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Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994
"The Little Glass Bottle"
Source: The Shuttered Room, Arkham House, 1959.
Synopsis: Captain William Jones, while out sailing, finds a bottle with a note within which supposedly gives the location of a sunken treasure. Jones hires a boat to go after the treasure. When he arrives at the site, he finds another note saying that it was all a joke, but his expenses will be defrayed by the money he will find on the ocean floor there.
Notes: This story was written in 1896, when HPL was only six.
Suggested topics: This is the first Lovecraft story that has survived until today. Make whatever comments you want. Liked it? Hated it? (Personally, I think it's a pretty good story for a six-year-old.)
[Click here for more commentary on "The Little Glass Bottle".]
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994
"The Secret Cave, or John Lees Adventure" (1898)
Source: The Shuttered Room, Arkham House, 1959.
Synopsis: Two children named John and Alice are left at home by their parents. While looking around in the basement, the two find a secret passage. They travel down this passage, finding a closed box and a boat. At the passage's end, John removes an "obstacle," releasing a flood which drowns his sister. He escapes with her body and the box, and later finds a gold nugget inside "worth about $10,000 enough to pay for anything but the death of his sister."
Dictatorial Pronouncement: (I'm adding this feature so that I can air my own views without posting separately, while giving everyone else something to quote and complain about.)
This story seems pretty morbid to me; c'mon, an eight-year-old writing a story in which a girl dies a horrid, senseless death? The strange part is that Lovecraft didn't discover Poe until he was nine (check me on this), so this morbidity comes from a different source entirely. Thus, my first question.
Suggested Questions:
[Click here for more commentary on "The Secret Cave, or John Lees Adventure".]
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994
"The Mysterious Ship" (1902)
Source: The Shuttered Room, Arkham, 1959.
Synopsis: A strange ship is sighted all over the world, and is believed to be behind a wave of kidnappings from ships and land alike. It is found that these pirates are using a submarine in their efforts. The prisoners are rescued from a continent at the North Pole known as "No-Man's-Land", and the ship's captain and his men are finally killed.
Dictatorial Pronouncement: To me, this story represents a step backward from "Graveyard". At least in that story HPL was able to maintain suspense and an OK plot. This story completely baffled me. There seems to be no motive for the kidnappings of the men. And just where is the "southern" part of a continent at the North Pole? That seems to cover a lot of ground :-) While the characters in the other story were fairly standard figures, the ones in this one have no personality whatsoever. If anything, Lovecraft's style seems to have regressed in this tale.
Suggested questions:
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994
"The Beast in the Cave" (1905)
Source: Dagon and other Macabre Tales, Arkham, 1965.
Synopsis: The narrator has gone on a tour of Mammoth Cave, has separated from the group, and has become lost. He hears something moving toward him which does not sound like any familiar beast. Very afraid, he throws a rock at it and mortally wounds it. After running in panic through the caves, the tour's guide finds him, and the two return to the site of the kill, to find a white-haired man lying on the cavern floor.
Dictatorial Pronouncement: As a native Kentuckian, I feel obliged to comment on this story. It definitely does occur in Mammoth Cave, as the consumptive colony and the Green River are both features of that complex. HPL gained his inspiration for this tale from reading about this place, as I am sure that he hadn't visited it then (and probably never did). You can tell this because Lovecraft's hero runs blindly through the labyrinthine corridors for quite a while, yet never runs into anything large and limestone as he would in real life.
Also, I guess this is the true debut of the traditional HPL protagonist. Instead of panicking upon finding himself alone in a cave, the hero merely reflects on his interesting position. Later, though, when confronted with the beast, his "unimpassioned demeanour" dissolves and he runs blindly until he is "lying at the feet of my guide, embracing his boots, and gibbering [yes, gibbering]". In this way, he is the prototype of the later string of analytical-yet-unstable narrators which have become a staple of much of HPL's work.
Suggested Questions:
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994
"The Alchemist" (1908)
Source: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, Arkham House.
Synopsis: A young man, the last of his ancestral line, lives with an aged servant in a crumbling castle. He learns that his family has been cursed so that every male heir dies slightly after the age of thirty-two. One day when his time has almost come, the narrator meets an old man in a secret part of the castle. There is a struggle, and the old man is killed. Before he dies, though, he reveals that he is the sorcerer who cursed the man's family three hundred years ago, kept alive by magic.
DP: This story is a bit overwritten and melodramatic, but aside from that I liked it.
Suggested Questions:
[Click here for more commentary on "The Alchemist".]
