by Donald Tyson
Through the Gates of the Silver Key is an important mythos story. Lovecraft's collaborator, E. Hoffmann Price, was a fan of Lovecraft's work who pressed Lovecraft to produce a sequel to his story The Silver Key and offered his version. Lovecraft extensively revised it. Price later claimed that Lovecraft had only left about fifty words of his original draft unchanged, but he retained Price's basic story concept.
The Tree on the Hill and The Disinterment, written with Dwane W. Rimel, are closer to what would be considered genuine collaborations. Of the two, Lovecraft's contribution is more obvious in The Tree on the Hill, particularly in the latter half of the work.
R. H. Barlow was a writer with some real talent of his own. Lovecraft thought well enough of him to name Barlow his literary executor, entrusting Barlow with his papers after his death. The Night Ocean, the most mythos-themed of the several collaborations he wrote with Barlow, was a story Lovecraft admired. It is mostly Barlow's work, although Lovecraft revised it and added his touches here and there.
The Diary of Alonzo Typer is an extensive revision by Lovecraft of an original draft by William Lumley, which Lovecraft did without compensation, purely as a favor to Lumley.
Lovecraft almost doubled the length of in the Walls of Eryx when he revised the draft of Kenneth Sterling.
The Challenge From Beyond is a special case. It was not one of Lovecraft's usual ghostwriting jobs, but was written in company with four other talented contributors to Weird Tales, as a kind of stunt for Fantasy Magazine. The story was going nowhere until Lovecraft took it up. He gave it direction, and contributed around half of the text.
It is easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer number of mythos works, and to forget which contains what, even when we restrict the list to works by Lovecraft alone, omitting those by other contemporary and later writers. To increase the practical value of this list of Lovecraft's mythos writings, a brief summary of the contents of each work has been added after its dates as an aid to memory.
The Alchemist-written 1908; published 1916.
In revenge for the unjust slaying of his beloved father by a French count, an alchemist possessed of the secret of life haunts the fortress of the family for six centuries, killing in turn each male descendant of the count when the descendant reaches his thirty-second year.
Ashes (with Clifford Martin Eddy Jr.)-written 1923; published 1924.
The research chemist Professor Arthur Van Allister develops a liquid capable of reducing any material other than glass to a pile of soft white ash. With a view to selling it to the military as a weapon, he tries it on a rabbit, and then decides that he needs a human subject.
`Astrophobos"-written 1917; published 1918.
In this poem, which Lovecraft published under his pseudonym Ward Phillips, Lovecraft contemplates the beauty of a star in the northern heavens near the constellation Ursa Major. He begins to see pastoral visions, but gradually the visions become corrupted and a sense of dread grows within him concerning the distant lands of the "star of madness."
At the Mountains of Madness-written 1931; published 1936.
Miskatonic University sponsors an expedition to Antarctica that discovers the icecovered city of the Elder Things, along with a number of frozen but perfectly preserved bodies of the city's alien inhabitants.
`Azathoth"-written 1922; published 1938.
A prose poem in which an unnamed dreamer in a drab, gray city is lifted out of his body by an emanation from the stars, and deposited on a green shore fragrant with flowers.
The Beast in the Cave-written 1904-5; published 1918.
In this early story, which Lovecraft revised for publication in 1918, a man lost in Mammoth Cave encounters a beast that has been stalking him in the darkness and succeeds in wounding it with a thrown piece of rock.
Beyond the Wall of Sleep-written 1919; published 1919.
When a hill man of the Catskill Mountains region commits violent murder and is placed in an insane asylum, one of the interns of the institution investigates and discovers that he is leading a double existence-the ignorant laborer Joe Slater by day while awake, and by night in his dreams an inhuman being of blazing light who restlessly seeks to avenge some wrong done against him by an equally alien enemy.
The Book (unfinished)-written 1933; published 1938.
