H. P. Lovecraft

by H. P. Lovecraft

  The great storm broke just before midnight on August 8th. Lightning struck repeatedly in all parts of the city, and two remarkable fireballs were reported. The rain was torrential, while a constant fusillade of thunder brought sleeplessness to thousands. Blake was utterly frantic in his fear for the lighting system, and tried to telephone the company around 1 a.m., though by that time service had been temporarily cut off in the interest of safety. He recorded everything in his diary—the large, nervous, and often undecipherable hieroglyphs telling their own story of growing frenzy and despair, and of entries scrawled blindly in the dark.

  He had to keep the house dark in order to see out the window, and it appears that most of his time was spent at his desk, peering anxiously through the rain across the glistening miles of downtown roofs at the constellation of distant lights marking Federal Hill. Now and then he would fumblingly make an entry in his diary, so that detached phrases such as “The lights must not go”; “It knows where I am”; “I must destroy it”; and “It is calling to me, but perhaps it means no injury this time”; are found scattered down two of the pages.

  Then the lights went out all over the city. It happened at 2:12 a.m., according to power-house records, but Blake’s diary gives no indication of the time. The entry is merely, “Lights out—God help me.” On Federal Hill there were watchers as anxious as he, and rain-soaked knots of men paraded the square and alleys around the evil church with umbrella-shaded candles, electric flashlights, oil lanterns, crucifixes, and obscure charms of the many sorts common in southern Italy. They blessed each flash of lightning, and made cryptical signs of fear with their right hands when a turn in the storm caused the flashes to lessen and finally to cease altogether. A rising wind blew out most of the candles, so that the scene grew threateningly dark. Someone roused Father Merluzzo of Spirito Santo Church, and he hastened to the dismal square to pronounce whatever helpful syllables he could. Of the restless and curious sounds in the blackened tower, there could be no doubt whatever.

  For what happened at 2:35 we have the testimony of the priest, a young, intelligent, and well-educated person; of Patrolman William J. Monahan of the Central Station, an officer of the highest reliability who had paused at that part of his beat to inspect the crowd; and of most of the seventy-eight men who had gathered around the church’s high bank wall—especially those in the square where the eastward facade was visible. Of course there was nothing which can be proved as being outside the order of Nature. The possible causes of such an event are many. No one can speak with certainty of the obscure chemical processes arising in a vast, ancient, ill-aired, and long-deserted building of heterogeneous contents. Mephitic vapours—spontaneous combustion—pressure of gases born of long decay—any one of numberless phenomena might be responsible. And then, of course, the factor of conscious charlatanry can by no means be excluded. The thing was really quite simple in itself, and covered less than three minutes of actual time. Father Merluzzo, always a precise man, looked at his watch repeatedly.

  It started with a definite swelling of the dull fumbling sounds inside the black tower. There had for some time been a vague exhalation of strange, evil odours from the church, and this had now become emphatic and offensive. Then at last there was a sound of splintering wood, and a large, heavy object crashed down in the yard beneath the frowning easterly facade. The tower was invisible now that the candles would not burn, but as the object neared the ground the people knew that it was the smoke-grimed louver-boarding of the tower’s east window.

  Immediately afterward an utterly unbearable foetor welled forth from the unseen heights, choking and sickening the trembling watchers, and almost prostrating those in the square. At the same time the air trembled with a vibration as of flapping wings, and a sudden east-blowing wind more violent than any previous blast snatched off the hats and wrenched the dripping umbrellas of the crowd. Nothing definite could be seen in the candleless night, though some upward-looking spectators thought they glimpsed a great spreading blur of denser blackness against the inky sky—something like a formless cloud of smoke that shot with meteor-like speed toward the east.

  That was all. The watchers were half numbed with fright, awe, and discomfort, and scarcely knew what to do, or whether to do anything at all. Not knowing what had happened, they did not relax their vigil; and a moment later they sent up a prayer as a sharp flash of belated lightning, followed by an ear-splitting crash of sound, rent the flooded heavens. Half an hour later the rain stopped, and in fifteen minutes more the street-lights sprang on again, sending the weary, bedraggled watchers relievedly back to their homes.

