The Street

by H.P. Lovecraft

"The Street" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in late 1919 and first published in the December 1920 issue of the Wolverine amateur journal.

The story traces the history of the eponymous street in a New England city, presumably Boston, from its first beginnings as a path in colonial times to a quasi-supernatural occurrence in the years immediately following World War I.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Lovecraftian, Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Literature

88 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

— Wikipedia

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting piece of fiction by Lovecraft. He describes a street that changes over the years. Anarchy, revolution are proclaimed. People of the streets change. Houses and inhabitants are shaken. Do law and order remain or does chaos reign in future? A very interesting story on looking into the past and the future. Especially with regard to our modern times highly recommended!

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, there had to be at least one. If only it wasn't this ridiculous.

One of the weakest (and worst) stories I've read so far; one of those that almost makes you embarrassed for reading them. I kept thinking stick to horror, stick to dreams, lay off the politics and history.

Lovecraft was influenced by the real threat of terrorism, crime and Bolshevism, but the way The Street is told is ridiculous, embarrassing even. It starts with the founding of the titular place and there he conveniently forgets the previous inhabitants.
The story goes on how the place was wonderful but then those Others came and ruined it. "In these writings the people were urged to tear down the laws and virtues that our fathers had exalted; to stamp out the soul of the old America - the soul that was bequeathed through a thousand and a half years of Anglo-Saxon freedom, justice, and moderation." There was some kind of plot to destroy 'the Western Land' (...), but the souls of the old houses the Others occupied killed them all and saved the day.

I am writing this only to remind myself of the reason for the rating. After this, I'll try to forget it. I'll even leave it in horror because it was a horror to read it.

[spillingthematcha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jedno z moich ulubionych opowiadań Lovecraft’a!

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraft at his most xenophobic. When I read this during my budding right-wing phase a few years back (from which I have largely, though not entirely, mellowed), I can't say I didn't get a kick out of it. Lovecraft was a prick. A racist, nihilistic one. I'm sure, like fellow horror greats Edgar Allan Poe and Ambrose Bierce, he was not a pleasant fellow.

[Doppelganger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is xenophobic if not flat out racist, patriotic, nationalistic romanticism. Still: I can see this and still enjoy the romaticism of the idea that a thing might have a soul and strike down a violent purpose that would harm the nation.

Furthermore, I think this is very well written and presented.

But one should remember what Wilde supposedly said about patriotism: it is the virtue of the vicious. Could not agree more. Nonetheless: 4 stars for this tale. I simply enjoyed it.

[Evelyn (devours and digests words) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovecraft is no doubt a visionary man. Who writes about the history of a street located somewhere in America, explores its timelapse into a near future right into WW1?


The title is exactly what the story is. It's a very one shot story about a street, presumably written in a traveller's point of view. The street featured here read a lot like a living thing with the power of observation. I cannot help but feel a pang of nostalgia as it describes how the people of older time faded away, and people, things and foundations pass on, come to ruins or be replaced over time.

The good ole street remains though, even with events going on in timeslapses.


(For some reason, everytime I read a Lovecraft short I imagine things in B&W or in technicolor. Rather fascinating, eh?)

[Дарья · Rating 1 out of 5]

A tad too historic and dull for my liking.

[Saul the Heir of Isauldur · Rating 3 out of 5]

On a technical level, it's a competent story from the point of view (kind of) of a Street in a city on the east coast. Through the changes on the Street, we see a summary of US history from colonial era to modern times (being the 1920s).

The story, however, is evidently filled with xenophobic and racist overtones. The immigrants of the mid-1800s are portrayed as purely evil and foul and deceiving and vile and as a monumental threat to America as an ideal. They speak in crude and foreign languages, and write in strange symbols. And it can be interpreted that the titular Street decided to act in favor of Americans by falling apart just at the right time before the evil, conniving immigrants living on the Street could carry out their plan of destruction. It was uncomfortable reading certain parts of the story, not because Lovecraft himself is being racist or xenophobic, but because many of these themes and ideas remain alive in today's culture, and some feel all too familiar.

[Nathan Beebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a story that really translates well today. Everyone will try to jump on the bandwagon and tell you how racist it is, and how racist Lovecraft was. If you know anything about history, and how destructive communism has been to its own culture, and western countries, then you will understand this work, and understand why it is so relavent. It is about the preservation of culture, and our liberties. Take a chance and read it, if you're not already indoctrinated, then I think you'll at least understand where it's coming from.

