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The Tomb
H. P. Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of all time. His seminal work appeared in the pages of legendary Weird Tales and has influenced countless writer of the macabre. This is one of those stories.
14 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1917
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748 people want to read
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,039 books19.2k followersHoward 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 344 reviews
October 24, 2022
لافكرفت ليس له تقدير كبير في بلادنا..فقد اشتريت هذا الكتاب الذي يحتوي على ربع اعماله بخمسة جنيهات حينها (اكثر من نصف دولار) و الان"ربع دولار
اشتريته من سور الازبكية بالمعرض بحالة ممتازة
..احتضنت الكتاب بجشع..وتاكدت من السعر بخبث..و دفعت وركضت بعيدا..
و زاد اعتقادي انه اديب مجهول لدى كثيرين رغم انه من اهم رواد الرعب الحديث..
يحتوي الكتاب على مجموعته الأولى من القصص القصيرة والطويلة... و بالطبع كلها تم كتابتها بضمير المتكلم كالعادة
..كأنها مذكرات
وفي قصته الأولى ككاتب "المقبرة " نجد تفسيرا لجنون شاب مهووس بقبر قديم ..و مصمم على أن يدفن فيه ..و كيف انه من السهل اتهام من يمر باحداث ماوراءية بالجنون المطبق..النهاية مفتوحة و محيرة..و ربما تكون اول القصص عن النيكروفيليا
هناك قصة "سجين مع الفراعنة"..تجري أحداثها في مصر في العشرينات..بطلها الساحر الشهير هوديني..و نرى فيها نظرة فوقية للبدو و المصريين الذين يتحدون قدرات هوديني للفكاك من الاسر في قبر فرعوني بجانب الاهرامات حيث يقضي ليلة ليلاء
لم يعجبني كثرة النهايات المفتوحة و الغموض المفرط الذي غلف 5..من 19
قصة في هذا الكتاب المدهش
توجد ترجمة لبعض قصص هذا الكتاب في "نداء كتولو"لأحمد خالد توفيق
اشتريته من سور الازبكية بالمعرض بحالة ممتازة
..احتضنت الكتاب بجشع..وتاكدت من السعر بخبث..و دفعت وركضت بعيدا..
و زاد اعتقادي انه اديب مجهول لدى كثيرين رغم انه من اهم رواد الرعب الحديث..
يحتوي الكتاب على مجموعته الأولى من القصص القصيرة والطويلة... و بالطبع كلها تم كتابتها بضمير المتكلم كالعادة
..كأنها مذكرات
وفي قصته الأولى ككاتب "المقبرة " نجد تفسيرا لجنون شاب مهووس بقبر قديم ..و مصمم على أن يدفن فيه ..و كيف انه من السهل اتهام من يمر باحداث ماوراءية بالجنون المطبق..النهاية مفتوحة و محيرة..و ربما تكون اول القصص عن النيكروفيليا
هناك قصة "سجين مع الفراعنة"..تجري أحداثها في مصر في العشرينات..بطلها الساحر الشهير هوديني..و نرى فيها نظرة فوقية للبدو و المصريين الذين يتحدون قدرات هوديني للفكاك من الاسر في قبر فرعوني بجانب الاهرامات حيث يقضي ليلة ليلاء
لم يعجبني كثرة النهايات المفتوحة و الغموض المفرط الذي غلف 5..من 19
قصة في هذا الكتاب المدهش
توجد ترجمة لبعض قصص هذا الكتاب في "نداء كتولو"لأحمد خالد توفيق
May 31, 2019
This is Lovecraft's earliest story published and it's a real good read. Jervas Dudley, a homebound boy, discovers an interesting tomb in his surrounding. It belongs to the Hyde family whose house burnt down. Rumours of debauchery and all kind of evil fill the village. But why is Jervas drawn to that old grave? Things get interesting when he finds a key and enters the deserted site. Why is the name Jervas written on one of the coffins? What does Jervas think about that and why did his behaviour change since he found the tomb? Where is Jervas when he writes this story? It's a very compelling and eerie story from a legendary storyteller. There aren't no old ones here, no Necronomicon either but it's a classic gothic read. Absolutely recommended!