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994
"The Tomb"
Source: Dagon and other Macabre Tales, Arkham House.
Synopsis: A young man comes upon an old family vault in the side of a hill. He finds a key which allows him to enter, and begins to act more and more strangely as time goes on. He enters the vault on a regular basis, but no one can see him enter. On a stormy night, he visits the ruins of the ancestral home where the family which built the vault once lived. He is involved in a spectral festival, which comes to an end when a bolt of lightning strikes the ghostly house. Following this, the man is committed, but certain evidence seems to bear out his story.
DP: Can't think of one
Questions: Ditto
[Click here for more commentary on "The Tomb".]
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994
"Dagon"
Source: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, Arkham House.
Synopsis: The majority of this story is set in the Pacific during World War I. The hero's ship is captured by the Germans, but he manages to escape on a small boat. One morning, he finds himself on a vast plain which has mysteriously risen from the ocean floor. He explores this plain, and finds a huge monolith and sees a tremendous thing adoring this sculpture. He loses consciousness and then is picked up by an American vessel, which finds him in his boat in the middle of the ocean. He becomes a drug addict to forget what he has seen, but in the end he believes the thing is trying to enter his room and tries to escape through the window.
Dictatorial Pronouncement: If you'd like to know more about this particular story, the Mythos-Delvers covered it quite thoroughly. I believe you can find the archives at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu in the directory pub/chaosium/cthulhu; that's not the entire string, so you may have to look around for a little while.
The Mythos-Delvers found a good deal of information on the historical god Dagon and speculated on the size and nature of the land upon which the narrator finds himself. How large was it? Was it in this dimension? Was it just a hallucination? My personal speculation is that Dagon has the ability to telepathically "send dreams" just as his master Cthulhu does. This capability may be less powerful than Cthulhu's, but it could create such a vision if a susceptible personality was very close to Dagon. That's my two pazoors, anyway.
Once again, I advise people to check out the Mythos-Delvers archives on this one, and even post whatever relevant information you find. For example, it's a fact that during World War I, there was only one German ship of Lovecraft's description in the Pacific, and its commander had a tradition of treating POWs in a humane manner.
This story is especially notable because it's the first HPL tale to include a Mythos element. The Esoteric Order of Dagon plays an important role in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", a story in which Dagon is said to be the servant of Cthulhu. Also note the parallels between this story and Lovecraft's later effort "The Call of Cthulhu."
I've babbled enough on this one.
Suggested Questions:
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994
"A Reminiscence of Doctor Samuel Johnson"
Source: Miscellaneous Writings, Arkham House
Synopsis: Lovecraft responds to complaints about his archaic writing style by explaining that he is actually two hundred years older than he has claimed to be. He then tells of meeting such famous literary figures as Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson, giving anecdotes of what transpired at the meetings between these great literary figures.
Dictatorial Pronouncement: This story, to the best of my knowledge, has not been reprinted since it appeared in the amateur press in 1917. While not one of the most inspired of his pieces, it at least shows that HPL realized his pretensions (not the best word, but the only one I can think of right now) of being an older, cultured gentleman of an earlier era, and could make fun of himself.
Most of the material for this story was taken from Boswell's Life of Johnson.
Questions:
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995
"Polaris"
Source: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.
Synopsis: A man looking out of his window at night is struck by the appearance of the Pole Star. He has a series of dreams, in which he lives in the city of Olathoe in Lomar, presumably somewhere near the pole. Olathoe is about to be overwhelmed by the Inuto invaders, and the narrator is sent to a watchtower to give a signal when the enemy approaches. The Pole Star exerts a hypnotic influence upon him, telling him that he must sleep and that he will be reminded of his failure in a future life. The narrator then awakes in the present day.
Thoughts, comments, etc.?
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995
"The Green Meadow"
Source: The Horror in the Museum, Arkham House.
Synopsis: As explained in the introduction, this is a manuscript written in classical Greek and found in a meteorite. The narrator, who seems to be a magician or mystic, finds himself on a field near the ocean, looking out at a green meadow on an island. The field beneath his feet washes out toward the island, and the land behind him disappears. He hears chanting on the island, and catches a glimpse of what causes it.
Egotistical dictatorial pronouncement: I didn't like it one bit. The introduction, instead of enlightening me about the story, only confused me even more. How does a classical Greek manuscript get into a meteorite, anyway? No adequate explanation is given, and this distracted me from the story, which wasn't all that thrilling to begin with. The last paragraph was the best, and even that was overdone and included the Lovecraftian attitude of "hey, the monster's coming, but instead of running like anyone else would, I'll just sit here and write until it kills me".
