The last scion of a once-noble aristocratic line relates the story of how his family incurred the wrath of a sorcerer.
Written c. 1908. Published Nov. 1916 in The United Amateur vol. 16, no. 4. ~3,700 words
The Tomb [PDF]
A young man attempts to explain how his increasing fascination with his family's ancestral mausoleum lead to his present institutionalisation.
Written c. June 1917. Published Mar. 1922 in The Vagrant vol. 14. ~4,150 words
Dagon [PDF]
A troubled seaman describes his encounter with a unfathomable mass far out at sea.
Written c. July 1917. Published Nov. 1919 in The Vagrant vol. 11. ~2,200 words
A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson [PDF]
An inexplicably 228-year-old man fondly reminiscences on his time mingling in 18th Century London's literary circles.
Written c. 1917. Published Nov. 1917 in The United Amateur vol. 17, no. 2. ~2,000 words
Polaris [PDF]
A troubled man grapples both with his inexplicable, uneasy, obsession with the pole star - and with the nature of the mysterious world he visits nightly in his dreams.
Written c. 1918. Published Dec. 1920 in The Philosopher vol. 1, no. 1. ~1,500 words
Beyond the Wall of Sleep [PDF]
A former asylum doctor relates an account of experimentally treating a man suffering from exceedingly troubling nightmares.
Written c. 1919. Published Oct. 1919 in Pine Cones vol. 1, no. 6. ~4,300 words
Memory [PDF]
Two ethereal beings ponder the world around them.
Written c. 1919. Published June 1919 in The United Co-operative vol. 1, no. 2. ~350 words
Old Bugs [PDF]
An educated and once-proud man, debased and impoverished by his lifetime of vice, toils piteously in a speakeasy.
Written c. 1919. ~3,000 words
The Transition of Juan Romero [PDF]
In the American Southwest, an ineffably deep chasm is discovered - then, explored by one curious miner and his Mexican companion.
Written c. Sept. 1919. ~3,000 words
The White Ship [PDF]
A lighthouse keeper is enthralled by a cryptic dream, in which he travels across an uncharted ocean toward strange and magnificent lands.
Written c. 1919. Published Nov. 1919 in The United Amateur vol. 19, no. 2. ~2,500 words
The Doom That Came to Sarnath [PDF]
Herein is described the thousand-year history of the ancient city of Sarnath - its rise, its apogee, and its ultimate peculiar fate.
Written c. 1920. Published June 1920 in The Scot no. 44. ~2,700 words
The Statement of Randolph Carter [PDF]
A distressed amnesiac attempts to recall and explain the circumstances of his companion's disappearance in a remote burial ground.
Written c. Dec. 1919. Published May 1920 in The Vagrant no. 13. ~2,500 words
The Street [PDF]
Herein is lamented the development of a small New England community from Colonial Times, through the Industrial Revolution, during the Civil War, and to the narrator's present day.
Written c. 1919. Published Dec. 1920 in The Wolverine no. 8. ~2,200 words
The Terrible Old Man [PDF]
Three burglars conspire to steal from an eccentric elderly man.
Written c. Jan 1920. Published July 1921 in The Tryout vol. 7, no. 4. ~1,150 words
The Cats of Ulthar [PDF]
An anonymous narrator relates the story of how a law forbidding the killing of cats came to be in the town of Ulthar.
Written c. June 1920. Published Nov. 1920 in The Tryout vol. 6, no. 11. ~1,350 words
The Tree [PDF]
A fable of Arcadia, from centuries ago, is relayed; Two sculptors of prodigious skill are commissioned with the making of a pair of statues to rival any then-existing in the world.
Written c. 1920. Published Oct. 1921 in The Tryout vol. 7, no. 7. ~1,600 words
Celephaïs [PDF]
A poor and aged man recalls the fantastical city he habitually dreamed of as a young child.
Written c. Nov. 1920. Published May 1922 in The Rainbow vol. 2, no. 2. ~2,500 words
From Beyond [PDF]
An unnamed narrator describes his associate's efforts to perceive otherworldly phenomena with the aid of electrical brain-stimulating devices.
Written c. 1920. Published June 1934 in The Fantasy Fan vol. 1, no. 10. ~3,000 words
The Temple [PDF]
The account of an Imperial German submariner, describing events after his vessel recovers an enigmatic carved ivory figure from a sunken British ship.
Written c. 1920. Published Sept. 1925 in Weird Tales vol. 6, no. 3. ~5,400 words
Nyarlathotep [PDF]
An arcane and enigmatic figure quite unlike any other emerges onto the world stage, publicly demonstrating knowledge and powers hitherto unheard of - much to humanity's great amazement, and great disquiet.
Written c. 1920. Published Nov. 1920 in The United Amateur vol. 20, no. 2. ~1,150 words
The Picture in the House [PDF]
A traveling scholar seeks refuge in a run-down New England farmhouse as a particularly dreadful storm approaches.
Written c. 1920. Published July 1921 in The National Amateur vol. 41 no. 6. ~3,350 words
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family [PDF]
Herein is described the familial descent of the Jermyns - a line of English gentry enmeshed for generations in the ethnographic study of darkest Africa.
