The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word novella by American 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 Lovecraf…
"Dagon" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in July 1917 and is one of the first stories that Lovecraft wrote as an adult. It was first published in the November 1919 edition of The Vagrant. Dagon was later published in Weird Tales. It is considered by many to be one of Lovecraft's most forward-looking stories. The story is the testament of a tortured, morphine-addi…
"The Nameless City" is a horror story written by American writer H. P. Lovecraft in January 1921 and first published in the November 1921 issue of the amateur press journal The Wolverine. It is often considered the first Cthulhu Mythos story. The Nameless City of the story's title is an ancient ruin located somewhere in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, and is older than any human civilization…
"The Unnamable" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in September 1923, first published in the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales, and first collected in Beyond the Wall of Sleep. The corrected text appears in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, (revised ed, 1986). The story's locale was inspired by the Charter Street Historic District Burying Ground in Salem. Carter,…
The Shadow Out of Time is a novella by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories. The Shadow Out of Time indirectly tells 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 …
"The Lurking Fear" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in November 1922, it was first published in the January through April 1923 issues of Home Brew. The story is narrated by an unnamed seeker of “strange horrors” who is investigating the massacre of a community of some six dozen backwoods degenerates in an obscure region of the Catskills, a massacre which occurred…
"The Dunwich Horror" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts. It is considered one of the core stories of the Cthulhu Mythos. In the isolated, desolate, decrepit village of Dunwich, Massachusetts, Wilbur Whateley is the hideo…
"Through the Gates of the Silver Key" is a short story co-written by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price between October 1932 and April 1933. A sequel to Lovecraft's «The Silver Key», and part of a sequence of stories focusing on Randolph Carter, it was first published in the July 1934 issue of Weird Tales. At a gathering to decide the fate of Randolph Carter's estate (which has…
"The Music of Erich Zann" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in December 1921, it was first published in National Amateur, March 1922. Due to lack of funds, a university student is forced to take up lodging in an almost empty apartment building on a street named «Rue d'Auseil». One of the few other tenants is an old German man named Erich Zann. The old man is mute …
"Under the Pyramids" (in draft form, also published as «Entombed with the Pharaohs») is a short story written by American fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft in collaboration with Harry Houdini in February 1924. Commissioned by Weird Tales founder and owner J. C. Henneberger, the narrative tells a fictionalized account in the first-person perspective of an allegedly true experience of escape artist Har…
"The Silver Key" is a fantasy short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1926, it is considered part of his Dreamlands series. It was first published in the January 1929 issue of Weird Tales. It is a continuation of «The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath», and was followed by a sequel, «Through the Gates of the Silver Key», co-written with E. Hoffmann Price. The story and its sequel bo…
"Cool Air" is a short story by the American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft, written in March 1926 and published in the March 1928 issue of Tales of Magic and Mystery. The narrator offers a story to explain why a «draught of cool air» is the most detestable thing to him. His tale begins in the spring of 1923, when he was looking for housing in New York City. He finally settles in a converted…
"In the Vault' is a short story by American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft, written on September 18, 1925 and first published in the November 1925 issue of the amateur press journal Tryout. George Birch, undertaker for the New England town of Peck Valley, finds himself trapped in the vault where coffins are stored during winter for burial in the spring. When Birch stacks the coffins to reach…
"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales. 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 descri…
"The Cats of Ulthar" is a short story written by American fantasy author H.P. Lovecraft in June 1920. In the tale, an unnamed narrator relates the story of how a law forbidding the killing of cats came to be in a town called Ulthar. As the narrative goes, the city is home to an old couple who enjoy capturing and killing the townspeople's cats. When a caravan of wanderers passes through the city, t…