What do you think?
Rate this book
The Horror in the Museum
Locked up for the night, a man will discover the difference between waxen grotesqueries and the real thing.
38 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
1 person is currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Hazel Heald
52 books3 followersHazel Heald (1896–1961) was a pulp fiction writer, who lived in Somerville, Massachusetts. She is perhaps best known for collaborating with American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_H...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_H...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 16, 2023
It's been a long time, but "The Horror in the Museum" was unnerving. Lovecraft's ability to accurately describe horror did/has and will always send shivers up my spine.
To be perfectly honest this short left me rather shaken.
Slowly paced this takes its time digging deep into your depths and then revealing itself.
You haven't experienced this short and are a fan of the Mythos, I suggest you give it a go.
To be perfectly honest this short left me rather shaken.
Slowly paced this takes its time digging deep into your depths and then revealing itself.
You haven't experienced this short and are a fan of the Mythos, I suggest you give it a go.
September 27, 2016
Anyone who reads this story is in for a treat.
May 5, 2022
Typical Lovecraft short story, I’d give it something between 3-3,5 unknowable voids.
Not bad, but certainly not one of his best. To this reader, the plot and ‘shock’ twists feel rather predictable (in all fairness, it’s because they’ve been aped by a lot of horror films), and the characters are your standard issue Lovecraft types:
- the rational male protagonist who is about to be shocked to his core,
- the erratic male occultist, blinded by desire for power
- an unsettling and rude ‘foreigner’, scarier than any of the actual unfathomable monsters
- a cameo of the infamous and rare Necronomicon (gasp!),
- a gargantuan host of adjectives like ‘cyclopean’ and ‘globular’
And finally:
a bunch of creatures from outer space. As usual, no women were harmed in the making of this story. :’)
This one truly feels like a “cinematic universe” kind of story. The museum has a host of beings that individually surfaced in other tales before, ranging from night-gaunts to Cthulhu himself (apparently he worked as a wax doll in a museum for some time—we all have to fill our CV somehow after all). I’m quite allergic to the self-indulgent liberties of “cinematic universe” stories, and it did not do any favours to this one either. It feels too referential and, given the museum setting, it seems almost like Lovecraft was fanboying over his own mythos. Lovecraft seems to be better when he’s writing focused stories that only have 1-2 kinds of monsters.
Not bad, but certainly not one of his best. To this reader, the plot and ‘shock’ twists feel rather predictable (in all fairness, it’s because they’ve been aped by a lot of horror films), and the characters are your standard issue Lovecraft types:
- the rational male protagonist who is about to be shocked to his core,
- the erratic male occultist, blinded by desire for power
- an unsettling and rude ‘foreigner’, scarier than any of the actual unfathomable monsters
- a cameo of the infamous and rare Necronomicon (gasp!),
- a gargantuan host of adjectives like ‘cyclopean’ and ‘globular’
And finally:
a bunch of creatures from outer space. As usual, no women were harmed in the making of this story. :’)
This one truly feels like a “cinematic universe” kind of story. The museum has a host of beings that individually surfaced in other tales before, ranging from night-gaunts to Cthulhu himself (apparently he worked as a wax doll in a museum for some time—we all have to fill our CV somehow after all). I’m quite allergic to the self-indulgent liberties of “cinematic universe” stories, and it did not do any favours to this one either. It feels too referential and, given the museum setting, it seems almost like Lovecraft was fanboying over his own mythos. Lovecraft seems to be better when he’s writing focused stories that only have 1-2 kinds of monsters.
May 10, 2020
3.5 George Rogers reads forbidden books and has traveled to unknown parts collecting things. He is also a former employee of Madame Tussaud's and is now the proprietor of his own wax museum which makes her museum look pale in comparison. Along comes Stephen Jones whose curiosity is piqued. As this is a Lovecraft story we know that nothing good can come of this. Would you spend the night in a creepy museum that is owned by someone who you think is going mad? Typical Lovecraft. Audible version narrated by Ian Gordon.
May 7, 2022
Lovecraft #84:The Horror in the Museum (with Hazel Heald)
[Rhan-Tegoth by Borja Pindado]
The Horror in the Museum is arguably the 84th oldest extant story by American weird fiction author Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937) and his second in collaboration with Hazel Heald (1896 – 1961). I am in the process of reading all of HPL’s fictional works in chronological order. In a letter to a colleague quoted by Joshi & Schultz (2001), Lovecraft stated that this novelette* was “a piece which I ‘ghost wrote’ for a client from a synopsis so poor that I well-nigh discarded it" (p. 116) and the end result "is virtually my own work” (p. 116). Whoever was the primary author of it, The Horror in the Museum is a great deal of fun. It is essentially a haunted house story told in a Lovecraftian style.
[Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in the film The Black Cat (1934)]
Chad Fifer (2011) of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast made a funny connection in one episode reviewing this story. He pointed out that you can imagine The Horror in the Museum as a film, specifically a 1930s Universal Studios collaboration between the actors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Lugosi could have played the mad wax museum curator George Rogers and Karloff the rational skeptic Stephen Jones. I can easily picture this and want to re-read the story with those actors in mind.
Title: “The Horror in the Museum”
Author: H.P. Lovecraft
Dates: October 1932 (written), July 1933 (first published)
Genre: Fiction - Novelette*, horror
Word count: 11,345 words
Date(s) read: 5/1/22-5/2/22
Reading journal entry #139 in 2022
Sources:
Link to the story: https://hplovecraft.com/writings/fict...
First publication citation: Weird Tales vol. 22, no. 1 (July 1933): 49–68.
Joshi, S. T., & Schultz, D. E. (2001). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press.
Fifer, C., & Lackey, C. (2011, October 20). Episode 94 - The Horror in the Museum. The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast [audio blog]. Retrieved from
https://www.hppodcraft.com/episodes/2...
Links to the images:
https://www.deviantart.com/borjapinda...
http://www.monstermoviehouse.com/2015...
Written on 5/7/22
[Rhan-Tegoth by Borja Pindado]
The Horror in the Museum is arguably the 84th oldest extant story by American weird fiction author Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937) and his second in collaboration with Hazel Heald (1896 – 1961). I am in the process of reading all of HPL’s fictional works in chronological order. In a letter to a colleague quoted by Joshi & Schultz (2001), Lovecraft stated that this novelette* was “a piece which I ‘ghost wrote’ for a client from a synopsis so poor that I well-nigh discarded it" (p. 116) and the end result "is virtually my own work” (p. 116). Whoever was the primary author of it, The Horror in the Museum is a great deal of fun. It is essentially a haunted house story told in a Lovecraftian style.
[Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in the film The Black Cat (1934)]
Chad Fifer (2011) of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast made a funny connection in one episode reviewing this story. He pointed out that you can imagine The Horror in the Museum as a film, specifically a 1930s Universal Studios collaboration between the actors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Lugosi could have played the mad wax museum curator George Rogers and Karloff the rational skeptic Stephen Jones. I can easily picture this and want to re-read the story with those actors in mind.
Title: “The Horror in the Museum”
Author: H.P. Lovecraft
Dates: October 1932 (written), July 1933 (first published)
Genre: Fiction - Novelette*, horror
Word count: 11,345 words
Date(s) read: 5/1/22-5/2/22
Reading journal entry #139 in 2022
Sources:
Link to the story: https://hplovecraft.com/writings/fict...
First publication citation: Weird Tales vol. 22, no. 1 (July 1933): 49–68.
Joshi, S. T., & Schultz, D. E. (2001). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press.
Fifer, C., & Lackey, C. (2011, October 20). Episode 94 - The Horror in the Museum. The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast [audio blog]. Retrieved from
https://www.hppodcraft.com/episodes/2...
Links to the images:
https://www.deviantart.com/borjapinda...
http://www.monstermoviehouse.com/2015...
*The difference between a short story, novelette, novella, and a novel: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Diff...
Vignette, prose poem, flash fiction: 53 - 1,000 words
Short Stories: 1,000 - 7,500
Novelettes: 7,500 - 17,000
Novellas: 17,000 - 40,000
Novels: 40,000 + words
Written on 5/7/22
July 18, 2023
An artist's horrific creations fascinate the protagonist, who discovers that they have a basis in reality. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's the plot of "Pickman's Model". But calling this story a clone would be giving it too much credit. Pickman was just an artist, reluctant to pull back the curtain, and his story was tastefully creepy. Rogers, the artist in this story, is a boor who can hardly wait to give the whole game away by monologuing about what an evil cultist he is. Predictably, the protagonist doesn't believe him, and just as predictably, he really is an evil cultist. Yawn.
December 4, 2024
Eine der besten Stories von Lovecraft, sehr düster
August 2, 2020
Qorxu janrına susayanlar oxusun.
