The Alchemist by H. P. Lovecraft

by H.P. Lovecraft

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Lovecraftian, Fiction, Gothic, Audiobook

Unknown Binding

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

[Benjamin Uke · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Alchemist" is a short story by a young American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in 1908.

The tale, which first appeared in the magazine, United Amateur, in 1916, centres around a man’s quest for answers with regards to the mysterious deaths of his ancestors, all of whom died at approximately thirty-two years of age.

He hopes to figure out and prevent to stop the curse, only there wasn't one. The sorcerer just had a secret passage and snuck in with a knife.

5/5 mainly for comedy reasons.

[King Crusoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't find "The Alchemist" as charming as "The Beast in the Cave" for some reason. The story itself is told a little less eloquently, the mystery isn't quite so engaging, and Lovecraft's blurting of the answer at the end is even more egregious here. I hope the prose of the previous story is more indicative of his writing, and I hope neither of these endings are indicative of his bibliography as a whole.

I did a brief analysis on YouTube here

[doowopapocalypse · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book would be hilarious if I thought for a second Lovecraft had enough of a sense of humor to self-parody. There’s a guy named Chuck the Wizard (which is why people shouldn’t be allowed to give themselves nicknames) who through the power of clean living (maybe dark magic) manages to live to 600 years old. The narrator is some rich kid who is too good to play with the neighbor kids and tells us he knows all about his family’s curse (his family is cursed btw, it’s contractually obligated to mention this every few breaths) but can’t figure out who the creeper living in his basement is until said creeper spells it out for him. Old people are flammable.

[Baloo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unintentionally funny, and not the worst way to spend a sleeples night.

[David Sarkies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fighting the Family Curse
15 April 2024

This is another one of Lovecraft’s earlier works, which I think is cool because the thing is that his earlier works seem to be just as enjoyable as some of his later works. As I have suggested before, a lot of earlier works simply get tossed because, well, the writer really isn’t all that impressed with them, but no doubt they will surface sometime in the future, particularly when the author has a cult following.

The story is about a noble house who goes out looking for a child after the child goes missing. Also in the area there happens to be another family of witches, and of course, they automatically assume that the witches are responsible so they go and confront them, and of course, kill them. The kid is later found, and as it turns out the witches had nothing to do with them.

I’m not really sure that you can say that Lovecraft is the type of author who is going to explore some nature of society, but in a way that does capture the nature of our prejudices. Okay, the whole burning of witches wasn’t something that happened until much later than the Middle Ages, but then again Lovecraft did live in New England, and as we all know, this was quite a thing there.

However, what does happen is that the whole thing backfires, namely because the noble house is cursed to die at a certain age, or more so, never to grow older than that lord who started this whole mess (who was killed by the witches’ son). Anyway, much of the story is about how the curse unfolded, and the narrator is the last in the line, and has spent his life attempting to uncover the truth. Mind you, the thing that stands out is that he never marries, so even if he doesn’t solve it, the curse will basically end with him.

Yeah, it does remind me of some real-world incidents though, like the recent torching of a village in the West Bank because a child went missing. It’s not something that surprises me, especially due to the tensions that exist there, which regularly overflows into outright war (which is what is happening now). Mind you, I suspect this happens a lot more than we realise, it is just that for some reason the Levant seems to always make it into the news, while if a similar thing were to happen elsewhere (such as in Africa), it will never get reported.

[Anastasiia Shafran · Rating 2 out of 5]

(From the Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft)

This short story was a bit more obvious and a bit less chilling than “The Beast in the Cave” that preceded it. It was interesting to see the banality of the predicament, while still intertwined with the mystical. It was, however, almost blatantly finished with an unnecessary proclamation. It also barely touched upon the topic of alchemy, while carrying the name of its practitioner.

—

So I got a book, the complete fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, one of those books you keep on your shelf not only because it’s a treasure trove of classic literature “where it all began” but also because the edition itself is aesthetically pleasing. It is, however, very hard to rate such a book, also considering the cult status of the writer and the fact it’s a gathering of ALL his works. It then feels more like rating an author as a whole rather than his creations. So here comes a plethora of ratings (I’m sure not all at once though) of the short fiction by H.P. Lovecraft, so in the end, each one will get its moment in the sun.

[Samik Basu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was penned by a much younger Lovecraft and amicably hints at the weird, twisted imaginations which are yet to come.

The short story details the protagonist’s quest to understand & possibly put a stand against a family curse, which has taken his ancestors one by one and has him in its sights

The end confrontation is weird but not less entertaining , depends on the pinch of salt one must take with it

[crab_army · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fine, there out of all the stories I’ve heard from HP so far this one was a least scary. You’re telling me this whole thing could been solved if they just moved away so the wizard living under the floor couldn’t kill them anymore? The protagonist is understandably scared through the whole story but I feel like I was missing something to make it more interesting. Literally Charles the Evil Wizard waiting to kill people before they turn 32, terrifying 🫤

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dunk, it's the Charles Le Sorcerer one!

This, is not a good story. It's got all the greatest culprits of Lovecraft's verboseness . Purple prose, long run on sentences, passive language. There's also very few interesting or weird ideas here and it's not at all scary - when compared to The Beast in the Cave preceding it, it's wild how much poorer this is. Pretty funny that the guys name is Le Sorcerer though Lolo

1 Le Sorcerer out of 5

🧙🏻‍♂️⬛⬛⬛⬛

[Zak · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm unfamiliar with when this particular short story was written. I'm assuming it's one of his earlier works. Viewed with a modern eye it can seem quite comedic. Simply because of the generic horror genre that this would now be seen as. But I still feel like it is worthy of reading if you are trying to understand Lovecraft as a whole.

[Never · Rating 2 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the intention of the author. The writing style is a bit bland for my taste. Perhaps the story was better in the past, but considering how H.P Lovecraft was relatively unknown in his time, perhaps not. The story was so ridiculous it made me laugh.

[Deanna Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can definitely tell this was an earlier work of Lovecraft. The vibes painted in the build up of the tale were creepy but the final reveal slid more into the realm of comedic than horror. Was a fun little read no the less.

[LaPassion · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was entertained by the strangeness of this story. I understand grief quite well, the portrayal of it in this story has one character so steeped in the stage of anger that he committed to 6 centuries worth of murder.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, creative, and suspenseful.

[Nathan Nobles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very predictable. First Lovecraft work I have read. Looking forward to how he evolves as a writer.

[TopBob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reminds me of Metzengerstein but twice as weird and faintly comedic. Whatever it was trying to do fell flat, but the story isn’t boring.

[Namse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very extremely predictable.

[Jacob Rohrbach · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as eloquent as Lovecraft's typical works but a neat attempt at gothic mystery. The ending absolutely reeked through as the villain blurts the reveal out to little shock.

[Dimitra · Rating 3 out of 5]

that was dark 🫡

[Rhoda Sylvester · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite ridiculous... but funny.

[Keith Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very goofy story. The twist can be seen from miles away, but still a good read. 6.5/10

[Cameron Devoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting

[Rosamund Hencinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

A funny story that taught me about Wainscoting.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this story was very short and not world changing, I definitely thought it was a fun read.

If you need any motivation to read it, just know that the sorcerers name is literally Charles Le Sorcier and oh boy, let me tell you about his life...

[Robbert Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the premise and the style of writing is, once gotten used to, very nice.

The story however followed the same flow as the beast in the cave. Also it ended quite abruptly.