'Picture in the House, The'

"Picture in the House, The" (The National Amateur, July 1919): This H.P. Lovecraft short story is the first of several to mention the fictitious city of Arkham, Massachusetts. See full publication history and electronic text.

Pan

Pan: This classical Greek god of the woodlands is generally depicted as a wild man with goat legs who was carrying a set of pipes. According to Lovecraft, he was "dreaded" and attended by many "queer companions" and is mentioned in a number of the author's works, including the short story "The Tree."

A

Arkham, ARTISTS

Arkham

Arkham: Arkham is a fictitious city in Massachusetts created H.P. Lovecraft and featured in many of his stories (as well as subsequent ones by his fans). It was first mentioned in the short story "The Picture in the House": "Now I found myself upon an apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham ..." Not coincidentally, Arkham has many similarities to Lovecraft's home town of Providence, Rhode Island.

+ ARTISTS +

Lovecraft frequently refers to artists and their works in his stories. As with other elements in his stories, some of these figures are real and some are not, and they are neatly interwoven with each other. This section is devoted to identifying some of them.

Ardois-Bonnot: "... a fantastic painter" who "hangs a blasphemous 'Dream Landscape' in the Paris spring salon of 1926" in the Lovecraft short story "The Call of Cthulhu." This would not seem to be a real person, although a number of latter-day fan artists have endeavored to replicate the painting mentioned in the story.

Nicholas Roerich (Oct. 9, 1874 – Dec. 13, 1947): An actual Russian painter, mystic, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings -- many of them are exhibited in well-known museums of the world -- and about 30 literary works. Roerich was an author and initiator of an international pact for the protection of artistic and academic institutions and historical sites and a founder of an international movement for the defence of culture. He received several nominations for the Nobel Prize. Shown below is Roerich's 1943 painting "Song of Shambhala."

B

"Beast in the Cave, The" (June 1918, Vagrant): One of his earliest works, Lovecraft completed this story on April 21, 1905, at the age of just 14 (although he made revisions to it, particularly near the end, before it was ultimately published somewhat more than 13 years later). It is written in the first person and involves an encounter in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, between the narrator and a mole-like humanoid. See publication history and electronic text. (Illustration ©2012 by Sergio Monfort)

+ BOOKS +

H.P. Lovecraft often referred to various books and other texts in his works, many of which are real and others of which he created. This section of the Lexicon is devoted to these publications and to identifying which are factual and which are fictitious.

Book of Invaders: A book of this name is referred to in the short story
and would seem to be a reference to Lebor Gabála Érenn, "The Book of the Taking of Ireland," often translated into English as The Book of Invasions or The Book of Conquests. Compiled and edited by an anonymous scholar in the 11th century, this significant record of the folkloric history of Ireland is a loose collection of poems and prose narratives recounting the mythical origins and history of the Irish from the creation of the world down to the Middle Ages and is a mélange of mythology, legend, history, folklore, and Christian historiography.

Golden Bough:

Necronomicon:

The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: An actual book by anthopologist Margaret Alice Murray that was published in 1921 and postulates the existence of widespread, organized, pre-Christian pagan worship in Europe up into modern times. It is based to a great extent on the transcripts of witch trials from the preceding centuries and has been disputed and to a great extent refuted in the decades since its publication. "Of the ancient religion of pre-Christian Britain there are few written records, but it is contrary to all experience that a cult should die out and leave no trace immediately on the introduction of a new religion," writes at the beginning of the first chapter of this book. Lovecraft refers to The Witch-Cult in Western Europe in a number of his works, including the short story "The Horror at Red Hook." Click here to read the full electronic text of this book.

C

"Curse of Yig, The" (November 1929, Weird Tales): This short story was actually ghostwritten by Lovecraft and credited to author Zealia Bishop. It was eventually released as part of a compilation titled The Curse of Yig released in 1953 in an edition of 1,217 by Arkham House that included the short stories "The Curse of Yig," "Medusa's Coil," and "The Mound," and the essays "H.P. Lovecraft: A Pupil's View" and "A Wisconsin Balzac: A Profile of August Derleth."

Crookes tube

Crookes tube: A Crookes tube is an early experimental electrical discharge tube, invented by English physicist William Crookes and others around 1869-1875, that consists of a partially evacuated glass container of various shapes, with two metal electrodes, one at either end. When a high voltage is applied between the electrodes, cathode rays (electrons) travel in straight lines from the cathode to the anode. This term was also used for the early cold cathode X-ray tubes that evolved from the experimental Crookes tubes and were used until about 1920. Crookes and several others used this device to discover the properties of cathode rays, culminating in J. J. Thomson's 1897 identification of them as the negatively-charged particles that were later named electrons. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays using a Crookes tube in 1895.

In "The Shunned House," the narrator presumes that one of the sorts of device bearing this name could be used as a weapon against incorporeal creatures but is unsuccessful in employing it in this way.