Janrın atalarından olan Qovard Lavkraftın Heyzl Heldlə həmmüəlif olduğu hekayələr kitabındandır. Həyəcan da var, qorxu da, inamsızlıqda, indi çox öyrəşdiyim skrimerlər də.
Janrın atalarından olan Qovard Lavkraftın Heyzl Heldlə həmmüəlif olduğu hekayələr kitabındandır. Həyəcan da var, qorxu da, inamsızlıqda, indi çox öyrəşdiyim skrimerlər də.
November 17, 2023
Very disappointed to learn from YouTube‘s Horror Babble that this was ghost written !!!
I’ve been such a Lovecraft fan, but now I don’t know what to think…
Which of the stories that I adored were actually his, and which were not?
This one’s in the “not” category… good yes, but way too much reliance on creepy adjectives rather than the plot/premise. Found it campy and overwrought in the end, and just got bored with it. Also, the ghost-writer did zero research on idol worship - which has been alive and well for millennia - and instead went for every stereotype in the book. This too in the 1920’s, when Egyptology was in its heydey and new research on pantheons were all the rage.
This could have been great… and it just might have been had Lovecraft himself wrote it.
I’ve been such a Lovecraft fan, but now I don’t know what to think…
Which of the stories that I adored were actually his, and which were not?
This one’s in the “not” category… good yes, but way too much reliance on creepy adjectives rather than the plot/premise. Found it campy and overwrought in the end, and just got bored with it. Also, the ghost-writer did zero research on idol worship - which has been alive and well for millennia - and instead went for every stereotype in the book. This too in the 1920’s, when Egyptology was in its heydey and new research on pantheons were all the rage.
This could have been great… and it just might have been had Lovecraft himself wrote it.
November 12, 2022
Где-то со второй половины полностью понятно куда идёт дело и становится неинтересно.
October 3, 2024
Wow! A great Lovecraftian story. Lots of fun and extremely well written!
November 15, 2024
Overall a really good, spooky story, but my favorite part is when an "unspeakable horror" turns out to be a guy in a Scooby Doo monster costume.
November 24, 2024
If the pitch of "what if HP Lovecraft ghost-wrote a house of wax/mystery of the wax museum?" story doesn't make one want to check this one out I don't know what will!
February 7, 2025
The Horror in the Museum had some great descriptions and a great story. But the twists were a little too predictable, or just not that captivating.
August 17, 2025
Actually pretty cool body horror
October 18, 2025
In a sense very Lovecraftian, but Heald's pinch is very prominent. I should have read this right before Miéville's Kraken, the two fit together nicely.
December 16, 2016
Um dos melhores contos que já tive oportunidade de ler de H. P. Lovecraft, The Horror in the Museum é uma viagem aos mais profundos horrores, transformando uma viagem noturna ao museu numa alucinante vertigem de sons e sensações.
Lovecraft escreveu este conto como ghost writer de Hazel Heald, mas é notório no traço arquitetural da escrita que estamos perante uma história do autor norte-americano. Não só o encontramos na linguagem fluente e estética, como nas imensas referências à sua própria mitologia, criaturas que viriam a tornar-se ícones da cultura pop como o mítico Cthulhu, como o terrível livro Necronomicon.
Sem que tal parecesse provável, The Horror in the Museum tornou-se um dos contos mais relevantes da obra de Lovecraft, e não é difícil perceber porquê. Se, em outros contos do autor, critiquei o mistério demasiado preliminar e a parca apreciação do terror in loco, este conto ofereceu-me tudo o que mais podia desejar. Diálogos interessantes, mistérios surpreendentes, um ambiente palpável e uma conclusão muito boa. Que venham mais contos como este.
Lovecraft escreveu este conto como ghost writer de Hazel Heald, mas é notório no traço arquitetural da escrita que estamos perante uma história do autor norte-americano. Não só o encontramos na linguagem fluente e estética, como nas imensas referências à sua própria mitologia, criaturas que viriam a tornar-se ícones da cultura pop como o mítico Cthulhu, como o terrível livro Necronomicon.
Sem que tal parecesse provável, The Horror in the Museum tornou-se um dos contos mais relevantes da obra de Lovecraft, e não é difícil perceber porquê. Se, em outros contos do autor, critiquei o mistério demasiado preliminar e a parca apreciação do terror in loco, este conto ofereceu-me tudo o que mais podia desejar. Diálogos interessantes, mistérios surpreendentes, um ambiente palpável e uma conclusão muito boa. Que venham mais contos como este.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews