The idea of creeping dread does certainly predate Lovecraft. Horror stories of the 19th century tended to rely very heavily on atmospherics; jump scares are actually rather modern (or ancient). Where Lovecraft differed was in casting humanity as utterly insignificant. It is in this that the real horror of his stories lie.

Ghosts imply that humanity's important by showing that there is something after death. It can also fit in with existing Judeo-Christian views. In Lovecraft's cosmicism, humanity simply did not matter. His worldview was mechanist-materialist, humans mere vessels of organic matter no more important than ants in the greater scheme of things. Lovecraft's style is completely devoid of spirituality. Even magic is actually advanced science or math, predating Clarke's Third Law (witness the eponymous witch of Dreams in the Witch House escaping her cell by drawing ideograms in her own blood; her captors thought it sorcery, but she knew it to be a kind of very sophisticated geometry).

While placing importance on concepts like science and math might seem to put humanity center stage, Lovecraft stressed that at a certain point it became impossible for humans to really comprehend. Some could get the basics, but would inevitably go mad from the result, and their understanding would fall far short of a Yithian's or an Elder Thing's. When it came to the true nature of the universe and humanity's ability to know it, one may as well attempt to explain Hamlet to a squirrel.

Some of Lovecraft's predecessors (like the tragically overlooked Chambers, who was arguably a somewhat better writer) touched on this, but none really explicated the true insignificance of humanity. Thus, for all his very real writing flaws, HPL is one of the most ferociously original minds in literary history.

Also: wow, I didn't know that's how Derleth looked. Now I want to see a webcomic called "The Adventures of Dapper Derleth," where Lovecraft would be the awkward dork that Derleth drags to parties.

Snapper Carr: madgonad: William Gibson was the primary effort behind cyberpunk

Not necessarily. Even if you discount Pynchon (Gibson has acknowledged him as one of his primary influences), you still have to acknowledge John M. Ford's 1980 novel Web of Angels which laid out many of the concepts that would come to comprise the cyberpunk genre, 4 years before Neuromancer was published. Strangely his name rarely comes up when discussing the genre.

You could also make a good case for Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination," as the first cyberpunk novel. Despite being written in the '50s, I think it's aged better than Neuromancer.