[Rissa (rissasreading) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.25

[Ebster Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Significantly less racist than other works by the same author" does not sound like it should be a selling point, but it is. The difference is, in this case its not cloaked behind "fish-frog people" or "ape ancestors" or other such crap. Its inspired by stuff that actually happened at a tumultuous time in american history, and this is his take on it.

I admire the honesty; the fear of change, the feeling of a threatened identity are poignantly represented here. Here (Just like the rest of Howard Lovecraft's work) you don't have to agree with his veiwpoints to empathise with the underlying emotions he's talking about.

[JL Shioshita · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sooooo, yeah, this story is pretty racist. There's a concept there that's intriguing, hidden below it all, the only reason I gave it two stars, but it's really hard to get past all the heightened nationalistic paranoia.

[Baal Of · Rating 1 out of 5]

Street gets built up by Anglo-Saxons making it good. Then it degenerates due to swarthy people, and then collapses in ruin to fend off the evil Russian "terrorists". What a dull, crappy story. Lovecraft at his worst.

[Jost · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept of telling a story from the perspective of a street’s spirit as change happens is really interesting. Lovecraft’s racist anti-immigrant direction for the story makes it much less interesting.

[Rodrigo · Rating 3 out of 5]

LIT AND PLAY - REVIEW:

“There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of The Street.”

So starts The Street, a short story about the dangers of leaving foreigners running amok in our own backyard. One could say that, just like things and places, stories also have souls: it’s in their themes, the character arcs, the prevailing perspectives, in the emotions they try to evoke. If that is true, the soul of The Street is a cruel and rotten one, based on fear, entitlement, and hatred.

The narrator begins his tale by presenting the first people who passed through The Street, painting them in the most favorable colors. They are simple, hard-working folk, the “good valiant men of our blood who had come from the Blessed Isles across the sea.” The allegory is badly hidden, then, as we’re clearly dealing with the English invaders – or colonizers, if you like to deal in euphemisms – coming to North-America. The “our blood” part is key here, as this notion of purity and heritage will become the bedrock of the story: the goodness of the first settlers is vital to the construction of a feeling of nostalgia. The narrator idealizes the past so it can serve later as a counterpoint to the tainted present and become the very thing that must be rescued.

The settlers, therefore, are depicted as simple people who just like to read simple things and live simple lives. They’re good, valiant, hard-working men. There’s no mention of religious persecution, of course, or of any crimes whatsoever. These people are portrayed as pure in every sense of the word, being deemed the rightful owners of The Street.

And if they’re the first to inhabit it, it’s because Native Americans are not to be considered people. We’re dealing with Lovecraft, of course, which means that they are depicted as dangerous beasts that lurk in the shadows of the nearby forest, threatening the kind-hearted settlers with fire-arrows. So, our heroic settlers must “subdue” the forest, bend nature (and not another civilization) to their will, and establish dominion over the land. This story being what it is, Native Americans are quickly framed as a surmountable obstacle and then promptly discarded: the less we think about them, the better for the overall argument.

The use of a capital letter when referring to The Street, after all, guides us to see it as more than just a street. It’s a proper place, a country. This short story, after all, is an allegory as clear as it is blunt: the story that is being told about The Street is a linear account of the history of The United States.

“There was war, and thereafter no more Indians troubled The Street. The men, busy with labour, waxed prosperous and as happy as they knew how to be. And the children grew up comfortably, and more families came from the Mother Land to dwell on The Street,” the narrator explains, later even pointing out how the inhabitants of The Street put up a flag of stripes and stars. Subtlety is not the story’s strong suit.

If a simple street is standing for the whole country of The United States, it’s to reflect its humble origins, to remind us of how small it began, so we can marvel at how fast it developed and how vast it grew to be. The narrative focuses on technological progress, highlighting the great changes that happened to the landscape: “The town was now a city, and one by one the cabins gave place to houses; simple, beautiful houses of brick and wood, with stone steps and iron railing and fanlights over the doors.”

The Street is described as an idyllic place, full of “elms and oaks and maples of dignity.” This being a conservative story, tradition is much valued. This is why, despite progress and change, it’s stated that the people of The Street have remained exactly the same over the years, “speaking of the old familiar things in the old familiar accents. And the trees still sheltered singing birds, and at the evening the moon and stars looked down upon dewy blossoms in the walled rose-gardens.”