One minor note: "Of things which thought and moved and were alive, yet which gods and men would not consider alive." Does this sound familiar to anyone else?
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995
"Beyond the Wall of Sleep"
Source: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, Arkham.
Synopsis: A murderer named Joe Slader is taken to a sanitarium. One of the attendants takes special notice of him because of his unusual dreams. He hooks up a mind-reading device to him, and is able to receive a signal describing how Joe is possessed by the attendant's "brother of light," who longs to escape so he can attack his foe at the star of Algol. Joe dies, and shortly thereafter a new bright star is seen near Algol.
DP: Didn't like it. It would have been OK, but the mind-control device was just plain bad, and I have no idea about what that "brother of light" stuff was all about. Some concepts in it, such as the future empire of Tsan Chan and the insect-philosophers on the fourth moon of Jupiter, do turn up later, though.
Questions: Who liked this story, and why?
[Click here for more commentary on "Beyond the Wall of Sleep".]
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995
"Memory"
Sources: Four Prose Poems, Necronomicon; Miscellaneous Writings, Arkham House; The Doom that Came to Sarnath, Ballantine.
Synopsis: This prose poem describes a deserted jungle valley which contains a number of large, overgrown ruins. The Genie of the moonbeams asks the Daemon of the river who built the ruins. The Daemon responds that they were built by a race known as Man.
Thoughts: Somewhat predictable, but probably just the right length for the subject matter. I could never really get myself to like any of HPL's prose poems (except for "Nyarlathotep").
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995
"Old Bugs"
Source: Miscellaneous Writings, Arkham House.
Synopsis: An old man, nicknamed Old Bugs, works in a Chicago speakeasy. He seems to be a bum, but at time shows flashes of genius. One day, a young man enters and tries to buy a drink. Old Bugs reacts violently and dies in a fit while trying to protect him. On the old man's body, the youth found a picture of his mother, to whom Old Bugs was engaged before drink ruined him.
Commentary: This story was written for Alfred Galpin, a youthful correspondent of HPL who evidently wanted to drink (notice the name "Galpin" is given to Old Bugs). HPL, a stolid Prohibitionist, sent this to Galpin, writing at the end, "Now will you be good?"
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995
"The Transition of Juan Romero"
Source: Dagon and other Macabre Tales, Arkham House.
Synopsis: The narrator is a man who is working in at the Norton gold mine out west. He meets a man known as Juan Romero, who seems to be of Aztec ancestry. One day, a large charge of dynamite is planted at the site, and the explosion reveals a seemingly bottomless chasm. That night, Juan and the narrator hear a deep throbbing in the ground, and go to investigate. Juan goes into the mineshaft and does not return. In the morning, the narrator finds Juan dead in his bed, with no trace of their adventure the night before.
Comments: Didn't like it. There's too much in the story (the pit, the ring the narrator wears, etc.) that is put in without any sort of explanation. Maybe this is a very subtle detective story and I'm missing the answer, but I doubt it. I found the footnotes to be especially pedantic.
For what it's worth, Huitzilopochtli was the Aztec patron deity, as well as a mighty warrior-god. What he's doing at the bottom of a gold mine I can't imagine.
Finally, why is this story included under the heading "Early Tales"? After all, we've already seen that a large number of HPL's stories, including "Dagon" and "Polaris," have already been written. So why is this an "early" tale, if the others aren't?
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995
"The White Ship"
Source: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, Arkham.
Synopsis: This is the story of an old man, Basil Elton, who tends a lighthouse on the New England coast. One night, a white ship comes sailing in from the south, and bears him away on a magical journey past several lands of seeming beauty yet hideous reality. He then arrives at Sona-Nyl, a paradise where he lives for many years. He then grows tired and desires to see Cathuria, the City of Hope, to the west. Upon journeying there in the ship, however, he is sucked past the Basalt Pillars of the West into a whirlpool. He then finds himself back at his lighthouse at the same time he left, with the mast of the ship lying on the rocks.
Comments: By now, HPL had read the works of the Irish fantasy-writer Lord Dunsany, and was attempting to write stories in the same vein. This story especially reminds me of Dunsany's "Idle Days on the Yann," which is about a man who takes a boat-ride down a river through the lands of dream. I haven't read any Dunsany in a while, so if anyone out there wants to tell us some more, please jump in.
