The H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Plaque was unveiled on 19-August-1990 by The Friends of H. P. Lovecraft; and officially dedicated on 20-August-1990 by The City of Providence, Brown University, and The Friends of H. P. Lovecraft.

The Friends of H. P. Lovecraft, the brainchild of Jon B. Cooke, really took off in earnest on May 11, 1990, when Cooke teamed up with S. T. Joshi and Will Murray to broadcast an appeal for funds for the H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Plaque to be dedicated to the Providence fantasy writer on the grounds of Brown University's John Hay Library on the centennial of Lovecraft's birth on Monday, August 20, 1990. The full story of how this all came about can be read in the 1990 Necronomicon Press booklet, "The H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Plaque" by "The Friends of H. P. Lovecraft".