  The next day’s papers gave these matters minor mention in connexion with the general storm reports. It seems that the great lightning flash and deafening explosion which followed the Federal Hill occurrence were even more tremendous farther east, where a burst of the singular foetor was likewise noticed. The phenomenon was most marked over College Hill, where the crash awaked all the sleeping inhabitants and led to a bewildered round of speculations. Of those who were already awake only a few saw the anomalous blaze of light near the top of the hill, or noticed the inexplicable upward rush of air which almost stripped the leaves from the trees and blasted the plants in the gardens. It was agreed that the lone, sudden lightning-bolt must have struck somewhere in this neighbourhood, though no trace of its striking could afterward be found. A youth in the Tau Omega fraternity house thought he saw a grotesque and hideous mass of smoke in the air just as the preliminary flash burst, but his observation has not been verified. All of the few observers, however, agree as to the violent gust from the west and the flood of intolerable stench which preceded the belated stroke; whilst evidence concerning the momentary burned odour after the stroke is equally general.

  These points were discussed very carefully because of their probable connexion with the death of Robert Blake. Students in the Psi Delta house, whose upper rear windows looked into Blake’s study, noticed the blurred white face at the westward window on the morning of the 9th, and wondered what was wrong with the expression. When they saw the same face in the same position that evening, they felt worried, and watched for the lights to come up in his apartment. Later they rang the bell of the darkened flat, and finally had a policeman force the door.

  The rigid body sat bolt upright at the desk by the window, and when the intruders saw the glassy, bulging eyes, and the marks of stark, convulsive fright on the twisted features, they turned away in sickened dismay. Shortly afterward the coroner’s physician made an examination, and despite the unbroken window reported electrical shock, or nervous tension induced by electrical discharge, as the cause of death. The hideous expression he ignored altogether, deeming it a not improbable result of the profound shock as experienced by a person of such abnormal imagination and unbalanced emotions. He deduced these latter qualities from books, paintings, and manuscripts found in the apartment, and from the blindly scrawled entries in the diary on the desk. Blake had prolonged his frenzied jottings to the last, and the broken-pointed pencil was found clutched in his spasmodically contracted right hand.

  The entries after the failure of the lights were highly disjointed, and legible only in part. From them certain investigators have drawn conclusions differing greatly from the materialistic official verdict, but such speculations have little chance for belief among the conservative. The case of these imaginative theorists has not been helped by the action of superstitious Dr. Dexter, who threw the curious box and angled stone—an object certainly self-luminous as seen in the black windowless steeple where it was found—into the deepest channel of Narragansett Bay. Excessive imagination and neurotic unbalance on Blake’s part, aggravated by knowledge of the evil bygone cult whose startling traces he had uncovered, form the dominant interpretation given those final frenzied jottings. These are the entries—or all that can be made of them.

  “Lights still out—must be five minutes now. Everything depends on lightning. Yaddith grant it will keep up! . . . Some
influence seems beating through it . . . Rain and thunder and wind deafen. . . . The thing is taking hold of my mind. . . .

  “Trouble with memory. I see things I never knew before. Other worlds and other galaxies . . . Dark . . . The lightning seems dark and the darkness seems light. . . .

  “It cannot be the real hill and church that I see in the pitch-darkness. Must be retinal impression left by flashes. Heaven grant the Italians are out with their candles if the lightning stops!

  “What am I afraid of? Is it not an avatar of Nyarlathotep, who in antique and shadowy Khem even took the form of man? I remember Yuggoth, and more distant Shaggai, and the ultimate void of the black planets. . . .

  “The long, winging flight through the void . . . cannot cross the universe of light . . . re-created by the thoughts caught in the Shining Trapezohedron . . . send it through the horrible abysses of radiance. . . .

