H. P. Lovecraft

The Night Ocean is a classic American horror story by H. P. Lovecraft. I went to Ellston Beach not only for the pleasures of sun and ocean, but to rest a weary mind. Since I knew no person in the little town, which thrives on summer vacationists and presents only blank windows during most of the year, there seemed no likelihood that I might be disturbed. This pleased me, for I did not wish to see anything but the expanse of pounding surf and the beach lying before my temporary home.

The Shadow Out of Time is a classic American horror story by H. P. Lovecraft. An indirect explanation of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended spatial or temporal destination. The story implies that the effect when seen from the outside is similar to spiritual possession.

Herbert West: Reanimator is a classic H. P. Lovecraft horror story that contains the following exerpt: Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror. This terror is not due altogether to the sinister manner of his recent disappearance, but was engendered by the whole nature of his life-work, and first gained its acute form more than seventeen years ago, when we were in the third year of our course at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham. While he was with me, the wonder and diabolism of his experiments fascinated me utterly, and I was his closest companion. Now that he is gone and the spell is broken, the actual fear is greater. Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities. The narrator recounts his history with the title character, who has recently disappeared. As a medical student at Miskatonic University, the narrator becomes fascinated by West's theories, which postulate that the human body is simply a complex, organic machine which can be "restarted." West eventually realizes he must experiment on human subjects. The two men spirit away supplies from their medical school and set up their lab in an abandoned farmhouse. At first, they pay a group of men to rob graves for them, but none of the experiments are successful. West and the narrator then rob graves themselves. One night, they steal the corpse of a construction worker who died that morning in an accident. They take it back to the farmhouse and inject it with West's serum, but nothing happens. Later, an inhuman scream is heard from within the room containing the corpse. Moved by instinct, they flee into the night. West accidentally tips over a lantern on the way out, which starts a fire. West and the narrator escape. The next day, however, the newspaper reports that a grave in potter's field, violently molested the night before, displays the claws of a beast.

The Lurking Fear is a classic American horror story by H. P. Lovecraft. There was thunder in the air on the night I went to the deserted mansion atop Tempest Mountain to find the lurking fear. I was not alone, for foolhardiness was not then mixed with that love of the grotesque and the terrible which has made my career a series of quests for strange horrors in literature and in life. With me were two faithful and muscular men for whom I had sent when the time came; men long associated with me in my ghastly explorations because of their peculiar fitness.

The Horror at Red Hook is a classic American horror story by H. P. Lovecraft. Not many weeks ago, on a street corner in the village of Pascoag, Rhode Island, a tall, heavily built, and wholesome-looking pedestrian furnished much speculation by a singular lapse of behaviour. He had, it appears, been descending the hill by the road from Chepachet; and encountering the compact section, had turned to his left into the main thoroughfare where several modest business blocks convey a touch of the urban.

The Horror in the Museum is a classic American horror short story by H. P. Lovecraft. "The Horror in the Museum" is a short story ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft for Somerville, MA writer Hazel Heald in October 1932, published in 1933. It is one of five stories Lovecraft revised for Heald. The story has been reprinted in several collections, such as The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. Heald had been introduced to Lovecraft by his Providence friend Muriel E. Eddy. The tale concerns the relationship between Stephen Jones and George Rogers, the owner of a private wax museum specialising in the grotesque. Initially cordial, it degenerates as Jones first mocks Rogers then comes to suspect that he is demented with his "wild tales and suggestions of rites and sacrifices to nameless elder gods". Jones takes up Rogers's standing offer to spend a night in the museum and is attacked by his host, who is in turn killed by the entity Rhan-Tegoth that he has been making sacrifices to, and ends up becoming part of the displays. "IT WAS languid curiousity which first brought Stephen Jones to Rogers' Museum. Someone had told him about the queer underground place in Southwark Street across the river, where waxen things so much more horrible than the worst effigies at Madame Tussaud's were shown, and he had strolled in one April day to see how disappointing he would find it."

