Horror Stories by Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Horror Stories by Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

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Horror Stories by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. episodes

  • 35 - The Statement of Randolph Carter by H. P. Lovecraft.
    The Statement of Randolph Carter by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "The Statement of Randolph Carter" is a short horror story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in December 1919 and first published in the May 1920 issue of the amateur magazine The Vagrant. The narrative, presented as a first-person affidavit by the titular character, details a nightmarish expedition into an ancient tomb in a remote Florida swamp, where protagonist Randolph Carter accompanies his occult-obsessed friend Harley Warren, only for Warren to meet a gruesome fate amid whispers of unspeakable horrors from below. 
    The story unfolds as Carter's sworn statement to authorities following his discovery in a dazed state near the site, recounting how he and Warren, armed with spades, electric lanterns, and a mysterious tome in an indecipherable script, unearth and enter a long-sealed sepulchre connected by a telephone line for communication. As Warren descends alone into the subterranean chambers, Carter listens in horror to his friend's escalating reports of bizarre relics, charnel pits, and finally, a cataclysmic encounter with otherworldly entities that culminates in Warren's death, announced by an eerie, unknown voice declaring, "You fool, Warren is dead!" This concise tale, spanning just a few pages, exemplifies Lovecraft's early foray into cosmic horror, emphasizing humanity's profound insignificance against vast, indifferent cosmic forces and the perils of probing forbidden knowledge. 
    Central to the narrative is the recurring character of Randolph Carter, a sensitive dreamer who later appears in Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories such as "The Silver Key" and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, serving as a semi-autobiographical stand-in for the author's own introspections on reality and the subconscious. Thematically, the work explores the fear of the unknown, where arcane texts—here a precursor to the infamous Necronomicon—unlock doors to madness-inducing truths about alien dimensions and existential dread, blending psychological tension with subtle scientific undertones in Warren's rationalist yet doomed inquiries. Lovecraft's personal nightmares and anxieties about heredity and insanity further infuse the story, marking it as a pivotal early piece in his oeuvre that anticipates the Cthulhu Mythos by highlighting the hubris of human curiosity in an uncaring universe.  
    Published during Lovecraft's active phase in the United Amateur Press Association, the story received little immediate attention but gained posthumous prominence through collections like August Derleth's The Outsider and Others (1939) and S. T. Joshi's variorum editions, cementing its status as a cornerstone of weird fiction. Its adaptation into film, radio, and other media underscores its enduring influence, while scholarly analyses praise its economical prose and atmospheric buildup as hallmarks of Lovecraft's style, evoking revulsion toward the incomprehensible without relying on graphic violence. 

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    14 min
  • 34 - A Reminiscence Of Dr. Samuel Johnson by H. P. Lovecraft.
    A Reminiscence Of Dr. Samuel Johnson by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, first published in the November 1917 issue of the amateur journalism periodical The United Amateur. Narrated pseudonymously by Humphry Littlewit, Esq., a fictional character claiming to have been born in 1690 and thus aged 228 by the time of writing, the work humorously recounts imagined personal encounters with the renowned 18th-century English lexicographer, critic, and man of letters Samuel Johnson. Written in an elaborate, archaic prose style mimicking 18th-century English, it serves as a satirical pastiche of James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, blending historical reverence with whimsical anachronism and subtle supernatural elements. 
    The narrative centers on Littlewit's first meeting with Johnson in 1763 at the Mitre Tavern in London, arranged through the young James Boswell, and extends to the narrator's subsequent involvement in Johnson's celebrated Literary Club, founded in 1764. Through vivid dialogues and anecdotes, the story portrays Johnson's robust personality and sharp wit, along with the narrator's acquaintances with literary figures such as Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, and Jonathan Swift, while incorporating satirical revisions of poetry and reflections on the passage of time. The fantastical longevity of the protagonist introduces an "inhuman amount of time" spanned by the narrator, a motif that echoes in Lovecraft's later explorations of temporality, though here treated comically rather than horrifically.  
    As one of Lovecraft's earliest published fictions, the story exemplifies his youthful enthusiasm for Augustan-era literature and his skill in historical pastiche, marking it as a rare comedic diversion in an oeuvre predominantly associated with cosmic horror. Composed during his active involvement in amateur journalism—where he served as Chairman of the Department of Public Criticism—the piece reflects his advocacy for classical standards in prose and poetry, while its urban London setting highlights an early, lighter fascination with fabulous, semi-mythical cityscapes before his shift toward dystopian realism in the 1920s. 