Technological progress didn’t alter the soul of The Street. This is a crucial point for the short story because it establishes how the good Americans of today are just like their ancestors: their superiority is a matter of blood, of history and tradition. Their values are supposed to be ancient ones because this gives them more weight and power. To admit that time and circumstance have made them distinct from the first settlers is to hurt the basis of their rhetoric: what they want to fight against, after all, is precisely people that are different from their ancestors. They think themselves perfect and pure and must fight with teeth and nails to preserve that.

Because soon will come “the days of evil.”

What is this evil? People who came to The Street with “coarse and strident” accents and “unpleasing” faces, of course. They are rude, loud, and ugly, and they intend to lead this beautiful to its downfall. The environment, then, changes to reflect their distasteful nature: the houses start to decay, the trees begin to die, and the rose gardens become filled with weeds. These foreigners are framed as a pestilence that spoils even nature. They bring a whole new set of words to the descriptions of The Street: “rotten,” “filthy,” “hideous,” “sordid,” and “sinister” are just some of them – if you want to go to the bathroom to throw up in disgust of the story, it’s okay, I’ll wait.

You’re back, good. Events have finally reached the present day (to Lovecraft) and things have taken a turn for the worse on the Street. The narrator comments on the October Revolution, calling the Russians who come to The Street as “degenerates subjects” of a collapsed dynasty: “New kind of faces appeared in The Street; swarthy, sinister faces with furtive eyes and odd features, whose owners spoke unfamiliar words, and placed signs in known and unknown characters upon most of the musty houses.”

These horrible immigrants taint The Street with “a sordid, undefinable stench.” Their foreignness is a big part of the problem: we are led to think they’re evil precisely because they speak unfamiliar words and use strange characters. We must fear the unknown: the things that reinforce their alterity are precisely the things that make them wicked and dangerous.

The narrator warns us that, although some of these immigrants may look like good folk – wicked as they are – we can still identify their real nature if we’re clever, for in their eyes there’s always an “unhealthy glitter as of greed, ambition, vindictiveness, or misguided zeal.” Some of them are even blatantly called “evil” by the narrator, or referred to as “assassins.”

The future of The Street is indeed bleak, it seems, as some of these immigrants also come packed with socialist ideas, spreading lies and inciting unrest. Their words are treasonous: they’re linked to chaos and ruin, crime and rebellion, appearing to plot to “strike the Western Land its death-blow.” These awful socialist immigrants, because they were left unchecked for too long, have now placed themselves in the heart of The Street, “whose crumbling houses teemed with alien makers of discord and echoed with the plans and speeches of those who yearned for the appointed day of blood, flame, and crime.”

The Street was once teeming with simple, God-fearing folk; people who enforced family values, who were courageous and hard-working. Now, there are alien terrorists everywhere, planning to “launch an orgy of slaughter for the extermination of America and of all the fine old traditions which The Street loved.” The Street here is basically a synecdoche, a part (a simple street) that stands for the whole (The United States).

On the one side of the battlefield, there’s evil and crime; degenerates who want to tear down tradition, putting in jeopardy the very soul of The Street, corrupting the spirit of The United States, which was built with “a thousand and a half years of Anglo-Saxon freedom, justice, and (please gasp) moderation.” These alien makers of discord are described as stupid, brainless beasts that – given the chance – will scorch the foundations of what once made America great. Their houses are full of worms, ravaged over the years. Look at the difference, the story pleads, between the immigrants and the true Americans. These foreign trouble-makers are only “skilled in subtlety and concealment.” If they can’t take care of their own homes, what will happen if they take control of the whole country?

The Street is a cautionary tale, so it answers this question with an apocalyptic ending. The Street is utterly destroyed. There is nothing left standing in the end, “save two ancient chimneys and part of a stout brick wall.” If we let immigrants in, if we let them unchecked, if we let them take power, this is what will happen: The United States will become a place of death and ruin. This is the warning.

But on the crumbled remains of The Street, some say that poets and travelers can still feel the scent of the old rose gardens and have glimpses of the fair houses of the good white folk who first lived there (it’s okay to go vomit again, I’ll wait, and I’m deeply sorry). Now, look back once again at our glorious immigrant-free past and see how things used to be so swell. Unfortunately, after they came with their dangerous ideas and vices, these communists and immigrants turned The Street into a wasteland. Travelers and poets may say otherwise, “But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travelers notoriously false?” America was once great, the narrative constantly reminds us, and you know what we must do with it now.