Written c. 1920. Serialised Mar. 1921 - June 1921 in The Wolverine no. 9 - no. 10. ~3,700 words
The Nameless City [PDF]
An intrepid explorer unearths an apparent temple complex long sunk into the Arabian desert.
Written c. Jan. 1921. Published Nov. 1921 in The Wolverine no. 11. ~5,000 words
The Quest of Iranon [PDF]
A dicty young boy travels cities unfamiliar to him, singing songs of his fabled homeland and yearning to return whence.
Written c. Feb. 1921. Published July 1935 in Galleon vol. 1, no. 5. ~2,750 words
The Moon-Bog [PDF]
An Irish-American parvenu purchases an estate in his ancestral home - and, disregarding the superstitions of the locals, begins draining its ancient peat bog.
Written c. Mar. 1921. Published June 1926 in Weird Tales vol. 7, no. 6. ~3,400 words
Ex Oblivione [PDF]
An aged and weary narrator reflects on the final days of their life, and dreams of what - if anything - might come after.
Written c. 1920 - 1921. Published Mar. 1921 in The United Amateur vol. 20, no. 4. ~700 words
The Other Gods [PDF]
A proud and haughty priest endevours to scale the mountaintop home of his ancient gods.
Written c. Aug. 1921. Published Nov. 1933 in The Fantasy Fan vol. 1, no. 3. ~2,000 words
The Outsider [PDF]
A man with little recollection of his past ponders - and seeks to escape - his solitary and unexplainable confinement to a decaying castle.
Written c. 1921. Published Apr. 1926 in Weird Tales vol. 7, no. 4. ~2,600 words
The Music of Erich Zann [PDF]
A poor former student of metaphysics recounts his fleeting acquaintance with a mysterious and nocturnal elderly musician, with whom he once shared lodgings in a cramped foreign street he can no longer find his way back to.
Written c. Dec. 1921. Published Mar. 1922 in The National Amateur vol. 44, no. 4. ~3,450 words
Sweet Ermengarde [PDF]
The winsome lady Ermengarde is courted farcically.
Written c. 1919 - 1921. ~2,700 words
Hypnos [PDF]
An anonymous narrator apprehensively relays the course of events which lead to his present and unshakeable fear of sleep and dreams.
Written c. Mar. 1922. Published July 1923 in The National Amateur vol. 45 no. 5. ~2,800 words
What the Moon Brings [PDF]
A narrator describes his hatred of moonlight amidst a surreal nighttime garden scene.
Written c. June 1922. Published May 1923 in The National Amateur vol. 45 no. 5. ~700 words
Azathoth [PDF]
Herein a man laments the lack of fantasy left in the world, and he looks in reverie to the stars above instead.
Written c. June 1922. ~475 words
Herbert West - Reanimator [PDF]
A gifted young surgeon becomes increasingly desperate and singleminded in pursuit of realising his career-long ambition: restoring life to a human cadaver.
Written c. Oct. 1921. Serialised Feb. 1922 - July 1922 in Home Brew vol. 1, no. 1 - vol. 1, no. 6. ~12,000 words
The Hound [PDF]
As a timorous and woefully remorseful gravedigger ponders suicide, he recalls what horrifying events lead to his present restless state - and to his partner-in-crime's unnatural death.
Written c. Sept. 1922. Published Feb. 1924 in Weird Tales vol. 3, no. 2. ~3,000 words
The Lurking Fear [PDF]
An adventurer investigates a series of evidently preternatural deaths in the Catskills - all seemingly linked in some way by the occurrence of immense thunderstorms.
Written c. Nov. 1922. Serialised Jan. 1922 - Mar. 1922 in Home Brew vol. 2, no. 6 - vol. 3, no. 2. ~8,150 words
The Rats in the Walls [PDF]
An English-American repatriate must contend with vermin while attempting to refurbish his old familial estate.
Written c. 1923. Published Mar. 1924 in Weird Tales vol. 3, no. 3. ~8,000 words
The Unnamable [PDF]
Two old friends swap ghost stories and argue over the existence of the paranormal.
Written c. Sept. 1923. Published July 1925 in Weird Tales vol. 6, no. 1. ~2,950 words
The Festival [PDF]
A man narrates his reluctant return to his ancestral hometown to partake in an ancient Yuletide ritual with estranged relatives.
Written c. Oct. 1923. Published Jan. 1925 in Weird Tales vol. 5, no. 1. ~3,650 words
The Shunned House [PDF]
Two men investigate an old house seemingly connected to an unnatural amount of inexplicable illnesses and early deaths.
Written c. Oct. 1924. ~10,750 words
The Horror at Red Hook [PDF]
A battle-scarred New York detective recalls his most difficult - and most horrifying - case yet.
Written c. Aug. 1925. Published Jan. 1927 in Weird Tales vol. 9, no. 1. ~8,350 words
He [PDF]
A man deeply disenchanted with modernity explores New York City's oldest districts.