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    12 min
  • 33 - Polaris by H. P. Lovecraft.
    Polaris by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "Polaris" is a short fantasy story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in the spring and summer of 1918 and first published in the December 1920 issue of the amateur journal The Philosopher. The narrative follows an unnamed narrator who becomes entranced by the Pole Star shining through his north window, leading him into a dream where he inhabits the body of a warrior in the ancient marble city of Olathoë, located on a cold plateau in the prehistoric land of Lomar between the peaks of Noton and Kadiphonek. 
    In the dream, the narrator, befriended by the noble warrior Alos, learns of an impending invasion by the squat, yellow-skinned Inutos from the west, barbaric foes who seek to overrun the civilized Lomarites. Assigned to guard a watchtower atop the city's highest rampart, he struggles against the hypnotic whispers of Polaris, which lure him into slumber at the critical moment, allowing the Inutos to breach the defenses with their war-cries and capture Olathoë. Awakening in the modern world, the narrator grapples with the blurring of dream and reality, haunted by the belief that he is the reincarnated soul of the failed sentinel, forever trapped between eras as Lomar is buried under advancing ice sheets. 
    As the inaugural tale in Lovecraft's Dream Cycle series, "Polaris" introduces recurring motifs of ancient, lost civilizations and the permeable boundary between waking life and otherworldly dreams, influenced by the dream-lands of Lord Dunsany's fantasies. The story's astronomical focus on Polaris reflects Lovecraft's fascination with celestial mechanics and the precession of the equinoxes, symbolizing cosmic forces that dwarf human agency and foreshadow the indifference of the universe in his later cosmic horror works. First collected in book form in The Outsider and Others (1939), it has been reprinted in numerous anthologies, including Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (1965) and The Doom That Came to Sarnath and Other Stories (1971), cementing its place in Lovecraft's early oeuvre.

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    10 min
  • 32 - The Picture in the House by H. P. Lovecraft.
    The Picture in the House by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "The Picture in the House" is a short horror story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written on December 12, 1920, and first published in the July 1921 issue of The National Amateur. Set in rural New England during a violent November storm in 1896, the narrative follows an unnamed scholarly narrator—a genealogist researching family histories in the Miskatonic Valley—who seeks refuge in an isolated, ancient farmhouse. There, he encounters a reclusive, unkempt old man who shares his fascination with rare books, particularly a 1598 account of the Congo region by Filippo Pigafetta containing horrific illustrations of cannibalism, leading to revelations of the inhabitant's macabre obsessions and a climactic eruption of unearthly terror. 
    The story exemplifies Lovecraft's early foray into cosmic horror, emphasizing themes of isolation, the corrupting allure of forbidden knowledge, and the fragility of human sanity in the face of incomprehensible depravity. Through vivid descriptions of decaying New England architecture and atmospheric dread, Lovecraft critiques the veneer of rural innocence, portraying commonplace settings as portals to profound unease. Originally composed amid Lovecraft's involvement in amateur journalism, the tale marks a pivotal moment in his oeuvre, bridging his initial macabre sketches with the expansive mythos that would define his legacy. 

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    24 min
  • 31 - The Nameless City by H. P. Lovecraft.
    The Nameless City by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "The Nameless City" is a short horror story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in January 1921 and first published in the November 1921 issue of the amateur press journal The Wolverine. Set in a remote, crumbling city buried beneath the sands of the Arabian desert—older than any known human civilization such as Memphis or Babylon—the narrative follows an unnamed explorer who delves into its ruins, discovering temples of unnaturally low proportions and evidence of an ancient race of reptilian creatures. 
    The story's plot centers on the narrator's descent into subterranean chambers adorned with frescoes depicting the reptilians' lost history: a once-mighty coastal empire reduced to hiding underground as the desert encroached, haunted by cosmic winds and enigmatic forces. It introduces key elements of Lovecraft's cosmic horror, including forbidden knowledge alluded to in a couplet by the mad poet Abdul Alhazred—"That is not dead which can eternal lie, / And with strange aeons even death may die"—which ties into the broader Cthulhu Mythos. Regarded as the inaugural tale of the Mythos, "The Nameless City" explores themes of humanity's insignificance against ancient, indifferent entities and the terror of uncovering truths beyond comprehension. 
    Inspired by a dream and the style of Lord Dunsany's works, the story was later reprinted in the November 1938 issue of Weird Tales and has influenced subsequent horror literature and media, including manga adaptations by Gou Tanabe and a 2024 low-poly video game.