This story has often been interpreted as having an allegorical meaning; a man seeking knowledge is brought to his destruction through his quest. Hmmm. That sounds familiar, now doesn't it? Dick Mosig, in an article printed in H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism, gives some alternate explanations for this story, and since I don't have time to explain them right now, I'll just recommend the article itself.
In this story, we see some elements of the "Dreamland" portion of the Mythos delineated. The Basalt Pillars of the West turn up again in "Dream-Quest," and Basil Elton is mentioned as a dreamer to whom Randolph Carter once listened in the same work. One aspect of this is bothering me, though. In Chaosium's Dreamlands supplement, the city of Zak is mentioned as coming from this story. Personally, I didn't see it anywhere. Comments?
Date: 3 Apr 1995
"The Doom that Came to Sarnath"
Sources: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, Arkham House; The Doom that Came to Sarnath, Ballantine.
(One note here: just because I only give one source for a story doesn't mean that's the only one; almost all of HPL's stories, aside from the revisions, are in the Ballantine paperbacks. It's just that if I stand around Tower Books looking into HPL books and taking notes for a while, the staff might think there was something going on.)
Synopsis: This is the story of the city of Sarnath, built on the edge of a lake. Nearby was the pre-human city of Ib, whose frog-like inhabitants the Sarnathians killed. A thousand years later, after Sarnath had become the mightiest city in the world, the king held a feast to which all the surrounding rulers were invited. On that night, Sarnath's doom fell, and the only object to remain was a statue of the Ib dwellers' god, Bokrug.
Comments: This seems to me to be a good Dunsany imitation; as a matter of fact, one passage in the third (?) paragraph seemed somewhat reminiscent of something in Dunsany's short play, "The Gods of the Mountain." I couldn't help but think about a Biblical influence when HPL is describing the city's dimensions. Good stuff.
The "Sarnath" in this story is not identical with the ruined Indian city of the same name; as a matter of fact, HPL was surprised to hear of the real city's existence. Just thought I'd throw that in as a remark.
A few other Mythos links: In Carter's "The Thing in the Moonlight" (almost impossible to find), the author seems to say that this story is actually a fragment of the Necronomicon. Go figure. Also, "Doom" served as the inspiration for Brian Lumley's novel Beneath the Moors, recently reprinted for you lucky Brits in Return of the Deep Ones. I haven't read it for a while, so if one of our well-read posters would like to give a synopsis, I'd be grateful to them.
[Click here for more commentary on "The Doom That Came To Sarnath".]
Date: 10 Apr 1995
"The Statement of Randolph Carter"
Source: At the Mountains of Madness, Arkham House.
Synopsis: This story is a statement given to the police by an occult scholar named Randolph Carter, who is attempting to explain the disappearance of his friend Harley Warren. As he tells it, the two had entered the Big Cypress Swamp in Florida and sought out a graveyard there. In that place, they found a tunnel leading into the earth. Warren went down the tunnel, reeling out a telephone line behind him, while Carter remained on the surface. Warren shouted for Carter to put the slab back and get out of there, but Carter remained on the line. Then, over the phone, our hero hears a voice say, "You fool, Warren is dead!"
Comments: This story is a bit too Poe-esque for me to like it that much -- too much overblown language &c. I find it interesting, though, because it represents the first appearance of Randolph Carter, who is HPL's heroic alter-ego in later works. In this story, though, all he does is answer the phone.
The Mythos-Delvers (issue #41) dealt with some of the background behind this story. These issues are in the /pub/chaosium directory at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu, and make for some interesting reading. The first bit of information we find is that it is possible to have a cemetery with caverns underneath in the middle of the swamp, due to this area's limestone base. Another is that the site where the cemetery formerly was is now the site of a religious cult known as the Koreshan Unity (no relation) which, from what I saw quoted, believes that the dead will rise again physically. Hmmmm...
Questions:
Date: 15 Sep 1995
"Sweet Ermengarde"
Sources: Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Miscellaneous Writings.
Synopsis: Ermengarde is the beautiful daughter of a poor family. The villainious Squire, who has discovered gold on her parents' land, threatens to forclose the mortgage if Ermengarde does not marry him. Her valiant boyfriend sets off to the city to make his fortune and save the family, and ...
What was that? No, I'm not kidding. This is a real H. P. Lovecraft story. Though you can't tell from the above, the whole thing is a take-off on the Horatio Alger "rags-to-riches" genre, and is actually quite funny at places.