In this dreamlike story fragment, a man finds a worm-eaten manuscript book in Latin in a decaying bookstore by the river, and takes it home to recite an occult formula near its end that opens the first gateway beyond the three-dimensional world of ordinary consciousness, so that he thereafter sees not only the present reality of things, but simultaneously their past and future.
The Call of Cthulhu-written 1926; published 1928.
A geological upheaval in the South Pacific Ocean causes R'lyeh to rise to the surface. From within his stone tomb Cthulhu sends forth mental projections, calling those of his cult to the island to open the door and release him.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward-written 1927; published 1941.
Obsessed with the past, a young man uses necromancy to resurrect a dead relative with whom he bears a striking resemblance. The resurrected ancestor murders him and impersonates him, so that he can resume his interrupted experiments in necromancy.
"The Cats"-written 1925; published 1936.
A poem that describes a modern city, as viewed through the eyes of its night-roaming alley cats, who come in a great legion to wipe out the exotic rabble of immigrants praying to their strange gods. In the end, when all is dead, only the cats remain. Lovecraft wrote this poem while living in New York. It mentions "bleak Arkham bridges."
The Cats of Ulthar-written 1920; published 1920.
An elderly couple in the city of Ulthar in the dreamlands hate cats. They kill the kitten of a young boy in a caravan passing through the city. All the cats of the city vanish for a night, and when they return the next day, the bones of the couple are discovered in their cottage, picked clean of flesh. The authorities of Ulthar pass a law that, henceforth, no one in the city may kill a cat.
Celephai's-written 1920; published 1922.
A Londoner rediscovers the dreams of his childhood, and wanders the land seeking the dream city of Celephais, in the valley of Ooth-Nargai. He finds it at the end of his mortal life, but continues to reign eternal in Celephais as Kuranes, king of Ooth-Nargai.
The Challenge from Beyond (with C. L. Moore; A. Merritt; Robert E. Howard; Frank Belknap Long)-written 1935; published 1935.
While camping in the Canadian woods, George Campbell comes upon a strange cube of rock crystal with an inscribed disk embedded within it, and when he gazes into it, his consciousness is transported into the body of a worm-like being on the distant, alien world called Yekub. He kills the lord of science and the priests, seizes the sphere that is the god of the worm-like race, and thereby becomes their king.
The Colour Out of Space-written 1927; published 1927.
A meteorite falls to earth on a farm outside Arkham, releasing an iridescent gas into the well. The crops and livestock watered from the well, and the family tending the farm, at first exhibit a kind of fevered growth, but this soon turns to corruption. The family goes mad and dies, and the abandoned farm becomes a shunned place as the poison in the well gradually spreads in an ever-widening circle throughout the countryside.
Cool Air-written 1926; published 1928.
An alchemist cheats death by preserving his body against decay through the modern marvel of air conditioning, while animating it by the force of his will.
The Crawling Chaos (with "Elizabeth Berkeley" [Winifred Virginia Jackson])-written 1920; published 1921.
An opium overdose provokes a vision of the angry waves of the sea eating away at a promontory of red land, the point of which is occupied by a house of marble.
The Curse of Yig (with Zealia Bishop)-written 1928; published 1929.
The curse befalls Walker Davis and his wife, Audrey, in the spring of 1889, while they are on their way from Arkansas to se
ttle in Oklahoma. When Audrey kills a brood of newborn rattlesnakes on the trail, the Indian god of all serpents, Yig, is angered, and on Halloween night visits the couple in their cabin. Walker is killed, Audrey driven mad so that thereafter she hisses and writhes on her belly like a serpent, but the worst part of the curse is the thing Yig engenders inside Audrey's womb.
Dagon-written 1917; published 1919.
During the First World War, a passenger on a ship captured by the Germans manages to escape in a small boat, and makes his way in a life raft to a new island that has been heaved up from the floor of the Pacific. Exploring the island, he finds a white stone monolith covered with strange hieroglyphs and pictographs, then watches as a giant creature emerge from the ocean's depths to adore the stone.
Deaf, Dumb, and Blind (with Clifford Martin Eddy Jr.)-written 1924; published 1925.
