| "The Hound" | |
|---|---|
| by H. P. Lovecraft | |
 First page of the manuscript The Hound. | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Published in | Weird Tales |
| Publication type | Periodical |
| Media type | Print (magazine) |
| Publication date | February 1924 |
 Text available at Wikisource | |
"The Hound" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft in September 1922 and published in the February 1924 issue of Weird Tales . It contains the first mention of Lovecraft's fictional text the Necronomicon. [1]
The story opens with the unnamed narrator preparing to commit suicide. Lamenting his fate, he reflects upon the events which led him to this moment.
The narrator and his friend, St. John, are a pair of loners who both have a deranged interest in robbing graves. They constantly defile crypts and often keep souvenirs of their nocturnal expeditions. Since they reside in the same house, they have the opportunity to set up a sort of morbid museum in their basement. Using the objects collected from the various graves they have robbed, the two men organize a private exhibition. The collection consists of headstones, preserved bodies, skulls, and several heads in different phases of decomposition. It also includes statues, frightful paintings, and a locked portfolio bound in tanned human skin.
One day, the two learn of a particular grave, which sparks a profound interest in them: an old grave in a Holland cemetery which holds a legendary tomb raider within, one who is said to have stolen, many years ago, a "potent thing from a mighty sepulchre." They travel to the old cemetery where the man was buried. The thought of exhuming the final resting place of a former grave robber is irresistibly appealing to them. That, and the fact that the body had been buried several centuries before, drives them to travel such long distances to reach the site. Upon reaching the old cemetery, they notice the distant baying of a giant hound. They ignore it and begin their excavation. After some time, they hit a solid object in the ground. Clearing the last of the dirt from it, the two men unearth a strange and elaborately-made casket. Upon opening the casket, they see that several places on the skeletal remains appear torn and shattered, as if attacked by a wild animal, yet the whole of the skeleton is still completely distinguishable. At that moment, they notice a jade amulet hanging from the skeleton's neck. They examine it and, after some observation, they recognize the amulet as one mentioned in "the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred." They immediately know they must have the amulet at all cost. They remove it from the skeleton and flee into the night. As they do, they notice once again the continuous sound of a baying hound in the distance.
After they return home to England, strange events begin to occur. Odd sounds can be heard within and around their house, including the distant howling they heard in the cemetery. One night, St. John is violently attacked and killed by a mysterious creature, which the narrator claims the amulet had brought unto him. He destroys the macabre museum he and his friend made, before fleeing from the house and traveling to London. Still plagued by bizarre occurrences, he decides that he must return the amulet to its rightful owner. He travels to Holland, but the amulet is stolen from him before he can return it. The next day, he reads in the newspaper about a band of thieves savagely killed by an unknown creature. Slowly going insane, he returns to the churchyard and exhumes the coffin once more, only to find the skeleton within covered in caked blood and bits of flesh and hair, holding the lost amulet in its hand. Suddenly, the skeleton begins howling, the same howl that had tormented him since he first stole the amulet. The narrator flees the graveyard, succumbing to madness and despair. He states that he intends to kill himself with a revolver, believing death to be his only refuge from the crawling horror which grows within him.
"The Hound" contains several references to the body of lore known as the Cthulhu Mythos that Lovecraft shared with other horror writers. Most notably, it marks the first appearance of one of Lovecraft's most famous literary creations—the forbidden book known as the Necronomicon . Lovecraft had mentioned its author a year earlier, in "The Nameless City", but here for the first time named the book. Referring to an amulet found on a grave-robbing expedition, the narrator relates:
The reference to "Leng" is one of the first mentions of Lovecraft's imaginary plateau, having only appeared before in 1920s "Celephais". Here placed in Central Asia, Leng is also associated in Lovecraft's writings with Antarctica and his imaginary Dreamlands.
Lovecraftian scholar Will Murray, pointing to the "semi-canine face" on the amulet as well as the "corpse-eating cult" of Leng, suggests that the titular creature of "The Hound" "probably represents an early form of the ghoul as Lovecraft would develop it." [2]
On September 16, 1922, Lovecraft toured the Flatbush Reformed Church in Brooklyn with his friend Rheinhart Kleiner, writing about the visit in a letter:
Lovecraft wrote "The Hound" shortly afterwards, using as the name of one of the main characters his nickname for his companion Kleinhart, "St. John". [4] The grave that is fatefully robbed in the story is in a "terrible Holland churchyard"—perhaps a reference to Flatbush church being part of the Dutch Reformed Church (although the story is actually set in the Netherlands, as well as in England).