Comments, Questions: If you've read this story, posting is mandatory. Hopefully we'll get something less obscure next week.
Date: 21 Sep 1995
"The Temple"
Source: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (Arkham).
Synopsis: This story is a manuscript written by a WWI German U-boat commander. He tells of the sinking of another ship, and how a dead man was found clinging to the submarine with a small piece of sculpture in his pocket. After that, the rest of the crew became irrational and either committed suicide or were killed. The sub loses power and sinks to the bottom, where the commander finds the ruins of Atlantis. The story ends as he resolves to investigate a glowing light he sees inside a nearby temple.
Comments: This isn't one of my favorite HPL stories, and based on the amount that fans have written that's based on it (stories, poems, etc.), it isn't too many other people's, either. Nothing in the story is ever explained satisfactorily; this really isn't a problem, except that it gives the impression that we might be able to figure it out, as we can in Lovecraft's later "mysteries".
One thing I would like to know, though, is whether there really was a submarine called the U-29, and what happened to it. The Mythos Delvers did some work on identifying the German vessel in "Dagon"; maybe some of the same people are still here?
No real Mythos connection here. A scenario in the sourcebook Cthulhu Now!, "The City By the Sea", was inspired by this story.
Questions: Liked it? Hated it? Where's that sub, anyway?
[Click here for more commentary on "The Temple".]
Date: 30 Sep 1995
"Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family"
(a.k.a. "Arthur Jermyn", a.k.a. "That Title H. P. L. Didn't Like")
Source: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, Arkham.
Synopsis: Arthur Jermyn is the last member of a noble English clan whose members had a reputation for insanity and malformity. He goes to the Congo to investigate an ancestor's supposed discovery of a ruined city in that region. After his return to England, an acquaintance sends Jermyn a rather large package that causes him to burn himself alive.
Comments: This story has what must undoubtedly be one of Lovecraft's best introductions, but then it goes downhill from there. Half the tale is taken up with introductory material, and not enough happens in the other half to really establish Jermyn as a person for whom we shall feel sympathy. The ending, though effective, is somewhat unbelievable; surely his situation can't be that bad.
I can't remember any connections between the Mythos and this story; like "The Temple," it doesn't seem to have been much of an inspiration for other writers. A distant relative of Jermyn's does appear in the Kenya chapter of the famous COC campaign Masks of Nyarlathotep.
I've heard that Lovecraft might have been influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs of Tarzan fame. Though I don't know much about this, this story seems to derive from that genre.
Questions: Liked it? Hated it? Did you care?
Date: 6 Oct 1995
"The Street"
Source: Arkham's Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.
Synopsis: This is the story of a street, from its humble beginnings in colonial times to its final self-destruction in Lovecraft's era. At first populated by good English men, the Street is later taken over by a band of anarchists who would like to destroy the U.S.A. The Street takes supernatural revenge upon them before they can do so, however.
Comments: This is really awful. If someone came up to me and said, "Hey Daniel, I think H. P. Lovecraft was a wordy, overly-sentimental bigot whose stories don't make much sense," this would be the last story I would hand to him to convince him otherwise. The story is a statement of Lovecraft's nostalgia, xenophobia, and fear of the future, but Lovecraft forgot that it was supposed to be a story as well. Besides, how scary can a story be when it includes a cesspool of human degradation called that "Rifkin School of Modern Economics"?
I have noticed a common theme between this story and "The Temple", "The Doom... Sarnath", "The Terrible Old Man", "The Cats of Ulthar", "The Tree", and this particular tale. To follow Monty Python, I'll call this horror convention "the Hand of God." The basic outline of a story using this convention is as follows. You have a really nasty person, for whom neither the author or the reader are given any reason to sympathize with. As the tale progresses, you slowly get the feeling that something really nasty is going to happen. Then -- zot! The Hand of God strikes, and this slimeball is wasted by some supernatural force! End of story.
Lovecraft isn't the only person who does this; other horror authors have also written this sort of story (Ramsey Campbell's "Cold Print" is the only one that comes to mind just now, though). Even though Lovecraft uses this convention in many stories at this time, he drops it later in his career. The narrators of "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Colour Out of Space", and "The Whisperer in Darkness" succumb, not due to any moral failing, but because they just happened to be a little too curious.
Why is this? Possibly HPL realized what I am going to postulate now, that the "hand of God" storyline is not really a viable horror technique. It does give us some satisfaction to see the bad guys get their comeuppance, but since we can't identify with the character, our fear is impeded somewhat.