If places have souls, The Street is concerned with the soul of The United States. In 2018, Joe Biden condemned Donald Trump’s policies on immigration, which formed concentration camps and separated children from their parents. He wrote, “This is not who we are. America is better than this.” The nature of The United States is exactly what’s at stake in this short story, which argues that this is not only who Americans are but also who they need to be: a group of entitled white people in love with the past, being urged to take up arms and do whatever it takes to remain in power and uphold their bigoted traditions.

Written by H. P. Lovecraft, The Street is a cautionary tale about the dangers of immigrants and socialism, which are sordid things that go against everything that The United States stands for. In other words, The Street is a well-written piece of right-wing propaganda. The tale is carefully constructed to make people afraid of these foreign enemies while fomenting a certain nostalgia for a past that never existed in that glorious form. So, it’s rage-inducing and repulsive and everything a white supremacist would love to read to his children as a bedtime story (fortunately, reading and caring for children are not their forte).

After all, it’s not only the dreams of poets and tales of travelers that are notoriously false. The United States is not built on values such as honesty and hard work. It’s built on slavery, the genocide of the indigenous people, and the constant exploitation of labor. It’s built on religious persecution, racism, and xenophobia. When a Democrat denies this history, they’re reinforcing the illusion that feeds the rhetoric of the very people they run against. America may one day become better than this, but it’s certainly not at the moment.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

« It was known that this nest of anarchy was old, and that the houses were tottering from the ravages of the years and the storms and the worms; yet was the happening of that summer night a surprise because of its very queer uniformity. It was, indeed, an exceedingly singular happening; though after all a simple one. For without warning, in one of the small hours beyond midnight, all the ravages of the years and the storms and the worms came to a tremendous climax; and after the crash there was nothing left standing in The Street save two ancient chimneys and part of a stout brick wall. Nor did anything that had been alive come alive from the ruins. »

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

H.P. Lovecraft writes a short story from the perspective of an omniscient narrator who remembers an unflattering history of unwelcomed populations who lived on a New England street. A surprise ending complicates the plot's conclusion, and its usage invites multiple readings to understand the story. While some readers might be overwhelmed by the story's century-old vocabulary, other readers seeking a slowly unfolding xenophobic story about the changing of local populations and neighborhoods might still be satisfied.

[Mika · Rating 2 out of 5]

H.P. Lovecraft tried to make a street/neighborhood appear creepy, but it didn't really work (at least for me).

The story is about a street which is told to be both positive and negative. It made people happy and graceful but also hateful and brutal. I think it's talking about how not only humans change over decades but also their surroundings. Where a neighbourhood used to be lovely and colourful might turn lifeless and broken.

His works usually feel eerie or disgusting but this time it just felt like a little sad story about how our surroundings, including nature, changes.

[JM · Rating 2 out of 5]

One would almost think that old HP thought that immigrants and POC are worse than Cthulhu and company. Practically the only ones who love this story, as per the reviews here, are idiot right wingers who are proud of being shitty people and fail to realize how outdated their views are, since they are literally agreeing with the ideas on race and class of a guy from more than a hundred years ago who, even in his day, was kind of too much of a bigoted asshole.

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 1 out of 5]

Basically just a long rant oozing with xenophobia. And that’s it. Nothing enjoyable about it, not even in an ironic sense unfortunately.

[Liam · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit racist, simplistic and wordy, not the best trinity. Otherwise competent and features a few good lines.

I’m honestly enjoying the works he wrote as a child more, but I won’t give up… I have a reading challenge to meet!

[A. Dell · Rating 1 out of 5]

these "Early Tales" are brutal to get through.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird,short story by a master,with Great Narration!!

[Jenn Kause · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extremely poor and bad taste for a metaphor on immigration

[Viv Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This work focuses too much on political and social opinion. If the themes were slightly more researched and inclusive, this might have been a nice little story. I would rather read about a giant stone in the ocean or an abhorrent amulet owned by some ancient hound.

[Jack Parker · Rating 1 out of 5]

The spirit of one of America's oldest roads observes as the surrounding landscape and population grow, change, and adapt to the world at large.

Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Come on, Lovecraft.

