"The Thing in the Moonlight" is a short story by J. Chapman Miske. The story is based on a letter dated November 24, 1927 from H. P. Lovecraft to Donald Wandrei [1] describing one of Lovecraft's dreams. The story was prepared for publication by Miske, who filled in the story surrounding the description of the dream. In places, the letter and published story are identical to Lovecraft's style. It was first published in Bizarre magazine on January 1941. [2]
Morgan, the protagonist, is an illiterate man. One evening, Morgan is sitting alone and suddenly feels compelled to start writing. Despite his illiteracy, he records the dream of Howard Phillips, another man. In Morgan's writing, Phillips says that he fell asleep on November 24, 1927 and has never reawakened.
The dream's setting takes place in a strange marshland. Phillips explores the marsh's cliff side, noting the eerie and mouth-like caves dotting the plateau. Eventually, Phillips encounters a set of railway tracks. On these tracks he finds "a yellow, vestibuled car numbered 1852—of a plain, double-trucked type common from 1900 to 1910." [3] This car is able to start and he climbs aboard, searching for a light switch so that he can see better. He hears a noise behind him, and, turning to look, sees two men (assumed to be the motorman and conductor) approach him. The first man lifts his head to the sky, sniffs, and howls, while the second drops to all fours and charges toward the Phillips and the car. Phillips immediately flees out of the car until he is too tired to continue.
Phillips reveals that the reason for his terror was not "because the conductor had dropped on all fours, but because the face of the motorman was a mere white cone tapering to one blood-red-tentacle..." [4]
Phillips is aware that it is a dream, but is unable to wake up. During the day, he travels the strange land, and each night, is brought back to the place with the train car. He always alerts the howling beast to his presence, and always flees from it.
The narrator closes the story by saying that he would visit Phillips' house in Providence, but fears what he might find.
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name Cthulhu derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American writer of weird fiction and horror fiction, who is known for his creation of what became the Cthulhu Mythos.
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.
Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Lovecraft 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, a malevolent pantheon.
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 Dream Cycle is a series of short stories and novellas by author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). Written between 1918 and 1932, they are about the "Dreamlands", a vast, alternate dimension that can only be entered via dreams.
"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.
"The Dunwich Horror" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts. It is considered one of the core stories of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Lovecraft Country is 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 since been elaborated on by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos. The phrase was not in use during Lovecraft's own lifetime. Instead the phrase Lovecraft Country was coined by Keith Herber for the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The phrase is only one of many attempts to label the setting of Lovecraft's works, though with the 2020 HBO television series Lovecraft Country arguably the one gaining the most traction. Alternative phrases include Arkham County, Miskatonic County and the Miskatonic region.
"The Statement of Randolph Carter" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in December 1919, it was first published in The Vagrant, May 1920. It tells of a traumatic event in the life of Randolph Carter, a student of the occult loosely representing Lovecraft himself. It is the first story in which Carter appears. Its adaptations include the film The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter.
"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 Thing on the Doorstep" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales.
"The Dreams in the Witch House" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos cycle. Written in January/February 1932 and first published in the July 1933 issue of Weird Tales.
"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.
"Ex Oblivione" is a prose poem by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in late 1920 or early 1921 and first published in The United Amateur in March 1921, under the pseudonym Ward Phillips.
The Lurker at the Threshold is a horror novel by American writer August Derleth, based on short fragments written by H. P. Lovecraft, who died in 1937, and published as a collaboration between the two authors. According to S. T. Joshi, of the novel's 50,000 words, 1,200 were written by Lovecraft.
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."
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
The Xothic Legend Cycle: The Complete Mythos Fiction of Lin Carter is a collection of horror short stories by science fiction and fantasy author Lin Carter, edited by Robert M. Price. It gathers together his "Xothic" tales and some of his other Cthulhu Mythos writings. It was first published as a trade paperback by Chaosium in 1997 as book 13 of the publisher's "Cthulhu Cycle" series. The collection has also been translated into German.
Omnibus of Science Fiction is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Groff Conklin. It was first published in hardcover by Crown Publishers in 1952, and reprinted in 1953; a book club edition was issued by the same publisher with the Science Fiction Book Club in the same year. Later editions were issued by Bonanza Books/Crown Publishers in 1984 and Chatham River Press in 1984. An abridged paperback version including eleven of its forty-three stories was published by Berkley Books in August 1956 under the variant title Science Fiction Omnibus and reprinted in November 1963. A two volume British edition, also abridged, was published in hardcover by Grayson & Grayson in 1953-1954 under the variant titles Strange Travels in Science Fiction and Strange Adventures in Science Fiction; together, they included twenty-two of the original forty-three stories.