June 11, 2019
“The Tomb”—completed in 1917 and first published in The Vagrant (1922)--is the first tale of terror (apart from juvenilia) that H.P. Lovecraft composed. Melodramatic, and slightly absurd, it is not without its charm, and, in the way its protagonist Jervas Dudley is dominated by an 18th century spirit, it looks forward to Lovecraft’s short novel, The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
The eccentric youth Jervas Dudley, fascinated by his visits to the Hyde family mausoleum, stares at the stone tomb for hours, wishing he could remove the giant padlock upon the door and enter within. He even sleeps outside the mausoleum; then one night, when he awakes, he is convinced that he has slept inside. Jervas, already strange, begins to act and speak even more strangely, as if he were a gentleman rake of the 18th century….
This story is also notable for its inclusion of passages that are distinctively autobiographical. For example, Lovecraft once confessed that in his youth he built altars to the Greek gods and “once beheld some of these sylvan creatures [satyrs and dryads] dancing under autumnal oaks.” In “The Tomb,” Jervas Dudley writes of a similar experience:
...temperamentally unfitted for the formal studies and social recreations of my acquaintances, I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world; spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little-known books, and in roaming the fields and groves of the region near my ancestral home. I do not think that what I read in these books or saw in these fields and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there….
...I have said that I dwelt apart from the visible world, but I have not said that I dwelt alone. This no human creature may do; for lacking the fellowship of the living, he inevitably draws upon the companionship of things that are not, or are no longer, living. Close by my home there lies a singular wooded hollow, in whose twilight deeps I spent most of my time; reading, thinking, and dreaming. Down its moss-covered slopes my first steps of infancy were taken, and around its grotesquely gnarled oak trees my first fancies of boyhood were woven. Well did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees, and often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of a waning moon—
June 4, 2017
Dangerously near 5 stars !
Just glimpse this intro:
"It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism."
Sold!
Wildly intelligent... eerily creepy... even sadly triumphant.
"Lovecraft" indeed.
Awesome!
.
Just glimpse this intro:
"It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism."
Sold!
Wildly intelligent... eerily creepy... even sadly triumphant.
"Lovecraft" indeed.
Awesome!
.
October 30, 2021
Like most of my reading hopes, the grand idea for October was dashed upon the rocks of reality. I had fashioned a plan to only read Freud and Lovecraft this month but that failed to occur. Thus on this rainy Saturday, I did read this first story.
A privileged scion who admits early that he’s being treated for pixilation (I’ll leave the Capra reference intact) recounts his childhood interest in a tomb in the woods. Blasphemy appears to be the chief offense, or at least the one confessed. The unspoken alludes to necro-gratification and other rituals. The conclusion appears rather rushed as does the process by which he’s granted entry.
I can’t say this whetted an interest in reading more Lovecraft.
A privileged scion who admits early that he’s being treated for pixilation (I’ll leave the Capra reference intact) recounts his childhood interest in a tomb in the woods. Blasphemy appears to be the chief offense, or at least the one confessed. The unspoken alludes to necro-gratification and other rituals. The conclusion appears rather rushed as does the process by which he’s granted entry.
I can’t say this whetted an interest in reading more Lovecraft.
July 26, 2015
The Tomb is Jervas Dudley's explanation of why he is committed at 'this refuge for the demented'. He even warns you himself that 'you are going to hear the ravings of a crazy person'.
As a ten-year-old he discovered the Hyde family tomb. It left a lasting impression on the boy and he started thinking of it as his. Strange things started to happen there and more than once our narrator only hints at the things he had done or seen there. He never gives any details.
His speech patterns and overall behaviour changed over the years because of that place. His concerned parents even hired a man to follow him on his nightly excursions to the cemetery.
As a ten-year-old he discovered the Hyde family tomb. It left a lasting impression on the boy and he started thinking of it as his. Strange things started to happen there and more than once our narrator only hints at the things he had done or seen there. He never gives any details.
His speech patterns and overall behaviour changed over the years because of that place. His concerned parents even hired a man to follow him on his nightly excursions to the cemetery.
