The Dunwich Horror

By H. P. Lovecraft

The hideous son of a deformed and unstable albino mother and an unknown father is indoctrinated by his sorcerer grandfather into dark rituals and the study of witchcraft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781627559409

H. P. Lovecraft

Renowned as one of the great horror-writers of all time, H.P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 and lived most of his life in Providence, Rhode Island. Among his many classic horror stories, many of which were published in book form only after his death in 1937, are ‘At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror’ (1964), ‘Dagon and Other Macabre Tales’ (1965), and ‘The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions’ (1970).

Book preview

The Dunwich Horror

H. P. Lovecraft

Wilder Publications

Copyright © 2014 Wilder Publications

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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ISBN 978-1-62755-940-9

Table of Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras—dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies—may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to affect us all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body—or without the body, they would have been the same...That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual—that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy—are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence.

—Charles Lamb:

Witches and Other Night-Fears

I

When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean’s Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country.

The ground gets higher, and the brier-bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the ruts of the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest belts seem too large, and the wild weeds, brambles and grasses attain a luxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time the planted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparsely scattered houses wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation.

Without knowing why, one hesitates to ask directions from the gnarled solitary figures spied now and then on crumbling doorsteps or on the sloping, rock-strewn meadows. Those figures are so silent and furtive that one feels somehow confronted by forbidden things, with which it would be better to have nothing to do. When a rise in the road brings the mountains in view above the deep woods, the feeling of strange uneasiness is increased. The summits are too rounded and symmetrical to give a sense of comfort and naturalness, and sometimes the sky silhouettes with especial clearness the queer circles of tall stone pillars with which most of them are crowned.

Gorges and ravines of problematical depth intersect the way, and the crude wooden bridges always seem of dubious safety. When the road dips again there are stretches of marshland that one instinctively dislikes, and indeed almost fears at evening when unseen whippoorwills chatter and the fireflies come out in abnormal profusion to dance to the raucous, creepily insistent rhythms of stridently piping bull-frogs. The thin, shining line of the Miskatonic’s upper reaches has an oddly serpent-like suggestion as it winds close to the feet of the domed hills among which it rises.

As the hills draw nearer, one heeds their wooded sides more than their stone-crowned tops. Those sides loom up so darkly and precipitously that one wishes they would keep their distance, but there is no road by which to escape them. Across a covered bridge one sees a small village huddled between the stream and the vertical slope of Round Mountain, and wonders at the cluster of rotting gambrel roofs bespeaking an earlier architectural period than that of the neighbouring region. It is not reassuring to see, on a closer glance, that most of the houses are deserted and falling to ruin, and that the broken-steepled church now harbours the one slovenly mercantile establishment of the hamlet. One dreads to trust the tenebrous tunnel of the bridge, yet there is no way to avoid it. Once across, it is hard to prevent the impression of a faint, malign odour about the village street, as of the massed mould and decay of centuries. It is always a relief to get clear of the place, and to follow the narrow road around the base of the hills and across the level country beyond till it rejoins the Aylesbury pike. Afterwards one sometimes learns that one has been through Dunwich.

Outsiders visit Dunwich as seldom as possible, and since a certain season of horror all the signboards pointing towards it have been taken down. The scenery, judged by an ordinary aesthetic canon, is more than commonly beautiful; yet there is no influx of artists or summer tourists. Two centuries ago, when talk of witch-blood, Satan-worship, and strange forest presences was not laughed at, it was the custom to give reasons for avoiding the locality. In our sensible age—since the Dunwich horror of 1928 was hushed up by those who had the town’s and the world’s welfare at heart—people shun it without knowing exactly why. Perhaps

Reviews for The Dunwich Horror

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't like sequels or re-imaginings very much but Joe Lansdale does tell a good story and treats the material with the respect a fan would demand. Peter Bergting did what he could to illustrate a monster that Lovecraft meant to be indescribable. I grumbled at Menton3's turning the text into calligraphy but I came to appreciate it. His work did elevate this bloody pulp thriller into a fine piece of Gothic art.

