Where to start

[j d worthington]

Yes, James Turner has said much the same in his introduction to the revised edition of At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels ("A Mythos in His Own Image"). I don't think he would ever have got into the "standard" sf magazines, though, as many of the "hard-line" sf readers of the time were very intolerant of his sort of writing. John W. Campbell, especially, had no use for Lovecraft; had he been the editor of Astounding just two or three years earlier than he was, neither At the Mountains of Madness nor "The Shadow Out of Time" would have seen print there... which is rather odd, considering his own "Twilight" was nearly as densely written as either of those tales (it also, not coincidentally, is one of my favorite Campbell pieces).

Part of his improvement, though, had to do with his own life experiences and his study of the classics of the field, his absorption of what was going on in the sciences (he was always very keen on the subject), and his constantly growing interaction with people... which also led to his growing strength (and refinement) as a theorist in the field of the weird tale....

 

[J-WO]

Yes, despite his faults, I think he was a man constantly trying to improve himself. In that respect I don't think he would have stagnated as a writer.

Then, of course, there are world events- the horrors of the second world war, followed by the paranoia of the cold war. What would Lovecraft's tales be like set in those times?

I guess he was a figure of a more innocent age...