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    29 min
  • 30 - The Music of Erich Zann by H. P. Lovecraft.
    The Music of Erich Zann by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "The Music of Erich Zann" is a short horror story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in December 1921 and first published in the March 1922 issue of the amateur journal National Amateur.  
    Set in a decaying, ancient building on the steep, shadowy Rue d'Auseil in Paris, the narrative centers on an unnamed, destitute philosophy student who becomes obsessed with the eerie, otherworldly violin music composed and performed by his reclusive, mute neighbor, the elderly German musician Erich Zann, whose playing seems to summon incomprehensible cosmic forces from an abyssal void beyond human perception.  
    Lovecraft himself ranked "The Music of Erich Zann" as his second-favorite among his own works, valuing it particularly for the subtlety and restraint of its supernatural manifestations, noting in 1933 that he appreciated it "for what it hasn’t more than for what it has." The story exemplifies Lovecraft's early weird fiction style, emphasizing psychological dread and the insignificance of humanity against vast, unknowable entities, while evoking the atmospheric terror of Edgar Allan Poe's tales through its tangible urban decay and auditory horrors. Unlike many of Lovecraft's later Cthulhu Mythos entries, it focuses on intimate, personal encounters with the inexplicable rather than grand mythological constructs, highlighting themes of fragile sanity, the allure of forbidden knowledge, and music as a bridge to the ineffable.

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    19 min
  • 29 - Memory by H. P. Lovecraft.
    Memory by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "Memory" is a brief prose poem by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in 1919 and first published in June 1919 in the amateur journal The United Co-operative. Set in the ruined, overgrown valley of Nis, the work features a dialogue between a genie haunting the moonbeams and a daemon who identifies itself as Memory, who recalls the builders of ancient stone structures as ephemeral beings called "Man," likening their deeds to the fleeting flow of the red river Than and their aspect to the apes inhabiting the crumbling courtyards. 
    This flash fiction piece, one of Lovecraft's shortest at under 400 words, exemplifies his early dream-inspired style, blending cosmic indifference with themes of decay and the impermanence of human achievement. The narrative unfolds in a single, vivid scene amid lethal foliage, poison serpents, and moss-covered ruins, evoking a post-human landscape where nature reclaims the remnants of forgotten civilizations. Through Memory's perspective, Lovecraft underscores humanity's insignificance in the vast timeline of existence, a motif recurrent in his later Mythos tales. Originally composed during Lovecraft's involvement in the United Amateur Press Association, the poem reflects his fascination with ancient lore and mythological elements drawn from his reading of Lord Dunsany. 

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    3 min
  • 28 - Herbert West: Reanimator, Part B by H. P. Lovecraft.
    Herbert West: Reanimator, Part B by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    Herbert West—Reanimator is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, serialized in six parts in the amateur magazine Home Brew from February to July 1922. The narrative centers on the titular character, Herbert West, a brilliant but fanatical medical student at Miskatonic University who invents a powerful chemical reagent designed to restore life to recently deceased organisms by stimulating their tissues and nervous systems. Told from the perspective of West's unnamed friend and reluctant assistant, the story chronicles their illicit experiments with human and animal subjects, emphasizing the need for "fresh" specimens to achieve any semblance of successful reanimation. 
    West is depicted as a small, yellow-haired young man with pale blue eyes and a precise, soft-spoken demeanor, whose single-minded pursuit of scientific triumph overrides ethical concerns and leads to increasingly nightmarish outcomes. The plot unfolds across the protagonists' college years and into their post-graduation lives, including a typhoid epidemic, a grave-robbing incident in the town of Bolton, and service during World War I, where West refines his formula amid battlefield horrors. Each installment builds on the previous, revealing the escalating dangers of West's hubris, from failed revivifications producing mindless, violent entities to more coherent but psychologically tormented resurrections. 
    The story exemplifies Lovecraft's early pulp fiction style, blending elements of mad science and cosmic horror while critiquing unchecked ambition in medical research. Themes of mortality, the fragility of human sanity, and the perils of defying natural laws are central, with the narrator's growing terror underscoring the moral decay accompanying West's quests. Originally written as a homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it has influenced subsequent adaptations, including the 1985 film Re-Animator directed by Stuart Gordon, which loosely reimagines West as a more overtly villainous figure, and a contemporary remake announced in 2025. 



