. Mike Hammer but whose death in 2006 seemed to hardly be noticed by the public at large. Ross MacDonald, whose novels tended to read perhaps a little too much like those of author Raymond Chandler, nonetheless was a very popular author in his lifetime yet today Chandler remains well-known but MacDonald seems to have faded away. And on and on…

The big question of why authors who are very popular at one time start to fade while others do not, in my mind, relates to how “timeless” the individual works are.  While H. P. Lovecraft’s books were set -for the most part- in the author’s “present” time, they are works that have an eerie, nightmarish quality and linger in readers despite the chasm of time from their creation.

Heinlein, it seems to me, and most of the authors I mention in my comment above, were very much of their time.  Their works were great for those people reading them at the time of their release but in the intervening years whatever shock/surprise/interest they held has eroded.

For example, Harold Robbins’ stories were considered shocking and explicit to readers in the 1960’s and 70’s but are fairly tame by today’s standards.  So too were the early works of Mickey Spillane.  Alistair MacLean’s action novels were pulse pounding when they were released, but the action genre has moved on from his works and, today, they may seem a little too “sedate”.

In sum, there are authors whose works hit the ground running and are tied into the pulse of today’s readers but, as the years pass, their works may prove to be of their time.  There are others who create works that for whatever reason can be admired even as the years pass.

In the case of H. P. Lovecraft, perhaps his works were simply too good for “his” era, and this is why he never achieved the success he would until many years after his death.

In sum, don’t be too surprised if today’s “hot” author proves to be tomorrow’s forgotten author.