I must confess the only reason I've ever heard of Lovecraft at all is because there are so blasted many 'Cthulu' references, pictures, and cartoons on the internet. I picked up an anthology of his works in the bookstore and gave it a read but couldn't get into it. Just found the his writing style too repetive, lurid and overblown. I used to read a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs, a contemporary of his as a kid. But then those paperbacks usually had some hot alien babe in a skimpy costume on the cover too.