December 17, 2018
HP Lovecraft ثالث تجاربي مع قصص الرغب لصاحبها
و بالرغم من أنني لست من هواة هذا النوع من الأدب إلا أنني شعرت فعلاً بالغموض و التشويق و الإثارة و أظن أن
HP Lovecraft
لديه حس فلسفي و هدف من كتابة هذه الروايات خصوصاً أنه دائماً ما يذكر المقابر في قصصه و يجعل من الحقائق مجرد ذكريات
ربما لو تعمقت قليلاً في قراءة توجهاته لفهمته
صحيح أنها غامضة بعض الشئ و محيرة كثيراً
لكنها ممتعة و ترجمة د.أحمد لها ممتازة
و بالرغم من أنني لست من هواة هذا النوع من الأدب إلا أنني شعرت فعلاً بالغموض و التشويق و الإثارة و أظن أن
HP Lovecraft
لديه حس فلسفي و هدف من كتابة هذه الروايات خصوصاً أنه دائماً ما يذكر المقابر في قصصه و يجعل من الحقائق مجرد ذكريات
ربما لو تعمقت قليلاً في قراءة توجهاته لفهمته
صحيح أنها غامضة بعض الشئ و محيرة كثيراً
لكنها ممتعة و ترجمة د.أحمد لها ممتازة
February 5, 2015
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2020
wonderful twilight new england magic
September 12, 2017
It is surprising how many of Lovecraft's signature themes are already fully evident in this, his first horror story. The nature of madness and reality, an inherited curse, seeking after forbidden knowledge, and a fated demise are all here. The narrator is very reminiscent of Hildred Castaigne from Robert Chambers' "The Repairer of Reputations" (in The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories), as well as many of Poe's madmen. However, Lovecraft adds an element; there is the strong suggestion that Jervas' madness springs from a true apprehension: that of his actual lineage and ultimate place, shall we say, in the scheme of things.
(Moved 2015 review to the individual work Sept. 2017 to make room to review the collection under its own entry.)
(Moved 2015 review to the individual work Sept. 2017 to make room to review the collection under its own entry.)
Read
November 4, 2012This one even creeped me out, and left me thinking about it long after it was finished.
I like Lovecraft's way of leaving the reader guessing as to what is and is not real.
I like Lovecraft's way of leaving the reader guessing as to what is and is not real.
November 27, 2019
Excellent! Just the perfect amount of insanity, creep, wonder, and beauty, this piece.
.
.
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'The Tomb' tells of Jervas Dudley, a self-confessed day-dreamer. While still a child, he discovers the entrance to a mausoleum, belonging to the family Hyde, whose nearby family mansion had burnt down many years previously. The entrance to the mausoleum is padlocked and slightly ajar. Jervas attempts to break the padlock, but is unable. Dispirited, he takes to sleeping beside the tomb. Eventually, inspired by reading Plutarch's Lives, Dudley decides to patiently wait until it is his time to gain entrance to the tomb.
One night, several years later, Jervas falls asleep once more beside the mausoleum. He awakes suddenly in the late afternoon, and believes that a light has been latterly extinguished from inside the tomb. Taking leave, he returns to his home, where he goes directly to the attic, to a rotten chest, and therein finds the key to the tomb.
Once inside the mausoleum, Jervas discovers an empty coffin with the name of Jervas Hyde upon the plate. He begins, so he believes, to sleep in the empty coffin each night as its name matches his. He also develops a fear of thunder, and is aware that he is being spied upon, under his father's orders.
One night, against his own better judgement, Jervas sets out for the tomb on an overcast night, a night threatening to storm. As he approaches the tomb, he sees the Hyde mansion restored to its former state there is a party in progress, to which he joins, abandoning his former quietude for blasphemous hedonism.
During the party, lightning strikes the mansion, and it burns. Jervas loses consciousness, having imagined himself being burnt to ashes in the blaze.
He is awoken, screaming and struggling, to find himself being held by two men, his father in attendance. A small antique box is discovered, having been unearthed by the recent storm. Inside is a porcelain miniature of a man, with the initials J.H. Jervas fancies its face to be the mirror image of his own.
He begins jabbering that he has been sleeping inside the tomb. His father, saddened by his son's mental instability, tells him that he has been watched for some time and has never gone inside the tomb, and indeed, the padlock is rusted with age. Jervas is removed to a room with barred windows, presumed mad.
He then asks his servant Hiram, who has remained faithful to him despite his current state, to explore the tomb a request which Hiram fulfils. After breaking the padlock and descending with a lantern into the murky depths, Hiram return to his master and informs him that there is, indeed, a coffin with a plate which reads 'Jervas' on it. Jervas then states that he has been promised to be buried in that vault and coffin when he dies and thus ends the previous narration.
.
.
.
