Facts Concerning The Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family

by H.P. Lovecraft

In the most common Lovecraft's way of retelling something, this story starts from the end, from Arthur Jermyn's suicide, emphasises the importance of something he found out, then goes back a couple of generations to tell the story of his family. The past explains his peculiar appearance and the way and reason he died.

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

34 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1921

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

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This early Lovecraft story (first published in the amateur journal The Wanderer in 1921) is crude and only partially successful, but it is interesting for five reasons:

1) It embodies Lovecraft’s autobiography in a distorted, fearful form. Like Lovecraft, Arthur Jermyn is sensitive about his personal appearance, and, because of this sensitivity, he takes all his long walks at night. Like Lovecraft, both his parents die in the madhouse, and he fears his hereditary history may hold secrets more ghastly than his physical ugliness,

2) It specifically connects Lovecraft’s suspicions of his own heritage to his larger, more pervasive fears of degenerate races,

3) It influenced that later, far superior tale The Shadow Over Innsmouth,

4) It is the only Lovecraft story (to my knowledge) influenced by Sherwood Anderson (?!). Lovecraft wanted to rip the mask off the human family in gothic fiction the same way Anderson ripped the mask off small town American hypocrisy in Winesburg, Ohio: “I, in my weirder medium, could probably devise some secret behind a man's ancestry which would make the worst of Anderson's disclosures sound like the annual report of a Sabbath school,”

and

5) Its first sentence is a doozy:

Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.

There you have it, in a nutshell. The classic Lovecraft view of existence!

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely enjoyed this very gothic and eerie family tale of the House of Jermyn. Why did Arthur Jermyn used oil to burn himself? What was the discovery that led to his terrible suicide? What was in the African box Arthur received? The narration of the family history and the defects of each of its members is very well done (madness, body issues). The expedition to Africa and the derelict stone city with the white apes is well described and in the tradition of Rider Haggard but much darker. Why was the wife of Arthur's ancestor never seen in public? What about a legendary white goddess? This is an extremely uncanny, dark and sinister story. Highly recommended!

[Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was... pretty fucking racist, man.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why people may give low ratings: he gives summary and it reads like textbook archaeology. I like the way he writes. He includes archaeology and ancient gods and cultures in this story, another aspect of his writings I find intriguing. This one concerns the white god and apes, and a family haunted and tortured by a dead ape. I laughed writing this but the story reads well and has entertaining value.

[James Hold · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's only to be expected that someone would label the story racist, altho where the racism in a story about white apes might be is anyone's guess. I found the story wonderful, a sterling example of Lovecraft's dry and understated sense of humor. The history of the family is too ridiculous to be taken seriously, especially the passage of how people were shocked when one of the Jermyn ancestors ran off to join a minstrel show. Ultimately I saw it as a tale about upper-class snobbery and a poke at Edgar Rice Burroughs, as if to say this is how Tarzan really would have turned out. It's an absolute hoot. Still, there's always going to be those who label anything by HPL as racist, so what can you do?

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically a prototype Innsmouth, except with far less dark and horrifying implications, and far less removed from humanity in general. From a modern standpoint, it's less about a terrible bloodline secret and more about a particularly neurotic guy having a brief yet tragically intense nervous breakdown.

[JL Shioshita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is sort of a genealogical mystery with a big reveal at the end. It's like going into Ancestry.com and finding out your family tree was nothing like you assumed. It's a common Lovecraft theme, and I love all the little clues peppered along the way. The story is a little dry and reads like you're actually pouring through the historical records of a family line, which for me gave it a sense of realism that I loved, like a found footage horror film, but in short story format.

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the most common Lovecraft's way of retelling something, this story starts from the end, from Arthur Jermyn's suicide, emphasises the importance of something he found out, then goes back a couple of generations to tell the story of his family. The past explains his peculiar appearance and the way and reason he died.

[David Sarkies · Rating 3 out of 5]

One Family’s Curse
15 Aug 2022 – Paris

I would say that I’m currently sitting at the Cafe de Flore, but I’m not, namely because the table was crowded with my Petit Dejuner, and I was also doing some other stuff. So, instead I’m sitting at a cafe just out side of the maze that is known as the Chatlet Metro station (and somewhere deep underground, there is this group playing Ukrainian folk songs). Okay, it would have been nice to have flipped out my laptop in the pub popularised by Hemmingway, Picasso, Satre, and wikipedia (which has a photo of the cafe at the top of the page about cafes), but that was not to happen. Mind you, if there is one thing I love about Paris, and that is all of the outdoor seating.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, and onto this short story about the cursed family of Arthur Jermyn. One of the interesting things about this story is that a lot of Jermyn’s ancestors ended up in an asylum, where they died. Once again we see the madness playing a central role in this story, though it seems as if one of them was locked up on the ground that he had written a book about a white civilisation in the heart of Africa. Of course people thought he was mad, which is why he was locked up.

