Fist of Five: Five short stories by H P Lovecraft

Ben Phillips

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a supernatural horror writer and proponent of cosmicism in the 1920s and 1930s. In life he was relatively obscure beyond a small circle, writing primarily for the Pulp Fiction magazine Weird Tales and eventually dying in poverty. After his death, however, writers such as August Derleth went on to publish and publicise his work, as well as writing tales within his fictional universe (collectively known as the 'Cthulhu mythos'), bringing his short stories into the public eye where they directly inspired such authors as Stephen King.
Lovecraft’s stories are noticeably a product of himself; the majority are set in his native New England; the themes of madness may be a reflection of his mother, who suffered from hysteria; and, slightly offputtingly, Lovecraft was not afraid of engaging with casual racism. Yet his stories are unique, distinct even within the genre he practically created, and worth reading for any fan of horror. The following are some of his best.

The Call of Cthulhu

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new age.

This is the opening paragraph to H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, easily his most popular story to date. Written as the memoirs of a Boston academic, this iconic short story deals not only with an investigation of the famed Great Old One and his cult but also wrestles with the capacity of human comprehension and the insignificance of humanity in the vastness of the cosmos, albeit through the medium of fictitious and incomprehensible monsters. The journey of the narrator investigating his great-uncle’s memoirs, from the initial discovery of a clay bas-relief with an image of the beast through to a full understanding of Cthulhu, deals more directly with cult-worship, madness, and mystery global in scale. It is a fascinating story in a way no other author has been able to achieve, although it is certainly niche in its subject. For anybody interested in cosmic horror and the Lovecraftian mythos, I strongly recommend beginning with the story of Cthulhu, if only for the game of the titular character. It is certainly not Lovecraft’s best story but its brevity and familiarity make it a good starting point.

Shadow over Innsmouth

There is something fishy about the town of Innsmouth. The narrator relates his tale of a tour of New England in which he stumbled upon this half-deserted fishing village in Massachusetts. Despite warnings from citizens of nearby villages of demon-worship and the slimy Captain Marsh, the narrator chooses to investigate. Six months later, a government inquisition leads to mass arrests and destruction of seafront property. Suspiciously, a submarine fires tornadoes at a reef a mile and a half offshore. But why? 

 

Despite its being twice the length of The Call of Cthulhu, I would recommend The Shadow Over Innsmouth no less, despite the fact that the two are similar in nearly every aspect. The chief difference is that the story of investigation occurs not in an office in Boston but on location, adding an element of personal involvement and tension to the proceedings. In terms of its themes it can be considered to be more of the same as The Call of Cthulhu, but so is much of Lovecraft’s work. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is worth reading in its own right, I believe, simply as an enjoyable if not perfect short story.

The Dunwich Horror

A departure from the maritime settings of The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror concerns the Whateleys: a strange family in Massachusetts - young Wilbur ages abnormally quickly, his mother Lavinia is an unstable albino, and his father may be a sorcerer. More worrying is the monster living in the Whateleys’ home which Wilbur cannot defeat without a copy of the Necronomicon, the procurement of which causes almost as much damage to the Whateleys as the monster. Unlike many of Lovecraft’s other stories, there is relatively little mystery and more a sense of urgency in the face of a known unknown. A suspenseful story with an excellent climax, The Dunwich Horror is certainly one of Lovecraft’s best-written stories.

Herbert West - Reanimator

A complete departure from the rest of Lovecraft’s work, Herbert West - Reanimator deals not with alien horrors but human ones. The narrator, a colleague of Herbert West, recounts tales of their invention of a serum which can reanimate corpses. The story of Herbert West is essentially a zombie story. Although it lacks the suspense and cosmic horror of the Cthulhu mythos it shows another side of Lovecraft’s writing, one full of dark comedy and camp. In short, it is different.

At the Mountains of Madness

As much as a short story writer can have one, At the Mountains of Madness is H. P. Lovecraft’s magnum opus. Twelve parts long, it was rejected from Weird Tales on grounds of its length, forcing Lovecraft to serialise it in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. This is the story of an Antarctic expedition which falls apart once various eldritch artefacts - and creatures - are uncovered. I would rather not spoil any more and instead recommend reading it. Despite its length relative to Lovecraft’s other short stories, it is still short enough to read in a matter of hours. Furthermore, this (and all of Lovecraft’s other writing) is in the public domain, meaning that it is just as accessible as this blog post!