At the Mountains of Madness is a gripping science fiction-horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931 and rejected that year by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length. 1] It was originally serialized in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories. It has been reproduced in numerous collections. The story details the events of a disastrous expedition to the Antarctic continent in September 1930, and what was found there by a group of explorers led by the narrator, Dr. William Dyer of Miskatonic University. Throughout the story, Dyer details a series of previously untold events in the hope of deterring another group of explorers who wish to return to the continent. The story is told in a first-person perspective by the geologist William Dyer, a professor at Arkham's Miskatonic University, in the hope to prevent an important and much publicized scientific expedition to Antarctica. Throughout the course of his explanation, Dyer relates how he led a group of scholars from Miskatonic University on a previous expedition to Antarctica, during which they discovered ancient ruins and a dangerous secret, beyond a range of mountains higher than the Himalayas. In William Dyer's story, a smaller advance group, led by Professor Lake, discovers the remains of fourteen prehistoric life-forms, previously unknown to science, and also unidentifiable as either plants or animals. Six of the specimens have been badly damaged, while another eight have been preserved in pristine condition. The specimens' stratum places them far too early on the geologic time scale for the features of the specimens to have evolved. Some fossils of Cambrian age show signs of the use of tools to carve a specimen for food. When the main expedition loses contact with Lake's party, Dyer and his colleagues investigate. Lake's camp is devastated, with the majority of men and dogs slaughtered, while a man named Gedney and one of the dogs are absent. Near the expedition's campsite, they find six star-shaped snow mounds with one specimen under each. They also discover that the better preserved life-forms have vanished, and that some form of dissection experiment has been done on both an unnamed man and a dog. The missing man is suspected of having gone utterly insane and having killed and mutilated all the others. Dyer and a graduate student, named Danforth, fly an aeroplane across the mountains, which they identify as the outer walls of a vast abandoned stone-city, alien to any human architecture. For their resemblance to creatures of myth mentioned in the Necronomicon, the builders of this lost civilization are dubbed the "Elder Things". By exploring these fantastic structures, the men learn through hieroglyphic murals that the Elder Things first came to Earth shortly after the Moon took form and built their cities with the help of "shoggoths" - biological entities created to perform any task, assume any form, and reflect any thought. There is a hint that all earthly life evolved from cellular material left over from the creation of the shoggoths. As more buildings are explored, the explorers witness the Elder Things' conflict with both the Star-spawn of Cthulhu and the Mi-go, who arrived on Earth shortly afterwards. The images also reflect a degradation of their civilization, once the shoggoths gain independence. As more resources are applied in maintaining order, the etchings become haphazard and primitive. The murals also allude to an unnamed evil lurking within an even larger mountain range located beyond the city. This mountain range rose in one night and certain phenomena and incidents deterred the Elder Things from exploring it. When Antarctica became uninhabitable, even for the Elder Things, they soon migrated into a large, subterranean ocean.

The Trap is an American horror classic by H. P. Lovecraft that begins with the following exerpt: It was on a certain Thursday morning in December that the whole thing began with that unaccountable motion I thought I saw in my antique Copenhagen mirror.

Through the Gates of the Silver Key is an American horror story classic by H. P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft scholar Will Murray says of "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", "As a Dunsanian fantasy, the Price/Lovecraft collaboration is a failure; as a Mythos story, it is rich with ideas.