  “My name is Blake—Robert Harrison Blake of 620 East Knapp Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. . . . I am on this planet. . . .

  “Azathoth have mercy!—the lightning no longer flashes—horrible—I can see everything with a monstrous sense that is not sight—light is dark and dark is light . . . those people on the hill . . . guard . . . candles and charms . . . their priests. . . .

  “Sense of distance gone—far is near and near is far. No light—no glass—see that steeple—that tower—window—can hear—Roderick Usher—am mad or going mad—the thing is stirring and fumbling in the tower—I am it and it is I—I want to get out . . . must get out and unify the forces. . . . It knows where I am. . . .

  “I am Robert Blake, but I see the tower in the dark. There is a monstrous odour . . . senses transfigured . . . boarding at that tower window cracking and giving way. . . . Iä . . . ngai . . . ygg. . . .

  “I see it—coming here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed burning eye. . . .”

  CHRONOLOGY

  NOTE ON THE TEXTS

  NOTES

  Chronology

  1890

  Howard Phillips Lovecraft born August 20 to Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft at 194 (later 454) Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island, the home of grandfather Whipple Van Buren Phillips. (Father, born 1853 in Rochester, New York, worked as a traveling salesman. Mother, born 1857 in Foster, Rhode Island, was the second child of businessman and land speculator Whipple Phillips, who settled in Providence around 1874. Parents married in Boston on June 12, 1889, and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts.)

  1891–93

  Family lives in Dorchester and Auburndale, Massachusetts; in Auburndale they board for a time in the home of the poet Louise Imogen Guiney. In April 1893 father has a mental breakdown and is committed to Butler Hospital, an asylum in Providence. Lovecraft and his mother move into the Phillips family home.

  1895

  Becomes fascinated by the Arabian Nights and assumes the name “Abdul Alhazred.” (Later writes of his childhood dreams: “Space, strange cities, weird landscapes, unknown monsters, hideous ceremonies, Oriental and Egyptian gorgeousness, and indefinable mysteries of life, death, and torment were daily—or rather nightly commonplaces to me before I was six years old.”)

  1896

  Maternal grandmother, Robie Alzada Place Phillips, dies January 26. Lovecraft reads Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Hawthorne’s Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales.

  1897

  Writes short verse versions of The Odyssey and The Iliad and a story about a boy who overhears “subterranean beings in a cave.”

  1898

  Father dies on July 19 from general paresis (tertiary syphilis). Lovecraft discovers the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Begins learning Latin and attends Slater Avenue School in the fall. Undergoes what he later describes as a “near-breakdown.”

  1899

  Begins handwritten periodical The Scientific Gazette, mostly devoted to chemistry, and writes a short history of the Spanish-American War. Completes spring term at school but does not return in the fall.

  1900

  Suffers another “near-breakdown.” Develops an interest in the Antarctic.

  1902

  Becomes deeply interested in astronomy, collecting astronomical books and obtaining a series of telescopes. Resumes The Scientific Gazette, which he now hectographs. Writes three essays on 19th-century Antarctic exploration and an adventure story, “The Mysterious Ship,” inspired by his reading of dime novels. Returns to the Slater Avenue School in the fall.

  1903

  Begins writing and hectographing several astronomy periodicals, including Astronomy, The Monthly Almanack, and The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy. Does not return to school in the fall and is privately tutored. Visits the Ladd Observatory of Brown University.

  1904

  Ceases writing astronomy periodicals. Grandfather Whipple Phillips dies on March 28, and his Owyhee Land and Irrigation Company, which speculated in Idaho real estate, is dissolved. Lovecraft receives bequest of $2,500, and his mother, $5,000. In financial difficulty, they move from 454 Angell Street to a two-family house at 598 Angell Street. Lovecraft enters Hope Street English and Classical High School.