Critic Steven J. Mariconda suggests that the story is a tribute to the Decadent literary movement in general and in particular Joris-Karl Huysmans' A rebours , an 1884 novel that Lovecraft greatly admired. (Huysmans is mentioned by name in the story, along with Baudelaire.) Like "The Hound"'s protagonists, victims of a "devastating ennui", the main character of A rebours suffers from an "overpowering tedium" that leads him to "imagine and then indulge in unnatural love-affairs and perverse pleasures." [5] Mariconda also points to the heavy debt the story owes to Edgar Allan Poe, an influence acknowledged by several borrowed phrases:
Though Lovecraft chose "The Hound" as one of the five stories he initially submitted to Weird Tales , his main professional outlet, he later dismissed it as "a dead dog" [7] and "a piece of junk". [8]
Some critics have shared Lovecraft's deprecation; Lin Carter called it "a minor little tale" that is "slavishly Poe-esque in style". [9] But the story has its defenders; Steven J. Mariconda says it is "written in a zestful, almost baroque style which is very entertaining", [7] while Peter Cannon, saying that it must have been written "with tongue at least partly in cheek", credits it with a certain "naive charm". [10]
The plot of the Poppy Z. Brite short story "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" bears a strong resemblance to this Lovecraft story, albeit transplanted to a modern Southern Gothic Louisiana setting.
The Necronomicon, also referred to as the Book of the Dead, or under a purported original Arabic title of Kitab al-Azif, is a fictional grimoire appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in Lovecraft's "The Nameless City". Among other things, the work contains an account of the Old Ones, their history, and the means for summoning them.
Cthulhu is a cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, this creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in the shape of a green octopus, dragon, and a caricature of human form. The Lovecraft-inspired universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, where it exists with its fellow entities, is named after it.
The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by the American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895. The book is named for the fictional play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories. The first half of the book features highly esteemed horror stories, and the book has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural. Lin Carter called it "an absolute masterpiece, probably the single greatest book of weird fantasy written in this country between the death of Poe and the rise of Lovecraft".
Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of writer H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. He is the ruler of the Outer Gods, and may be seen as a symbol for primordial chaos.
Frank Belknap Long Jr. was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and Shoggoth alongside his friend, H. P. Lovecraft. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
Sunand Tryambak Joshi is an American literary critic whose work has largely focused on weird and fantastic fiction, especially the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft and associated writers.
"The Nameless City" is a short 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 story set in the Cthulhu Mythos world. In the story, the protagonist travels to the middle of the Arabian Desert to explore an ancient underground city.
Theodore "Eibon" Donald Klein is an American horror writer and editor.
"The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written between 5–9 November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of Weird Tales. It was the last written of the author's known works, and is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. The epigraph to the story is the second stanza of Lovecraft's 1917 poem "Nemesis".
"Pickman's Model" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, written in September 1926 and first published in the October 1927 issue of Weird Tales.
"The Outsider" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between March and August 1921, it was first published in Weird Tales, April 1926. In this work, a mysterious individual who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search of human contact and light. "The Outsider" is one of Lovecraft's most commonly reprinted works and is also one of the most popular stories ever to be published in Weird Tales.
"The Festival" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft written in October 1923 and published in the January 1925 issue of Weird Tales.
"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 mad poet Justin Geoffrey and the fictitious 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.
"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 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.
Lovecraft: A Look Behind the "Cthulhu Mythos" is a 1972 non-fiction book written by Lin Carter, published by Ballantine Books. The introduction notes that the book "does not purport to be a biography of H. P. Lovecraft", and instead presents it as "a history of the growth of the so-called Cthulhu Mythos."
Peter H. Cannon is an H. P. Lovecraft scholar and an author of Cthulhu Mythos fiction. Cannon works as an editor for Publishers Weekly, specializing in thrillers and mystery. He lives in New York City and is married with three children.
"Medusa's Coil" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop. It was first published in Weird Tales magazine in January 1939, two years after Lovecraft's death. The story concerns the son of an American plantation owner who brings back from Paris a new wife. It mixes elements of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos with the ancient Greek myth of Medusa, but it has also been noted for its racist aspects.
"History of the Necronomicon" is a short text written by H. P. Lovecraft in 1927, and published in 1938. It describes the origins of the fictional book of the same name: the occult grimoire Necronomicon, a now-famous element of some of his stories. The short text purports to be non-fiction, adding to the appearance of "pseudo-authenticity" which Lovecraft valued in building his Cthulhu Mythos oeuvre. Accordingly, it supposes the history of the Necronomicon as the inspiration for Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow, which concerns a book that overthrows the minds of those who read it.
The full text of The Hound at Wikisource
