Pickman's Model

Written by H. P. Lovecraft

Narrated by Cathy Dobson

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), who wrote as H. P. Lovecraft, was an American writer who achieved posthumous acclaim for his outstanding and influential works of horror fiction.

"Pickman's Model" is the story of a bizarre painter who has an uncanny genius for painting terrifying, hellish creatures which are extraordinarily lifelike. Indeed, the rendition is so amazing that it seems inconceivable that they could have been painted from anything but a real-life model. But of course that could never be...surely....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Door Consulting
• Release date: Jun 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781467698870

H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of science fiction and horror stories. Born in Providence, Rhode Island to a wealthy family, he suffered the loss of his father at a young age. Raised with his mother’s family, he was doted upon throughout his youth and found a paternal figure in his grandfather Whipple, who encouraged his literary interests. He began writing stories and poems inspired by the classics and by Whipple’s spirited retellings of Gothic tales of terror. In 1902, he began publishing a periodical on astronomy, a source of intellectual fascination for the young Lovecraft. Over the next several years, he would suffer from a series of illnesses that made it nearly impossible to attend school. Exacerbated by the decline of his family’s financial stability, this decade would prove formative to Lovecraft’s worldview and writing style, both of which depict humanity as cosmologically insignificant. Supported by his mother Susie in his attempts to study organic chemistry, Lovecraft eventually devoted himself to writing poems and stories for such pulp and weird-fiction magazines as Argosy, where he gained a cult following of readers. Early stories of note include “The Alchemist” (1916), “The Tomb” (1917), and “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (1919). “The Call of Cthulu,” originally published in pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928, is considered by many scholars and fellow writers to be his finest, most complex work of fiction. Inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft became one of the century’s leading horror writers whose influence remains essential to the genre.

Reviews for Pickman's Model

[jhemlock-1711 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lovecraft once again points out the fallacy of human curiosity and makes it very clear how we are all going to go the way of the dodo and just want to lay down and die. Some of his characters are little stubborn and their nosing gets them in the end. This is probably one of his more visceral stories. It is about evil and evil being more evil than evil. Netflix recently released a short film version of this and while the stories differ slightly it was well done. It seems Hollywood has a monster of a time attempting to translate this mans work onto film.

[altheaann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A re-read.
When someone speaks of an artist's model, the first thing that probably leaps to mind is an attractive woman. But when an artist specializes in painting the weird, the grotesque and the macabre, the feminine form is likely not what he's seeking out. When the artist in this story invites a fan to see his secret studio, in the depths of Boston's North End slums, what is revealed has implications for the whole city.