I normally reserve 1 star for stories that I could neither finish nor find any merit in. However, while I did finish this (on account of its short length), and I did as always enjoy the skillful writing style and imagery of Lovecraft, I find the underlying message and politics behind this story so repugnant and vitriolic that I can think of no healthier way to fully actualize my distaste than to give this slab of right-wing propaganda the scathing critique it deserves.

I'll save any interested parties the trouble and summarize this here and now:

A coastal dirt-track in colonial times evolves into a central road at the heart of developing America (I imagined it as somewhere in New York City). The street watches its population fluctuate and evolve through such world-changing events as the Civil War and World War I.
Eventually, the street's population becomes increasingly made up of foreign immigrants, people with *gasp* weird accents and different first languages than English! The street's overall atmosphere shifts from one of English gallantry and strength to one of fear and hatred, tainted by the slimy dealings of these d-d-d-different people.
After WWI, it becomes known that a massive terrorist organization composed entirely of foreigners has created its headquarters in the old buildings fringing the street, and is orchestrating the complete destruction of America as we know it. Attempts by police and military personnel to root out the heads of the operation prove futile, and on the eve of the designated day of reckoning (which is the 4th of July, of course), the whole nation waits trembling with bated breath.
All of a sudden, every building on the street collapses, crushing the dirty immigrant terrorists beneath solid American brick - and the first responders to the scene witness, hovering above the ruins, ghostly visions of those first stately colonial houses that the street first proudly called its own.

Again, the writing is good.

But, wow. Wow.
I'd forgotten there existed such a Lovecraft story where the man's xenophobia is put on such central and disgusting display.

I don't care what your political affiliations are; no matter how long our families have lived here, every American is descended from an immigrant family, and there is no room for such blatant intolerance and toxic fear in a progressive, civilized society.
Ironically enough, this manner of viewing those different than oneself comes across as more backward and sinister than Lovecraft's own characterizations of the foreigners themselves.
I swear to God, the man would be my favorite writer if not for nonsense like this.

Thank God Lovecraft mellowed out and became a Western socialist in his later years.

I give this story 1 disgusted grimace out of 5 disappointed sighs.

[Scott Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Men of strength and honour fashioned that Street; good, valiant men of our blood who had come from the Blessed Isles across the sea.”

This strange story traces the history of the titular street from its first beginnings as "but a path" in colonial times to a quasi-supernatural occurrence in the years immediately following World War I.
I found it dreamlike to read and as with all of Lovecraft’s tales it is the vocabulary that invokes so much imagery with every sentence its mesmerizing. I imagined it almost like I was in the time machine of HG wells watching the years go past in a blink of an eye as history happened all around me. The use of terrorism and the anti immigration stance also really stood out for a story that was penned 100 years ago. On that point The Street does strike a different pose than other works from Lovecraft. Reading about this story I can see that people paint him as a bigot which I do not see myself. I will have to read on in his other works to see if I find it true or if its just the ramblings of the snowflakes who have to pick apart a piece of fiction written 100 years ago and judge it by todays standards. I think what I loved most was the idea that places have souls. I have much felt the same when talking about ghosts I feel more that places have memories of what’s happened and you can feel it In them.

[Declan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was certainly one of the more passionate of Lovecraft's short stories and one I think shouldn't be viewed in a negative manner due to it's traditionalist inferences. The sentence structure (that many reviewers seem to disregard due to it's jumbled and quick style) perfectly showcases the more intense side of Lovecraft and this is because as a reader you can not only imagine the beauty and respectability that 'the street', or his street once had. You can also envision the sweat beads trailing off of the writers head as he pours his intense feelings of frustration as a result of his societies continuous decline, which shows that his skill in writing was not one that needed to be mastered, but instead is just raw talent. The hints of racial preference should only serve as a reminder of what the past mindset of many Americans used to be in the early 1900's, one that some even keep in today's world. That is a beautiful thing, because we are all different people with separate preferences and this historical tale only assists in showing that it's okay to have an outlook on life that isn't within the restraints of the society of today. 5 stars.

[Space · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst book Lovecraft has written up to 1920, possibly the worst ever. It's so racist and so poorly written. The sentences are so juvenile and oddly phrased that it's as if The Street is a mockery of Lovecraft's style, like he was making fun of himself. There is nothing wrong with that, except that the story goes nowhere. It's not dark or cosmic or even interesting, just a brief and racist description of a street.

Do yourself a favor and skip this. I wish I had.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very odd tale, and quite unlike other H.P. Lovecraft stories, as this one was told from the perspective of the street on which the strange things were occurring.