[pgiunta_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This anthology of seven eerie, suspenseful tales by the legendary H.P. Lovecraft includes three that involve his famous mythology of the Ancient Ones—especially the monstrous entity, Yog-Sothoth—as well as the grimoire of black magic known as the Necronomicon. “In the Vault” – After finding himself locked in a tomb, an unsavory and cantankerous undertaker successfully escapes by stacking six occupied coffins to create a platform, allowing him to reach a small opening above the door. However, just before crawling free, his leg punches through the lid of the top coffin, leaving him with wounds that were not merely inflicted by jagged wood…“Pickman’s Model” – An artist of the macabre develops a new and startlingly realistic style when he begins painting demonic figures too grotesque to be displayed in public… but where did he find this latest inspiration?“The Rats in the Walls” – After restoring the cursed, ruined estate of his ancestors, a young man begins hearing rats scurrying in the walls. An exploration of the cellar reveals an opening to a large chamber, the contents of which reveal the true and terrible history of the property.“The Music of Erich Zann” – Each night, on the top floor of an apartment building, an elderly violinist plays a haunting, otherworldly melody… and receives a response from somewhere beyond our dimension.“The Haunter of the Dark” – Robert Blake takes an unhealthy interest in the ruins of a long-abandoned Gothic church whose distant spires are visible from his apartment window. After venturing across town, Blake learns that local residents fear the church and do not speak of it. Undaunted, Blake presses on and finds a way inside. While exploring the ruins, he encounters an artifact that offers him frightening visions of the Ancient Ones—one of which is soon unleashed.“The Dunwich Horror” – In the isolated, backwoods village of Dunwich, Massachusetts, the primitive Whateley family welcomes a grandson named Wilbur, born of Lavinia and an unnamed father who is believed to be the entity known as Yog-Sototh. Other villagers become fearful of Wilbur’s rapid physical development and inhuman countenance—not to mention the strange growling and rumbling from the surrounding hills that began after his birth. Following Lavinia's unexplained death, Wilbur and his grandfather begin boarding up the windows of their home as if to imprison something inside. After the deaths of Old Man Whateley, then of Wilbur, the invisible creature bursts from its confinement to wreak havoc on the village. Three professors from nearby Miskatonic University undertake a mission to destroy the creature using the Necronomicon, the grimoire of black magic that initially spawned the beast.“The Thing on the Doorstep” – Edward Derby, an intelligent, but weak-willed young man with an interest in the macabre, marries a homely, eccentric woman named Asenath who is reputed to have a beguiling affect on others. It is claimed by some that once captured by her stare, they found themselves gazing upon their own bodies through Asenath’s eyes. It isn’t long before Derby undergoes a bizarre and dangerous change of demeanor…

[andyray_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

this may be the best collection of lovecraft's short stories ever put together. a lazy undertaker locks himself in his crypt he uses as a storage house to keep the bodies and caskets for buriel. He figures out he can get through the window high over the door, but how to get there. Ah! He stacks the coffins on top of each other in a pyramid-step structure, then climbs it and works his way out. Just as he is ready to go out, the top coffin crashes and he feels great pain in his ankles. "In the Crypt") -- title piece "The Dunwich Horror" bears little resemblance to the movie made of it. Rather, this story is much more frightening.. Lovecraft simply is the master of the hoirror short story. Neither Poe, King, or Koontz can come close as consistently as lovecraft does in spiking the adrenalin into the blood stream and making you sleep with the lights on at night. Poe's the closest with the "Fall of the House of Usher," but that's tame compared to Lovecraft.

[crypto3willobie · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I haven't read a lot of Lovecraft, but I've read some that was pretty good -- Rats in the Walls, Colour out of Space and some others -- so I was surpised to find that The Dunwich Horror, which is by repute one of his most canonical titles, is such a mess.The exposition is diffuse and clumsy. Then the 'horror' part is glacially paced, with many incidents telegraphed; is simply SODDEN with bizarrely spelt New England hillbilly dialect; and although it has its moments (e.g. the description of Wilbur's corpse) it actually gets worse as it goes along so that as the end approaches it's painful to read. I hear he was paid by the word, so I guess he needed to pay the phone bill or something.

[anbarrineau · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a really enjoyable graphic novel to break up my work day with. A very fast read. This is actually two stories The Dunwich Horror and The Hound. The first story was the stronger of the two for me but only because the second story was practically impossible to read. The script font they selected was really small and the scratchy to imply a hand written account, which looked really cool but the reality was that I had to guess on a number of words since I couldn't truly read all of them. Overall though it is a nice addition to the lovecraftian collected works.

[greeniezona · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really was perfectly content with the idea that I would never get around to reading any Lovecraft. Of course he's a legend, but the book descriptions never really did anything for me, and then there is that he was known to be pretty racist -- both in his opinions privately and sometimes in his books.But then I was browsing Eighth Day Books on a recent trip to Kansas, and this book was displayed face out. And I just fell in love with the cover. I was still resisting until I turned it over and saw that it was published by Melville House. FINE. I bought it.There was something almost familiar about this story, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising given how massively influential Lovecraft was. There was something also of a charming old-fashioned feel to the story -- particularly in its characterizations of the setting. And in the end, really, how can you argue with a book in which the entire known world is saved by librarians?Enjoyable, but I probably won't be reading any more Lovecraft any time soon.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read on Serial ReaderI enjoyed this more than other Lovecraft stories I have read recently. Though "the horror" itself was not that well done, I found the horrors of the townspeople desperately locking themselves and their livestock in at night to be very real. Also, the mocking they endured from the local town when they reported problems--after being looked down on for years/decades because something was "off".Though I don't much enjoy Lovecraft (I really prefer Poe), I do think his work would be great for middle schoolers. The reading level is fine, and I think they are young enough to find his ideas extra creepy. Kind of how Poe gave me nightmares at that age.