'The Tomb' tells of Jervas Dudley, a self-confessed day-dreamer. While still a child, he discovers the entrance to a mausoleum, belonging to the family Hyde, whose nearby family mansion had burnt down many years previously. The entrance to the mausoleum is padlocked and slightly ajar. Jervas attempts to break the padlock, but is unable. Dispirited, he takes to sleeping beside the tomb. Eventually, inspired by reading Plutarch's Lives, Dudley decides to patiently wait until it is his time to gain entrance to the tomb.
One night, several years later, Jervas falls asleep once more beside the mausoleum. He awakes suddenly in the late afternoon, and believes that a light has been latterly extinguished from inside the tomb. Taking leave, he returns to his home, where he goes directly to the attic, to a rotten chest, and therein finds the key to the tomb.
Once inside the mausoleum, Jervas discovers an empty coffin with the name of Jervas Hyde upon the plate. He begins, so he believes, to sleep in the empty coffin each night as its name matches his. He also develops a fear of thunder, and is aware that he is being spied upon, under his father's orders.
One night, against his own better judgement, Jervas sets out for the tomb on an overcast night, a night threatening to storm. As he approaches the tomb, he sees the Hyde mansion restored to its former state there is a party in progress, to which he joins, abandoning his former quietude for blasphemous hedonism.
During the party, lightning strikes the mansion, and it burns. Jervas loses consciousness, having imagined himself being burnt to ashes in the blaze.
He is awoken, screaming and struggling, to find himself being held by two men, his father in attendance. A small antique box is discovered, having been unearthed by the recent storm. Inside is a porcelain miniature of a man, with the initials J.H. Jervas fancies its face to be the mirror image of his own.
He begins jabbering that he has been sleeping inside the tomb. His father, saddened by his son's mental instability, tells him that he has been watched for some time and has never gone inside the tomb, and indeed, the padlock is rusted with age. Jervas is removed to a room with barred windows, presumed mad.
He then asks his servant Hiram, who has remained faithful to him despite his current state, to explore the tomb a request which Hiram fulfils. After breaking the padlock and descending with a lantern into the murky depths, Hiram return to his master and informs him that there is, indeed, a coffin with a plate which reads 'Jervas' on it. Jervas then states that he has been promised to be buried in that vault and coffin when he dies and thus ends the previous narration.
September 5, 2021
Well I could see there was talented writing but as I often feel with short stories, it was way to short to be able to make my mind up if I liked it or not or even getting invested in it. I liked the premise though and will probably read more by H.P Lovecraft in the future eventough it crossed my mind not to do so. In rare occasions I do enjoy a short story so maybe I can still hope for this author. Maybe I've enjoyed other things by him but at this point I don't remember
April 9, 2018
Unhinged psychology.
August 6, 2022
An Addiction to Death
4 August 2022 – Great Australian Desert
Here I am, sitting in a plane at 41000 ft above central Australia. Well, at the time of writing, not at the time of posting, and definitely not at the time of you reading this. You see, even though there is wifi on the plane, it is really only available to first class passengers. Okay, I think I, a mere economy class pleb, could get it if I paid for it, but honestly, I don’t need eternal access to the internet, because it means I can read a book. Anyway, the poor first class passengers really do need to get value for money because, as it turns out, this is the first Singapore Airlines flight that hasn’t been packed to the brim, which means I get three whole seats to myself, which means I can stretch out (and pretty much everybody else is doing it as well).
Anyway, enough of my adventures 12 km above the surface of the Earth because I probably should say something about this story of a boy who discovers a tomb, and then grows into a man who becomes so obsessed with the tomb that they end up locking him up in a mental asylum. Well, okay, I could probably not say anything about it, and talk about other stuff because it isn’t as if Goodreads has ever removed one of my reviews for irrelevance (and I suspect that if they have, I wouldn’t know about it anyway).
However, this is a short story about this guy who is obsessed with this tomb he discovers in the New England woods. He discovers it as a boy, and his goal in life is to be buried in this tomb when he dies. I suspect it is because the tomb has some magical quality about it that has basically enchanted him. Mind you, this is Lovecraft, and the word that they use to describe his horror is macabre, though I’m not sure why. I personally don’t like the word because it makes it sound like he is writing a slasher flick, but then again I probably wouldn’t call a slasher flick macabre either – I’d simply call them a complete waste of time and energy.