However, the family did end up going to the Congo, and we need to remember that at the time this story was being written, the Congo still represented the deepest, darkest parts of Africa, which is why a lot of adventure stories, and tales of lost civilisations, were set there. Then there are the apes, which has resulted in a connection between humans and a lost evolutionary ancestor. Well, that is something that seems to be explored here, especially with what is told at the end.

The story, though, has more to do with the curse that has befallen the family, something that does feel rather creepy. Okay, there is the concept of the sins of the father being passed down onto the son, but this seems to be how this family has been caught up in this lost civilisation, and that this civilisation, and the madness that it entails, continues to haunt the children generation after generation. It is also interesting that despite the horror of this all, some of them are still able to procreate and produce progeny.

Look, it probably isn’t one of the greatest stories, but it is somewhat interesting how Lovecraft builds this secret world. It is also not surprising that when roleplaying games became a thing, that it didn’t take long for his stories to turned into a game. Sure, it might not be a story in a traditional sense, but he is pretty descriptive in the way he creates his characters.

[H. P. Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't Lovecraft's finest work. He signals the horror he's leading up to pages ahead of time so that the denouement is rather flat when it comes. His early 1900s prejudices are blatant and his language is stilted even for that era. And yet....I had to give his story three stars rather than the more deserved two because, even now, the story creeps up on the reader building from his assertion that "Life is a hideous thing" and dragging the reader inch by inch through the ravaged lineage of Jermyn's ancestry. One of the things I love about Lovecraft is his depiction of weird families, with their "unholy" mesalliances. While he implies that the fish gods were married for their ability to bestow wealth on their human spouses, he doesn't always treat these marriages as loveless unions. This story is a case in point: " Jermyn... by close questioning obtained a very picturesque legend of the stuffed goddess.
The ape-princess, it was said, became the consort of a great white god who had come out of the West. For a long time they had reigned over the city together, but when they had a son all three went away. Later the god and the princess had returned, and upon the death of the princess her divine husband had mummified the body and enshrined it in a vast house of stone, where it was worshipped. Then he had departed alone. The legend here seemed to present three variants. According to one story nothing further happened save that the stuffed goddess became a symbol of supremacy for whatever tribe might possess it. It was for this reason that the N’bangus carried it off. A second story told of the god’s return and death at the feet of his enshrined wife. A third told of the return of the son, grown to manhood—or apehood or godhood, as the case might be—yet unconscious of his identity. "
Some devotion at least is shown by the "white god" to his other-species consort. Facts concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family is a good introduction to this unusual and tormented writer's world.

[John Cesarone · Rating 5 out of 5]

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!! TURN BACK, TURN BACK!!!

I expected “his family” to mean his wife and children, but I was wrong. The unfortunate titular Arthur Jermyn was wife-free and childless, but he did have a family history dating back six generations or so, and that is the family that was being referred to. They were a noble family of England, of high intellectual standards and strong scientific curiosity, but with unfortunate tendencies. I really liked how most of the story was the history of the generations, and how every generation came to a HORRIBLE end, leaving one and only one descendant to carry on to the next generation, and the next cycle of horror! Until Arthur Jermyn himself finally wraps things up. Basically, it was about a family of scientists who investigate deep dark tribes in darkest Africa, where humans and ape-human hybrids form a society, and as each generation discovers their mixed ancestry, they go MAD!!! Much has been made of the inherent “racism” of the story, but I just find it an amusing tale of genetic horror and self loathing. One of the rare HPL stories not set in New England, but in actual England (and Africa, of course). Also one of the rare HPL stories told from a pure third-person perspective.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure whether to take this story as a horrifying tale of a family going mad, or a slightly racism quest to discover a race of white apes in Africa. Either way, it's a strange tale. It's certainly not my favorite among Lovecraft's short stories, but I didn't hate it either.

[Mika · Rating 2 out of 5]

About the dark side of ancestors and family history.

Once I watched a documentary about a family in America that inbred themselves so often that it seriously became disturbing (yes, I'm talking about The Whittakers). One of many reasons why I stay away from incestous media, it's too disgusting for me.

Well, lucky to me, this story is more about fantasy than some incestous stuff, but it reminded me of it, so I would still not recommend this.

[Marcos Ibáñez Gordillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

No estoy seguro de si esto es de los mitos o no.
En cualquier caso estaba chulo. Definitivamente Lovecraft se luce en los comienzos.
Por cierto, se huele el racismo que apesta xD

[José Cruz Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which sometimes make it a thousandfold more hideous

Este cuento se parece a Lokis, de Prosper Merimée, ya que ambas historias muestran seres que son una mezcla entre humanos y bestias. A mi juicio, Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family es uno de los relatos mejor logrados de H. P. Lovecraft. Desde el comienzo, con la maravillosa oración que sirve de epígrafe a mi reseña, el texto nos muestra la degradación biológica de la familia Jermyn, cuyo último miembro pone fin a su vida de una manera extremadamente dolorosa.