The Thing on the Doorstep is an H. P. Lovecraft masterpiece and one of the all-time classics of American horror fiction. Daniel Upton, the story's narrator, explains that he has killed his best friend, Edward Derby, and that he hopes his account will prove that he is not a murderer. He begins by describing Derby's life and career. Derby was interested in the occult even as a very young boy. This is what caused him to befriend Daniel, the two would chat about dark mythology in their spare time. Whenever Derby came over to chat he always used the same knocking pattern of three a pause and two additional strokes on the knocker. Daniel could always identify Derby this way. Derby's parents often doted on him, he had a particular reliance on them especially his mother. Her death sent him into a depression, and it took him quite long to recover. He then tells of Asenath Waite, a female classmate of Derby's at Miskatonic University, daughter of Ephraim. The two had soon wed, after bonding over their love of the occult. Despite Derby's qualms he moves into the old Crowninshield House, with three servants from Innsmouth. A few years later, people start to notice irregular changes in Derby's abilities. Sometimes he would drive off by himself, even though he was never taught. But, occasionally he would end up getting driven back by a chauffeur, or mechanic huddled in the back seat of the car. Derby confides in Upton, telling him strange stories of Asenath. On one night he comes to the door in a panic and starts describing how he would never let her do that to him again. He tries to hint at how he believes her father, Ephraim Waite, may not actually be dead and in the midst of this story however he abruptly stops, as if some hypnotic spell had come over him. Upton is later called to pick up Derby, who has been found in Chesuncook, Maine, rambling incoherently. On the trip back, Derby tells of Asenath using his body, and is certain that it is in fact Ephraim who resides in the body of Asenath. "she(Asenath) jots down a note in writing that's just like her father's manuscripts, stroke for stroke." -Edward Derby. Before finishing, he has a small seizure and rapidly changes personality, asking Upton to ignore what he might have just said. Upton however sees a change in his eyes, they were like Asenath's eyes, no they were like Ephraim's.

The Last Test is a classic American horror story by H. P. Lovecraft. Few persons know the inside of the Clarendon story, or even that there is an inside not reached by the newspapers. It was a San Francisco sensation in the days before the fire, both because of the panic and menace that kept it company, and because of its close linkage with the governor of the state. Governor Dalton, it will be recalled, was Clarendon's best friend, and later married his sister. Neither Dalton nor Mrs. Dalton would ever discuss the painful affair, but somehow the facts have leaked out to a limited circle.

In the Walls of Eryx is a classic American science fiction story by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling. I reached the main landing on Venus, March 18, terrestrial time; VI, 9 of the planet's calendar. Being put in the main group under Miller, I received my equipment - watch tuned to Venus's slightly quicker rotation - and went through the usual mask drill. After two days I was pronounced fit for duty.

Winged Death is a classic American horror short story by H. P. Lovecraft that begins: The Orange Hotel stands in High Street near the railway station in Bloemfontein, South Africa. On Sunday, January 24, 1932, four men sat shivering from terror in a room on its third floor.

The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word horror novel by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February-September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures. The story is told by Albert N. Wilmarth, an instructor of literature at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. When local newspapers report strange things seen floating in rivers during a historic Vermont flood, Wilmarth becomes embroiled in a controversy about the reality and significance of the sightings, though he sides with the skeptics, blaming old legends about monsters living in uninhabited hills who abduct people who venture too close to their territory. He receives a letter from one Henry Wentworth Akeley, a man who lives in an isolated farmhouse near Townshend, Vermont. He affirms that he has proof that will convince Wilmarth that he must stop focusing on the race's existence. The two exchange letters, including a record of the extraterrestrial race chanting with human agents, who worship several beings, including Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep, the latter of whom "shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides". The agents intercept Akeley's messages and harass his farmhouse nightly. Akeley and the agents exchange gunfire and many of Akeley's guard dogs are killed. Although Akeley expresses more in his letters, he abruptly has a change of heart. He writes that he has met with the extraterrestrial beings and has learned that they are peaceful. Furthermore, they have taught him of marvels beyond all imagination. He urges Wilmarth to pay him a visit and to bring along the letters and photographic evidence that he had sent him. Wilmarth reluctantly consents. Wilmarth arrives to find Akeley in a pitiful physical condition, immobilized in a chair in darkness. Akeley tells Wilmarth about the extraterrestrial race and the wonders they have revealed to him. He also says that the beings can surgically extract a human brain and place it into a canister wherein it can live indefinitely and withstand the rigors of outer space travel and shows proof to Wilmarth. Akeley says he has agreed to undertake such a journey and points to a cylinder bearing his name. Wilmarth also listens to a brain in a cylinder as it speaks of the positive aspects of the journey and why Wilmarth should join it in the trip to Yuggoth, the beings' homeworld. During these conversations, Wilmarth feels a vague sense of unease, especially from Akeley's odd manner of buzzing whispering.