Richard Blake of Boston, a veteran of the Great War who in 1918 suffered injuries that rendered him deaf, dumb, blind, and paralyzed, but who is nonetheless a celebrated poet, is found dead at his typewriter in the old Tanner house, which is reputed to be haunted. Before dying, he managed to type an account of his last thoughts and impressions.
The Descendant (unfinished)-written 1927; published 1938.
A young man takes a room at Gray's Inn, London. His neighbor is an elderly eccentric who covers his ears and howls whenever the church bells ring, but never speaks about his strange behavior, until he learns that the young man has bought a copy of the Necronomicon from a London bookseller. He then reveals himself to be Lord Northam, proprietor of Northam Keep on the coast of Yorkshire, and as a warning to the young man, begins to relate the story of his life-at which point the fragment ends.
The Diary of Alonzo Typer (with William Lumley)-written 1935; published 1938.
A journal found in the ruins of a large country house in the village of Chorazin, near Attica, New York, details the paranormal investigation carried out in the house by the occultist Alonzo Typer, prior to its sudden collapse and Typer's disappearance.
The Disinterment (with Duane W. Rimel)-written 1935; published 1937.
A man who has contracted leprosy in the Philippines simulates his own death with the help of his close friend, an unorthodox medical researcher, in the hope that his friend will be able to find a cure while he remains hidden from the knowledge of the outside world. To his horror, he discovers that while he has lain helpless, his friend has made him the subject of one of his unnatural experiments.
The Doom That Came to Sarnath-written 1919; published 1920.
The men of Sarnath destroy the alien city of Ib and steal the statue of its god, only to suffer a terrible doom at the hands of the ghosts of Ib.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath-written 1926-7; published 1948.
Randolph Carter embarks on a dream quest to find the mountain called Kadath in the Cold Waste, on top of which is the palace of the gods of Earth.
The Dreams in the Witch House-written 1932; published 1933.
Walter Gilman is a student of Miskatonic University studying mathematics and folklore who delves too deeply into the trans-dimensional mysteries of the Salem witch Keziah Mason, and finds himself compelled against his wishes to take part in the sabbat sacrifice of a child.
The Dunwich Horror-written 1928; published 1929.
The hybrid product of a union between a human woman and Yog-Sothoth seeks to use a ritual in the Necronomicon to open the gateway between worlds that will allow the entry of the Old Ones into our reality, so that they can fulfill their purpose-the cleansing of the Earth of all biological life, and its elevation to a higher sphere. He is aided by his monstrous invisible twin brother, whose form favors that of their alien father.
The Electric Executioner (with Adolphe de Castro)-written 1929; published 1930.
An American traveling by train through Mexico in 1889 encounters a madman intent on killing everyone on Earth before the return of the god Quetzalcoatl. His chosen method is an electrocution device of his own invention.
The Evil Clergyman-written 1933; published 1939.
This is another of Lovecraft's dreams, which he wrote down in a letter to a friend. An occult investigator spends the night in the attic room of a clergyman who had a reputation for black magic, only to suffer a visitation of the ghost of the clergyman that causes the investigator to undergo an uncanny transformation.
Ex Oblivione-written 1920; published 1921.
An opium dreamer seeks to find the latch to a small bronze gate in a stone wall in a golden valley of his dreams, hoping that the doorway will lead to an even more radiant dream country that he can dwell in forever.
Facts Concerning the Late ArthurJermyn and His Family-written 1920; published 1921.
Arthur Jermyn is fascinated by the discoveries of his great-great-great grandfather, Sir Wade Jermyn, an African explorer who in the eighteenth century found the ruins of a lost stone city in the Congo that was rumored to have been inhabited by a race of hybrid white apes. Arthur continues to research his family history, and pursue his ancestor's African discoveries, until a final revelation relating to his family bloodline drives him to commit suicide.
"Festival"-written 1925; published 1926.
This poem, originally published in Weird Tales under the title "Yule Horror," describes a druidic Yuletide celebration involving ritual cannibalism beneath strangely animated trees.