Questions: Any thoughts on the story? Any thoughts on what I've said above?
[Click here for more commentary on "The Street".]
Date: 13 Oct 1995
"Poetry and the Gods"
Source: Dagon, Arkham House.
Synopsis: A young woman named Marcia has become thoroughly disgusted with the modern world. While reading some poetry, she falls asleep and dreams that she is taken into the presence of the Greek gods and the world's greatest poets. When she awakens, she finds happiness in the works of the god's poetic messenger to Earth.
Comments: Can it get any worse? For me, there was very little point to this story. It doesn't have any characterization or plot, and its argument that the modern world is coarse and shallow isn't very convincing.
Still, I suppose this story does have some redeeming characteristics. We do get a glance at Lovecraft's personal philosophy, that is much better stated in his "The Silver Key" and his letters. Marcia is the seeker of the beauty which lies behind reality whom we later encounter in the guises of Kuranes and Randolph Carter. Unlike them, though, her triumph is achieved with little personal sacrifice, and thus does not have the same glory as Randolph Carter's did.
I wasn't sure who it was that said that Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos was derived from Greek myth, but this story does appear to have some features that show that Lovecraft was looking in its direction. The idea of the Olympian gods being only asleep is one that I haven't heard any classical myths about, but it is reminiscent of the later Great Old Ones. Their impending return, and the fact that they have sent a messenger, suddenly gained significance when I thought of it in connection with the Cthulhu Mythos. Don't worry; I know that the Mythos didn't exist at this time, but this does present a look at what might be some of its foundations.
This story was actually written "with Anna Helen Crofts." I always feel inadequate in attempting to derive any sort of meaning from stories like this, as I'm not sure how much each person is responsible for them. Oh well.
Questions: Liked it? Hated it?
[Click here for more commentary on "Poetry and the Gods".]
Date: 20 Oct 1995
"Celephais"
Source: Dagon, Arkham House. (Probably also the new "Dream" book by Ballantine.)
Synopsis: Kuranes, a failed London writer of noble birth, begins to dream about a city he remembers from the fancies of his youth. His attempts to make it there are frustrated for a long time, but he finally achieves his goal. While his mind travels to Celephais, however, his body falls over a sea-cliff.
Comments: This story may typify another one of Lovecraft's story types which I'm going to call the "quest". Many of Lovecraft's stories are based upon the character's search for truth, but I'm getting at something else here. The "quest" is typified by a character who is a dreamer or mystic and is searching for some sort of ideal they "know" exists. In this classification I'd place this story, "The Quest of Iranon", the fragment "Azathoth", "The White Ship", and most of the Randolph Carter stories.
Lovecraft is still in his Dunsanian period now -- and to prove it, someone (I don't remember who) found a Dunsany story, "The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap," that is quite similar to this tale. Both tell of a man who lives more in dreams than in the waking world and who build cities in their respective realms. The two stories each end with a paragraph that gives a "twist" to the wonderful events that have gone before. Also, Kuranes' use of hashish in his dreaming is reminiscent of the title character in Dunsany's "The Hashish-Man". (This should make "Yog-Sothoth" happy -- even if that wasn't my intention.)
King Kuranes, it is later revealed, was one of Randolph Carter's friends, and RC turns to him in "Dream-Quest" for assistance. Later, Kuranes must have gotten in real trouble, because he had to have Hero and Eldin rescue him in The Ship of Dreams; to show that the king hasn't got all his marbles, he went on in later ...of Dreams stories to hire the two questers as his agents. King Kuranes and Celephais also appear in a Dreamlands COC scenario, "Prisoners of Two Worlds," and a Peter Cannon parody in the latest Crypt of Cthulhu.
Note the name of the town "Innsmouth" in Surrey (?), which is not to be confused with the Massachusetts Innsmouth. Maybe the American one was populated by people from the British one.
Maybe it's just my poor tired brain, but doesn't this story also include the first appearance of the dreaded Plateau of Leng? According to Robert M. Price's introduction to The Hastur Cycle, the yellow-robed high priest of Leng is inspired by the King in Yellow -- but here we see the same dreaded character six years before Lovecraft read Chambers' stories about the King! Somebody call Chaosium, quick! ;-)
One other note: Some of the segments in Kuranes' dream-quest are quite similar to the poems in Fungi from Yuggoth. I don't have it right here, so I can't cite the specific ones.
Questions: A few questions that I'd like to have someone clear up (because I'm too lazy to do it personally).
[Click here for more commentary on "Celephais".]
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