"Nyarlathotep" | |
---|---|
Short story by H. P. Lovecraft | |
Text available at Wikisource | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publication | |
Published in | The United Amateur |
Publication type | Periodical |
Media type | Print (magazine) |
Publication date | November 1920 |
"Nyarlathotep" is a weird fiction [1] short story by H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in 1920 and first saw publication in that year's November issue of The United Amateur. [2] The poem itself is a bleak view of human civilization in decline, and it explores the mixed sensations of desperation and defiance in a dying society. [3]
"Nyarlathotep" was based on one of Lovecraft's dreams. [4] The first body paragraph of the poem was written "while he was still half-asleep". [5] The poem, which stands as the first appearance of the titular Cthulhu Mythos entity Nyarlathotep, [6] was described by Lovecraft as "a nightmare". [7] In the inspiring dream, Lovecraft read a letter from his friend Samuel Loveman that contained an invitation, which is as follows:
Don’t fail to see Nyarlathotep if he comes to Providence. He is horrible—horrible beyond anything you can imagine—but wonderful. He haunts one for hours afterward. I am still shuddering at what he showed. [8] [9]
The story is written in first person and begins by describing a strange and inexplicable sense of foreboding experienced by humanity in general, in anticipation of a great unknown evil.
The story proceeds to describe the appearance in Egypt of Nyarlathotep, "of the old native blood" and resembling a Pharaoh, who claims to have "risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries," and to be receiving messages from other worlds. Coming to the West, he appears to have a profound command of the sciences, constructs marvelous and unfathomable devices, and gains great fame as he travels from city to city demonstrating his inventions and powers. Wherever Nyarlathotep goes, the inhabitants' sleep is plagued by vivid nightmares.
The story describes Nyarlathotep's arrival in the narrator's city, and the narrator's attendance at one of Nyarlathotep's demonstrations, in which he defiantly dismisses Nyarlathotep's displays of power as mere tricks. The party of observers is driven out of the hall by Nyarlathotep, and hysterically insists to one another that they are not afraid, and that the city around them is unchanged and alive, even as the electric street lights begin to fail. Everyone falls into a trancelike state and wanders off, dividing into at least three columnal groups: the first of these disappears around a corner, from which there is then heard an echoing moan; another descends into a subway station with the sound of mad laughter; the third group, which contains the narrator, travels outward from the city toward the country. The narrator's party marches through unseasonable snows into a dark rift, with the narrator the last to enter.
The story ends by describing a series of horrific, surreal vistas experienced by the narrator, in which chaos and insanity pervade an ancient, dying universe ruled by mindless, inhuman gods, whose messenger and "soul" is Nyarlathotep.
Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos, a shared universe. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem "Nyarlathotep", he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers. Later, writers describe him as one of the Outer Gods, an alien pantheon.
Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of writer H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. He is the supreme deity of the Cthulu Mythos and the ruler of the Outer Gods, and may also be seen as a symbol for primordial chaos, therefore being the most powerful entity in the entirety of the Cthulhu Mythos.
"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, the kitten of an orphan (Menes) traveling with the band disappears. Upon hearing of the couple's violent acts towards cats, Menes invokes a prayer before leaving town that causes the local felines to swarm the cat-killers' house and devour them. Upon witnessing the result, the local politicians pass a law forbidding the killing of cats.
Fungi from Yuggoth is a sequence of 36 sonnets by cosmic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Most of the sonnets were written between 27 December 1929 – 4 January 1930; thereafter individual sonnets appeared in Weird Tales and other genre magazines. The sequence was published complete in Beyond the Wall of Sleep and The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft. Ballantine Books’ mass paperback edition, Fungi From Yuggoth & Other Poems included other poetic works.
"The Colour Out of Space" is a science fiction/horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the hills west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts. The narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed there, poisoning every living being nearby: vegetation grows large but foul-tasting, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the people go insane or die one by one.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Begun probably in the autumn of 1926, the draft was completed on January 22, 1927 and it remained unrevised and unpublished in his lifetime. It is both the longest of the stories that make up his Dream Cycle and the longest Lovecraft work to feature protagonist Randolph Carter. Along with his 1927 novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, it can be considered one of the significant achievements of that period of Lovecraft's writing. The Dream-Quest combines elements of horror and fantasy into an epic tale that illustrates the scope and wonder of humankind's ability to dream.
"Celephaïs" is a fantasy story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in early November 1920 and first published in the May 1922 issue of the Rainbow. It is part of the body of work which later came to be known as Lovecraft's Dream Cycle.The title refers to a fictional city that later appears in other Dream Cycle stories, including Lovecraft's novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926).
Lovecraft Country is a term coined for the New England setting used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, which combines real and fictitious locations. This setting has been elaborated on by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos. The phrase was not in use during Lovecraft's own lifetime; it was coined by Keith Herber for the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu.
"Polaris" is a fantasy short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in 1918 and first published in the December 1920 issue of the amateur journal The Philosopher. It is the story that introduces Lovecraft's fictional Pnakotic Manuscripts, the first of his arcane tomes.
"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924.
"The Black Stone" is a horror short story by American writer Robert E. Howard, first published in the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales. The story introduces the character of Justin Geoffrey, a mad poet, and the fictitious book Unaussprechlichen Kulten by Friedrich von Junzt. The story is part of the Cthulhu Mythos, and follows the same pattern and has the same features as much of H. P. Lovecraft's classic work.
"Hypnos" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, penned in March 1922 and first published in the May 1923 issue of National Amateur.
"The Dreams in the Witch House" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos cycle. It was written in January/February 1932 and first published in the July 1933 issue of Weird Tales.
"The Picture in the House" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft. It was written on December 12, 1920, and first published in the July issue of The National Amateur—which was published in the summer of 1921. It was reprinted in Weird Tales in 1923 and again in 1937.
"What the Moon Brings" is a prose poem by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written on June 5, 1922. This story was first published in the National Amateur in May 1923. It's shorter than most of Lovecraft's other short stories, and is essentially a fragment. The story is based on one of Lovecraft's dreams, a common technique.
"Imprisoned 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 Harry Houdini. Set in 1910, in Egypt, Houdini finds himself kidnapped by a tour guide, who resembles an ancient pharaoh, and thrown down a deep hole near the Great Sphinx of Giza. While attempting to find his way out, he stumbles upon a gigantic ceremonial cavern and encounters the real-life deity that inspired the building of the Sphinx.
"The Crawling Chaos" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Winifred V. Jackson, first published April 1921 in the United Cooperative. As in their other collaboration, "The Green Meadow", the tale was credited to "Elizabeth Berkeley" (Jackson) and "Lewis Theobald, Jun" (Lovecraft). Lovecraft wrote the entire text, but Jackson is also credited since the story was based on a dream she experienced.
An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia is a reference work written by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. It covers the life and work of American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. First published in 2001 by Greenwood Publishing Group, it was reissued in a slightly revised paperback edition by Hippocampus Press.
Beyond the Wall of Sleep is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories, poems and essays by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in 1943 and was the second collection of Lovecraft's work published by Arkham House. 1,217 copies were printed. The volume is named for the Lovecraft short story "Beyond the Wall of Sleep".
"Poetry and the Gods" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Anna Helen Crofts. The two authors wrote the story in or shortly before the summer of 1920. It was published the following September in United Amateur, which credits Lovecraft as Henry Paget-Lowe. In the story, a young woman dreams that she has an audience with Zeus, who explains to her that the gods have been asleep and dreaming, but they have chosen a poet who will herald their awakening.
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