Is Lovecraft in the Public Domain?

For the most part, yes, but the answer depends on where the reader is and when each chronicle was first published. This office is not a legal adviser, and what follows is a note on dates, not an opinion on the law.

United Kingdom and European Union

Lovecraft died in March 1937. Copyright in both jurisdictions runs for the writer's life and seventy years after it, so his work has been out of copyright there since 1 January 2008. Co-written pieces follow the dates of the co-writer, and the Archive takes that into account when it handles the one co-written chronicle on file.

United States

United States copyright is counted from first publication, not from the writer's death. As of 2026, works first published before 1930 are clear. 35 of the 50 chronicles on file were first published in 1929 or earlier, and they are listed below. The other 15, first published from 1931 onward, are not clear on the same footing: whether they are free in the United States turns on renewal and other records, and this office takes no position on it. The cut-off moves forward by one year on each 1 January.

What the Archive does with this

The chronicles on this site are catalogued and summarised, not reproduced. The free route to the texts themselves is described in the Dispatch on where to read, and the Archive's own Case File editions follow the strictest of the dates above, not the most generous.