Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on this date in 1890. Plagued by poor health, he spent most of his brief life in seclusion, eking out a living as a ghostwriter.

More than six decades after his death at age 46, H.P. Lovecraft is remembered as a master of the macabre, but we wonder how many folks remember the age and story behind the word macabre.

Macabre first appeared in English in 1889, the year before Lovecraft's birth, but the term has its origin in medieval poems about the danse macabre. The literal, 14th-century dance of death referred to a dance or procession in which a skeleton representing death leads others—both living and dead—to the grave. The allegorical concept of the danse macabre—that death is inevitable, impartial, and all-conquering—caught on, and representations of the danse macabre made their way into paintings, music, and eventually, movies.