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    41 min
  • 27 - Herbert West: Reanimator, Part A by H. P. Lovecraft.
    Herbert West: Reanimator, Part A by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    Herbert West—Reanimator is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, serialized in six parts in the amateur magazine Home Brew from February to July 1922. The narrative centers on the titular character, Herbert West, a brilliant but fanatical medical student at Miskatonic University who invents a powerful chemical reagent designed to restore life to recently deceased organisms by stimulating their tissues and nervous systems. Told from the perspective of West's unnamed friend and reluctant assistant, the story chronicles their illicit experiments with human and animal subjects, emphasizing the need for "fresh" specimens to achieve any semblance of successful reanimation. 
    West is depicted as a small, yellow-haired young man with pale blue eyes and a precise, soft-spoken demeanor, whose single-minded pursuit of scientific triumph overrides ethical concerns and leads to increasingly nightmarish outcomes. The plot unfolds across the protagonists' college years and into their post-graduation lives, including a typhoid epidemic, a grave-robbing incident in the town of Bolton, and service during World War I, where West refines his formula amid battlefield horrors. Each installment builds on the previous, revealing the escalating dangers of West's hubris, from failed revivifications producing mindless, violent entities to more coherent but psychologically tormented resurrections. 
    The story exemplifies Lovecraft's early pulp fiction style, blending elements of mad science and cosmic horror while critiquing unchecked ambition in medical research. Themes of mortality, the fragility of human sanity, and the perils of defying natural laws are central, with the narrator's growing terror underscoring the moral decay accompanying West's quests. Originally written as a homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it has influenced subsequent adaptations, including the 1985 film Re-Animator directed by Stuart Gordon, which loosely reimagines West as a more overtly villainous figure, and a contemporary remake announced in 2025. 



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    40 min
  • 26 - Facts Concerning Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family by H. P. Lovecraft.
    Facts Concerning Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family by H. P. Lovecraft.  
    "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" is a horror short story written by American author H. P. Lovecraft in 1920. It first appeared in print in March 1921 in the amateur journal The Wolverine, with a later reprint in the April 1924 issue of Weird Tales under the alternate title "The White Ape," a change Lovecraft disliked. Presented as a detached genealogical account, the story traces the decline of the aristocratic Jermyn family across several generations, marked by increasing madness, physical anomalies, and violent behavior linked to an ancestor's secretive marriage during explorations in the Congo, and concludes with Sir Arthur Jermyn's discovery of a mummified relic that reveals the family's simian origins, prompting his suicide by self-immolation. 
    The work stands as one of Lovecraft's early tales of hereditary degeneration, emphasizing the horror of tainted ancestry and the deterministic power of biological inheritance over individual identity. It draws on contemporary ideas about evolution, including fears of "missing links" and primate-human proximity, to depict the devastating impact of scientific revelations that undermine human exceptionalism and expose a monstrous connection to subhuman origins. This narrative reflects Lovecraft's materialist worldview, where knowledge of one's lineage brings not enlightenment but existential terror, a theme he would develop further in later fiction. 
    The story is frequently discussed in scholarship for its exploration of genotypic horror, a mode of dread centered on the fear of hidden inferior or non-human elements within a prestigious bloodline, often framed through anxieties about racial purity and degeneration in the post-Darwinian era. Though an early work predating Lovecraft's major mythos cycle, it exemplifies his emerging style of blending pseudo-scholarly narration with cosmic pessimism. 

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    35 min

About Horror Stories by Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

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Horror Stories by Howard Phillips Lovecraft.  
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of weird fiction and horror, best known for originating the…