  1905

  Completes story “The Beast in the Cave,” begun in 1904. Writes “De Triumpho Naturae: The Triumph of Nature over Northern Ignorance,” a poem decrying abolition, based on white supremacist writings of William Benjamin Smith. Reads All-Story and Black Cat, pulp magazines in which he encounters contemporary “weird” (supernatural and horror) fiction. Briefly resumes writing astronomical journals. Returns to Hope High School in September but withdraws in November.

  1906

  Publishes letters in the Providence Sunday Journal and Scientific American on astronomy and in the Sunday Journal attacking the “hollow earth” theory. Begins writing astronomy columns for the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner and Providence Tribune (continues columns until 1908). Returns to Hope High School in September.

  1908

  Writes story “The Alchemist.” Suffers nervous breakdown during the summer. Does not return to high school and becomes increasingly reclusive.

  1909

  Briefly revives The Scientific Gazette and The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy. Begins keeping astronomical notebooks (will continue recording observations until 1915, although he makes no entries during 1911 and 1913). Takes correspondence course in chemistry.

  1910

  Sees a number of Shakespearean productions at Providence Opera House. Visits Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  1912

  First published poem, “Providence in 2000 A.D.,” expressing his dislike for immigrants, appears in the Evening Bulletin on March 4. Writes his will in August.

  1913

  Writes letter to Argosy criticizing the romantic fiction of pulp writer Fred Jackson.

  1914

  Begins contributing monthly astronomy column to the Providence Evening News in January (column appears until May 1918). Continues to send letters, some of them in verse, to Argosy as part of ongoing controversy over Fred Jackson; as a result Lovecraft is invited to join the United Amateur Press Association by Edward F. Daas, one of its members. Begins contributing essays and reviews to various UAPA publications and serves as chairman of its department of public criticism.

  1915

  Writes series of astronomy articles for the Asheville, North Carolina, Gazette News. Publishes first issue of his amateur journal The Conservative (will continue to publish the magazine until 1919). Elected for one-year term as first vice-president of the UAPA.

  1916

  Forms “Kleicomolo” correspondence circle with fellow amateur journalists Rheinhart Kleiner, Ira A. Cole, and Maurice W. Moe. Begins to incorporate “weird” themes and images into his poetry. Does work for Symphony Literary Service, an editorial and ghostwriting service. “The Alchemist,” story written in 1908, is published in the November United Amateur.

  1917

  After the United
States declares war on Germany, Lovecraft enlists in the Rhode Island National Guard, but is rejected for health reasons. Begins correspondence with amateur journalist and poet Samuel Loveman and with Alfred Galpin, an amateur journalist and high school student in Wisconsin. Elected president of the UAPA for one-year term. Writes stories “The Tomb” and “Dagon” during the summer. W. Paul Cook, another amateur journalist, and Kleiner visit him.

  1918

  Writes story “Polaris.” Serves another term as chairman of the UAPA department of public criticism.

  1919

  Mother collapses from strain of financial worries and is admitted to Butler Hospital on March 13. (A neighbor later remembers her as having spoken about “weird and fantastic creatures that rushed out from behind buildings.”) Maternal aunt Annie Gamwell, who is separated from her husband, moves in with Lovecraft. Reads A Dreamer’s Tales by the fantasy writer Lord Dunsany and visits Boston in October to hear Dunsany read. Writes seven stories during the year, including “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” “The White Ship,” “The Doom That Came to Sarnath,” and “The Statement of Randolph Carter”; in the fall three of his stories appear in amateur publications.

  1920

  Begins keeping a commonplace book. Begins close friendship with Frank Belknap Long Jr., an 18-year-old student who is beginning to write weird fiction. Elected official editor of the UAPA. Visits Boston three times during the summer to attend gatherings of amateur journalists. Becomes regular ghostwriter for David Van Bush, a prolific author of psychology and self-improvement books (will continue to work for Bush until the mid-1920s). Writes or collaborates on at least a dozen stories during the year, including “The Terrible Old Man,” “Celephais,” “The Temple,” “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family,” “From Beyond,” “The Picture in the House,” and “Nyarlathotep.”