It is a story about obsession, and about how things end up taking control of you – like sex and drugs. In fact, some of those movies about drug addiction can be pretty disturbing at times, though of course you will get people (usually addicts themselves) who completely rubbish them. Then again, they probably aren’t the sort of people they are trying to appeal to. However, like a junkie lets a drug take over their lives, so does the protagonist let the tomb take over his life. Mind you, something did jump out, and that is the name Hyde, which seems to be a reference to a much earlier work by Robert Louis Stevenson. In a way there is a similarity, especially since in the earlier book Dr Jeckal slowly lets himself become taken over by Hyde to the point that he has completely surrendered his soul to him. I guess it is the same here, that the asylum suggests that our protagonist has given his life up to the tomb, despite the fact that the suggestions is that the tomb hasn’t even been opened.
It does make you wonder in the end if he was just hallucinating everything.
4 August 2022 – Great Australian Desert
Here I am, sitting in a plane at 41000 ft above central Australia. Well, at the time of writing, not at the time of posting, and definitely not at the time of you reading this. You see, even though there is wifi on the plane, it is really only available to first class passengers. Okay, I think I, a mere economy class pleb, could get it if I paid for it, but honestly, I don’t need eternal access to the internet, because it means I can read a book. Anyway, the poor first class passengers really do need to get value for money because, as it turns out, this is the first Singapore Airlines flight that hasn’t been packed to the brim, which means I get three whole seats to myself, which means I can stretch out (and pretty much everybody else is doing it as well).
Anyway, enough of my adventures 12 km above the surface of the Earth because I probably should say something about this story of a boy who discovers a tomb, and then grows into a man who becomes so obsessed with the tomb that they end up locking him up in a mental asylum. Well, okay, I could probably not say anything about it, and talk about other stuff because it isn’t as if Goodreads has ever removed one of my reviews for irrelevance (and I suspect that if they have, I wouldn’t know about it anyway).
However, this is a short story about this guy who is obsessed with this tomb he discovers in the New England woods. He discovers it as a boy, and his goal in life is to be buried in this tomb when he dies. I suspect it is because the tomb has some magical quality about it that has basically enchanted him. Mind you, this is Lovecraft, and the word that they use to describe his horror is macabre, though I’m not sure why. I personally don’t like the word because it makes it sound like he is writing a slasher flick, but then again I probably wouldn’t call a slasher flick macabre either – I’d simply call them a complete waste of time and energy.
It is a story about obsession, and about how things end up taking control of you – like sex and drugs. In fact, some of those movies about drug addiction can be pretty disturbing at times, though of course you will get people (usually addicts themselves) who completely rubbish them. Then again, they probably aren’t the sort of people they are trying to appeal to. However, like a junkie lets a drug take over their lives, so does the protagonist let the tomb take over his life. Mind you, something did jump out, and that is the name Hyde, which seems to be a reference to a much earlier work by Robert Louis Stevenson. In a way there is a similarity, especially since in the earlier book Dr Jeckal slowly lets himself become taken over by Hyde to the point that he has completely surrendered his soul to him. I guess it is the same here, that the asylum suggests that our protagonist has given his life up to the tomb, despite the fact that the suggestions is that the tomb hasn’t even been opened.
It does make you wonder in the end if he was just hallucinating everything.
November 8, 2019
Η πρώτη ιστορία που έγραψε ο συγγραφέας. Παρατηρεί κανείς πως πολλά από τα στοιχεία που χαρακτηρίζουν την θεματολογία του στα μετέπειτα έργα του, είναι παρόντα στην πρώτη αυτή νουβέλα/διήγημα. Δεν πρόκειται για κάποιο κοσμογονικό ή απαράμιλλης ομορφιάς έργο, είναι όμως αρκετά ατμοσφαιρικό, μυστηριώδες και πρόκειται για μια μεστή ιστορία, παρά το μέγεθός της.
April 28, 2020
Really engaging!
February 11, 2021
Brevissimo ma decisamente notevole nello stile e nella trama
April 17, 2024
this was actually pretty good.
February 2, 2015
Stephen King has said that he was inspired by Lovecraft on many occasions. Knowing that, I couldn't help but see some similarities in this short story and one particular novel by King. That also led me to wonder; Is Jarvis really just insane or did he, maybe, have a touch of the "shine". Could that be the reason his parents were so disturbed by his behavior and obsession with death and cemeteries, which he acknowledges, they tried to shelter him from as a child? Think about some opening lines of the story...
"It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism."
I'm just asking; is it possible that Jarvis is a person who was sensitive to the unexplained, affected by its pull on him and THAT is what caused him to act insane rather than the reader just concluding that he is simply crazy?
I really liked the story. I only have one complaint: it was too short of a short story!
"It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism."
I'm just asking; is it possible that Jarvis is a person who was sensitive to the unexplained, affected by its pull on him and THAT is what caused him to act insane rather than the reader just concluding that he is simply crazy?
I really liked the story. I only have one complaint: it was too short of a short story!
February 17, 2021
Jervas Dudley is a shy and curious boy who spends most of his time daydreaming in his lonesome. Being the curious fellow he is, he develops an obsession with the mysterious tomb belonging to the Hyde family, whose nearby mansion had burnt down hundreds of years ago. After failing to break into the tomb, Jervas falls asleep by the entrance. His dreams are haunted by horrific ghostly visions of the family's secret history of debauchery, blasphemy and other forms of wickedness. After being terrified by nightmarish visions of the family and learning the truth of how their house burnt down, he uncovers a key to the tomb in which he discovers a burial with his name on it. Curious Jervas soon learns the meaning of curiosity killed the cat.
Though not the first story Lovecraft ever wrote, it was the first one ever accepted for professional publication. A glimpse into a familiar theme that Lovecraft masters in his later works. The theme of knowledge destroying an isolated and curious protagonist. The danger of looking for secrets not meant to be discovered. Fear of the unknown; the possible existence of higher powers and beings whose intellect far surpass our own. The story feels more gothic horror than cosmic horror, more like something Poe would write as it relies and dark family histories and occultist imagery without directly referencing the cosmos, elder gods, or other typical Lovecraftian things. Very eerie and vivid for such an early work.
Though not the first story Lovecraft ever wrote, it was the first one ever accepted for professional publication. A glimpse into a familiar theme that Lovecraft masters in his later works. The theme of knowledge destroying an isolated and curious protagonist. The danger of looking for secrets not meant to be discovered. Fear of the unknown; the possible existence of higher powers and beings whose intellect far surpass our own. The story feels more gothic horror than cosmic horror, more like something Poe would write as it relies and dark family histories and occultist imagery without directly referencing the cosmos, elder gods, or other typical Lovecraftian things. Very eerie and vivid for such an early work.
January 25, 2021
read this in 2020. i left h.p. lovecraft's fiction alone for a while, so i decided to at least record the stories i read back then.
much enjoyed this one! i'm a complete newbie to lovecraft but excited to begin this journey.
much enjoyed this one! i'm a complete newbie to lovecraft but excited to begin this journey.
November 24, 2016
What a fascinating read. This was the first time that I've ever read a book by H.P. Lovecraft and I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised. I tend not to delve into books by any author with much hope as, more often than not, my pedantic taste causes me to feel disillusioned very quickly. Although this is only a short-story, I was enraptured throughout. I wouldn't usually consider myself a fan of horror--I certainly don't like horror films--but this work has sparked my interest.
I look forward to reading Lovecraft's remaining bibliography.
I look forward to reading Lovecraft's remaining bibliography.
November 21, 2023
So apparently this was Lovecraft’s first horror ever. I liked the writing just fine but overall this story and the horror itself just felt unfulfilling. We toe the line between reality and insanity, a possible curse and a fated demise. But it all has a taste of not enough. What story can you efficiently tell in so few pages?
March 17, 2020
Hard to say if this early Lovecraft work is touching on reincarnation, astral projection, or simply a fascination with madness and the macabre. My, but he was flowery and verbose.
Unreliable narrators are... unreliable. But interesting! :)
Unreliable narrators are... unreliable. But interesting! :)
October 18, 2020
Nice and spoooky! And so, so atmospheric. I appreciate the play with madness/horror and the social elements of seeing horrible things- you are seen as crazy. Beautifully written and perfect for a quick Halloween season read!
December 8, 2025
Świetne, podobało mi się na podobnym poziomie jak moje top1, zgroza w Dunwich
September 15, 2021
I’ve been wanting to get into Lovecraft for awhile and now I’m finally starting. Pretty good so far can’t wait for more :)
July 22, 2025
First published Lovecraft’s horror story. Creepy! Liked it much more than Dagon or maybe I’m just getting used to Lovecraftian terseness. Nothing is explained, something is implied, the end is abrupt, the horror is too horrifying to be described.
September 22, 2022
My second Lovecraftian Horror.. but from different angle, its the first.
Love the writing. I too, write in such a stupid manner.
Love the writing. I too, write in such a stupid manner.
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