[Sauerkirsche · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ja Lovecraft war ein Rassist, das sollte mittlerweile eigentlich jedem Leser bekannt sein.
In Arthur Jermyn schießt jedoch er den Vogel ab. Der überhebliche Rassengedanke war mir hier zu überdeutlich und die Handlung dabei noch nicht mal spannend. Es fallen mir direkt ein paar andere, längere Geschichten ein die wie eine ausführlichere, bessere Nacherzählung von Arthur Jermyn wirken.
Es ist eine der frühen Geschichten von Lovecraft, was allerdings keine Entschuldigung ist denn auch Dagon oder Nyarlatothep stehen am Anfang seines Zyklus und gehören zu den besseren Werken.

[Godzilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraft ventures into the dark recesses of colonial Africa, and the temptations and repecussions of meddling in things you shouldn't.

He paints a wonderful portrait of a deeply flawed family, dealing with generations of oddity and madness culminating in a twist that whilst may be obvious in the modern world, I'm sure shook some of his contemporaries.

Self-immolation is never done lightly I'm sure....

[Karan joshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A haunting tale of hereditary horror, Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family follows a man who uncovers a dreadful truth about his lineage—his aristocratic ancestors interbred with a mysterious ape-like species. The shocking revelation drives him to a fiery demise, making this one of Lovecraft’s most unsettling explorations of forbidden ancestry.

[Netanella · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous."

On a downer are we, Howie?

[John Yelverton · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a rather horrid little book of a family cursed with the knowledge of despicable acts performed by their ancestor, and their even more horrid attempts to atone for his sins.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The reaction was just a touch drastic, but memorable

[Andrei Vasilachi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts with the author telling us of the suicide of the main character (which is an interesting choice from the writer's standpoint since it makes us look into what made him do it and try to anticipate his madness), it ends...well, with the start of the story; and it lacks the usual tension and horror which is characteristic to Lovecraft. Despite being very short, it packs a lot of themes, like African mythology, archaeological mystery, the perils of colonialism and what I call "lost civilization nerd-fest". Like most of Lovecraft's short stories, it seems like a build-up for something more, so it's hard to judge it on its own.

It's a strange family tale of the House of Jermyn, told briefly through a few generations, starting from Sir Wade Jermyn, an archaeologist who lost his mind because of his expedition to Congo, in which he witnessed...weird things.

The story ultimately centers at its most recent head of the family, Arhur Jermyn, whose description arguably resembles Lovecraft himself—"Though of poetic rather than scientific temperament, he planned to continue the work of his forefathers in African ethnology and antiquities, utilising the truly wonderful though strange collection of Sir Wade. With his fanciful mind he thought often of the prehistoric civilization in which the mad explorer had so implicitly believed, and would weave tale after tale about the silent jungle city mentioned in the latter's wilder notes and paragraphs..."

And to end it on an uplifting tone: (this is the first sentence of the story) "Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous."

[Pierce Burnette · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange entry in Lovecraft's works, but still an altogether good story. Lovecraft weaves a tale of mystery throughout the short story, starting with the fatal end of the titular character and moving backwards, telling readers about Arthur's great-great-great grandfather and then moving down the line until he gets back to Arthur and tells readers why Arthur lit himself on fire at the very beginning (and/or end? I don't know) of the story
Not exactly what I read Lovecraft for, but still a great story which, if you know a thing or two about Lovecraft, gives insight into the person and his writing style.

[Berlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see why Meghan likes this. I liked how Lovecraft weaved this dark, generational tale of ancestors going mad in such a concise way. With that being said, I'm just not a big fan of short stories, objectively, this is good, its just not entirely my thing.

So I looked through reviews and apparently this short story was the influence for a novella called The Shadow Over Innsmouth that people are claiming is basically a superior version of this so I might pick that up later

[Callum Woodward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could have spent worse time reading a dozen pages. This is a good start to Lovecraft despite the academic and factual style of writing and I enjoyed it. There is obvious 'product of its time' syndrome going on here, with racist undertones throughout. I'm well aware Lovecraft was not a good man in that aspect but for someone wanting to read and understand his influence, this is a good start.

That being said, I am yet to read other well known works by him such as At the Moutains of Madness, Call of Cthulhu and so forth.

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

A decent mystery, fairly well paced.

[Wiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am intrigued.

[Dimitra · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow..haunting and the ending had me for realll like the final line WAS THE TOP ENDING LIKE GIRL????????? << and some of them do not admit that Arthur James ever existed>> SCREAMING❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

[Mark Tallen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story isn't one of my favourites of his work that I've read to date but nonetheless, it kept me interested throughout.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horror, short story by a master, Great Narration!!