Written c. Aug. 1926. Published Sept. 1926 in Weird Tales vol. 8, no. 3. ~4,250 words
In the Vault [PDF]
A practicable, but careless, gravedigger inadvertently traps himself in a tomb.
Written c. Sept. 1925. Published Nov. 1925 in The Tryout vol. 10, no. 6. ~3,400 words
Cool Air [PDF]
A man explains his pointed aversion to the cold, on account of his former acquaintance with a doctor who habitually kept his room in their shared lodgings at constant near-freezing temperatures.
Written c. Mar. 1926. Published Mar. 1928 in Tales of Magic and Mystery vol. 1, no. 4. ~3,400 words
The Call of Cthulhu [PDF]
A man furthers the investigation of his late uncle into a widely reported, and inexplicable, rash of incomprehensible dreams - the breakout of which coincided with the discovery of an unidentifiable statuette.
Written c. 1926. Published Feb. 1928 in Weird Tales vol. 11, no. 2. ~11,900 words
Pickman's Model [PDF]
A young painter explains how and why he, and the rest of his artist clique, grew estranged from their most lurid and macabre associate.
Written c. Sept. 1926. Published Oct. 1927 in Weird Tales vol. 10, no. 4. ~5,500 words
The Strange High House in the Mist [PDF]
An urbane newcomer to a remote seaside Massachusetts town investigates an old cliffside cottage which even the most established locals are apprehensive of.
Written c. Nov. 1926. Published Oct. 1931 in Weird Tales vol. 18, no. 3. ~3,750 words
The Silver Key [PDF]
An aging man reflects on, and plains for, his erstwhile childhood capacity for flights of imagination and fantastical dreams.
Written c. 1926. Published Jan. 1929 in Weird Tales vol. 13, no. 1. ~5,000 words
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath [PDF]
A man - by providence, more experienced than most of otherworldly sorcery - undertakes an odyssean journey to locate the magnificent surreal city from his dreams.
Written c. 1927. ~42,600 words
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward [PDF]
The inexplicable disappearance of a young, recently institutionalised, man triggers an investigation into his former home life, his turn towards cloistered occult scholarship hitherto, and his peculiar ancestry.
Written c. 1927. ~51,100 words
The Colour Out of Space [PDF]
A meteorite of unknown substance - which displays material properties wholly unfamiliar to science - lands in rural Massachusetts.
Written c. Mar. 1927. Published Sept. 1927 in Amazing Stories vol. 2, no. 6. ~12,450 words
The Descendant [PDF]
A young man with an eager amateur interest in the occult and uncanny attempts to enlist the help of a reclusive and eccentric scholar in translating a rare book.
Written c. 1927. ~1,500 words
The Very Old Folk [PDF]
Herein is relayed a dream; an Ancient Roman governor of Iberia is beset with regular incursions into his territory by hill-dwelling raiders.
Written c. 1927. ~2,700 words
History of the Necronomicon [PDF]
Herein is described the provenance of an ancient tome of supposed great dark power.
Written c. 1927. ~700 words
The Dunwich Horror [PDF]
Recounts the dark goings-on within a decrepit and isolated rural New England community, as set in motion by one particularly uncanny family's rapidly-growing newborn son.
Written c. 1928. Published Apr. 1929 in Weird Tales vol. 13, no. 4 ~17,500 words
Ibid [PDF]
Herein an eager amateur scholar attempts to trace the history of an obscure Classical author.
Written c. 1927 - 1928. ~1,700 words
The Whisperer in Darkness [PDF]
A skeptical amateur investigator of rural Massachusetts folklore begins a correspondence with a highly anxious backwoods man who claims to possess proof that heretofore unrecognised extraterrestrial beings live among humanity.
Written c. 1930. Published Aug. 1931 in Weird Tales vol. 18, no. 1. ~26,600 words
At the Mountains of Madness [PDF]
Herein a returned explorer of the hitherto uncharted Antarctic interior attempts to dissuade others from visiting the icy continent by reporting the troubling experiences he and his party suffered there.
Written c. 1931. Serialised Feb. 1936 - Apr. 1936 in Astounding Stories vol. 16, no 6. - vol. 17, no 2. ~40,900 words
The Shadow Over Innsmouth [PDF]
A student taking a solitary antiquarian tour of New England inadvertently finds himself in a small seaside town, home to strange customs and even stranger residents.
Written c. 1931. Published Nov. 1936 by Visionary Publishing Company. ~27,000 words
The Dreams in the Witch House [PDF]
A gifted student of mathematics takes an extra-curricular interest in folklore and the occult after learning his new lodgings are purportedly haunted by the spirit of a Salemite witch and her demon-rat familiar.
Written c. 1932. Published July 1933 in Weird Tales vol. 22, no. 1. ~14,800 words
The Thing on the Doorstep [PDF]
A man recounts how his late acquaintance's chary disposition took a turn after he married a dark and mysterious woman of many esoteric and enigmatic talents.
Written c. Aug. 1933. Published Jan. 1937 in Weird Tales vol. 29, no. 1. ~11,000 words
The Book [PDF]
A man is given a strange and mysterious ancient book.
Written c. 1933. ~1,150 words