The Festival-written 1923; published 1925.
A man returns to Kingsport on the winter solstice to honor the custom of his clan to meet once every hundred years in festival on that date. He is led by a throng of silent, robed figures into catacombs under the ancient church on Central Hill, beneath which is a great cavern.
From Beyond-written 1920; published 1934.
Crawford Tillinghast builds a machine designed to stimulate latent senses in human beings that will allow them to see the things that inhabit the world around them, but remain invisible and unfelt by the five ordinary physical senses. The machine has the unexpected side effect of rendering human beings perceptible to these extradimen- sional creatures.
Fungi from Yuggoth-written 1929-30; published as a set 1943.
This long poetical work, in thirty-six sonnets, is Lovecraft's most important mythos poetry. Each sonnet is a miniature narrative in itself. Some reference his prose writings, such as the sonnet "Nyarlathotep," which relates the dream vision that gave rise to the short story Nyarlathotep. "The Book" tells the same events as those in the story fragment The Book.
The Ghost-Eater (with Clifford Martin Eddy Jr.)-written 1923; published 1924.
A man traveling in Maine from the town of Mayfair to the town of Glendale get caught by a thunderstorm on a forest trail while passing through the Devil's Woods, and is forced to seek shelter in a lonely house. The tenant of the house offers him a room for the night, which the traveler gratefully accepts, but he discovers that he is not the only one who wants to sleep in the bed.
The Green Meadow (with "Elizabeth Berkeley" [Winifred Virginia Jackson])-written 1918-9; published 1927.
A diary written in Greek is found within a meteorite. It is written on paper that has no known counterpart on the Earth, and tells of a strange awakening in a land of green trees and blue water, and of a Green Meadow across the water to which the writer floats, a place where young men are infinitely old.
The Haunter of the Dark-written 1935; published 1936.
A writer of fiction vacationing at Providence is strangely drawn to a blackened stone church, which he learns was formerly the meeting place of a cult known as the Church of Starry Wisdom. Central to the beliefs of this cult is an artifact found in a ruined temple in Egypt that is known as the Shining Trapezohedron. This black jewel-like stone allows a being to be summoned from outside time and space, a being that shuns all light but is possessed of deep occult knowledge that it will communicate to its worshippers, in return for sacrifices.
He-written 1925; published 1926.
A poet wandering through G
reenwich Village in New York in search of remnants of the old city is led by an elderly man in a black cloak down winding alleys and beneath low archways to an ancient house, where he is shown vistas of the past and future.
Herbert West-Reanimator-written 1921-2; published 1922.
Six tales related by a friend of the brilliant but deranged medical student Herbert West, describing his various experiments in bringing the dead back to life.
History of the Necronomicon-written 1927; published 1938.
This fanciful history of the Necronomicon and its author, Abdul Alhazred, was written by Lovecraft as a way of keeping the references he made to the book free from contradiction. It was passed around to his friends in manuscript form, and was only published after his death.
The Horror at Martin's Beach (with Sonia H. Greene)-written 1922; published 1923.
This story was co-written by Lovecraft and his future wife, Sonia Greene. The newborn offspring of some unknown deep-dwelling sea species, which in spite of its infancy is none the less over fifty feet in length, is captured, killed, and put on display at Martin's Beach for the amusement of tourists. The boat on which it is displayed mysteriously breaks from its moorings during a storm and is lost. Subsequently, the mother of the infant sea monster exacts a cunning and terrible revenge.
The Horror at Red Hook-written 1925; published 1927.
In tunnels beneath Red Hook, a working class district of New York City, the demon queen Lilith is worshipped with child sacrifices by the vestiges of a Turanian-Asiatic fertility cult.
The Horror in the Burying-Ground (with Hazel Heald)-written 1934; published 1937.
An undertaker who dabbles in alchemy concocts an embalming fluid that preserves life but simulates death, causing those who are injected with it while still living to grow stiff and appear lifeless, but to regain the use of their limbs after the passage of time.