D

Dunwich: Dunwich is a fictitious town that appears in the H.P. Lovecraft short story "The Dunwich Horror" (1929) and in his poem "The Ancient Track." It is located in the fictional Miskatonic River Valley of Massachusetts and is described as economically poor, with many decrepit and abandoned buildings, while its inhabitants are depicted as inbred, uneducated, and very superstitious.

"Across a covered bridge one sees a small village huddled between the stream and the vertical slope of Round Mountain, and wonders at the cluster of rotting gambrel roofs bespeaking an earlier architectural period than that of the neighbouring region," Lovecraft writes in "The Dunwich Horror." "It is not reassuring to see, on a closer glance, that most of the houses are deserted and falling to ruin, and that the broken-steepled church now harbours the one slovenly mercantile establishment of the hamlet. One dreads to trust the tenebrous tunnel of the bridge, yet there is no way to avoid it. Once across, it is hard to prevent the impression of a faint, malign odour about the village street, as of the massed mould and decay of centuries. It is always a relief to get clear of the place, and to follow the narrow road around the base of the hills and across the level country beyond till it rejoins the Aylesbury pike. Afterward one sometimes learns that one has been through Dunwich."

E

Eryx: Eryx, also known as the Erycinian Highland, is a vast plateau on the planet Venus. It was used by H.P. Lovecraft as the setting for his quirky science-fiction short story "In the Walls of Eryx." In variance with reality, Lovecraft's Venus has a tropical climate and is filled with lush, swampy jungles. It does have an atmosphere poisonous to humans but it is not so toxic as to require the use space suits or other sealed protetive gear.

F

"Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" (The Wolverine, March and June 1921): This short story examines the strange and disturbing ancestry of the title character and the results of his examination into it. It was republished three years later in Weird Tales, much to Lovecraft's chagrin, as "The White Ape" (prompting him to comment in a letter "If I ever entitled a story 'The White Ape,' there would be no ape in it."). The story was thereafter titled simply as "Arthur Jermyn" until it appeared in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales in 1986. See full publication history and electronic text. See publication history and electronic text.

G

Gug: Gugs are a race of horrifying giants that appear in the H.P. Lovecraft short story "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." They are speechless, communicating only by facial expressions, but tend to make strange, random sounds.

"It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped with formidable talons," Lovecraft wrote. "After it came another paw, and after that a great black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms. Then two pink eyes shone, and the head of the awakened gug sentry, large as a barrel, wabbled into view. The eyes jutted two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs. But the head was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally." (Shown here is a plush Gug toy produced by the Toy Vault.)

According to Lovecraft, the Gugs were banished to the underworld by earth’s gods, the Great Ones, for an unnamed blasphemy and now reside in a terrifying, underground city, dwelling in lofty, round, cyclopean towers. Nearby, colossal monoliths mark the cemetery of the Gugs. In the midst of the gug city, the Tower of Koth contains a stairway that leads to the Enchanted Wood in the upper Dreamlands. There it is sealed by a huge stone trapdoor with a large iron ring. Because of a curse of the gods, no Gug may open that door, although no such restriction prevents a Gug from climbing to the very top of the tower.

Gugs prey on the ghasts that live in the Vaults of Zin (though prior to their banishment, they had been known to devour wayward dreamers). When in sufficient numbers, ghasts may likewise prey on the gugs. Though gugs would seem to have the advantage, they nonetheless superstitiously fear ghouls. The gugs often indulge in great feasts and, once engorged, retire to their great towers to sleep.

H

I

J

K

Kalos, Kuranes

L

Lurking Fear, The

'Lurking Fear, The'

Lurking Fear, The (Home Brew, January-April 1923): H.P. Lovecraft wrote this story in November 1922 and it was divided into four chapters and published in four consecutive issues George Julian Houtain's magazine. It is set in the Catskill Mountains and, in particular, on and around Tempest Mountain, site of the ruined Martense family home, and deals with an investigation into terrible attacks against squatter settlements that occur during terrible thunderstorms. See publication history and electronic text.

M

Munroe, Arthur: A reporter who accompanies the narrator in an investigation of Tempest Mountain and the ruins of the Martense manor in the Lovecraft short story "The Lurking Fear." He is slain while sheltering in a squatter shanty on the slopes of the mountain during a storm.

N

Nitokris

Nitokris: Nitokris is a legendary figure who may actually have been the last pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty. She appears as queen of the ghouls, leader of an army of abominable composite mummies, and consort of undead King Kephren in "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," a short story H.P. Lovecraft ghost-wrote for Harry Houdini. Nitokris, "who once invited all her enemies to a feast in a temple below the Nile, and drowned them by opening the water-gates," is presented by Lovecraft as a sinister but beautiful woman, the right side of whose face has been "eaten away by rats or other ghouls."

Nitokris is the subject the "The Queen's Enemies," a play by Lord Dunsany, pointing once again to the heavy influence of that author on Lovecraft.

O

P

Pan, Pickman, "Pickman's Model," "Picture in the House, The"


"Picture in the House, The" (The National Amateur, July 1919): This H.P. Lovecraft short story is the first of several to mention the fictitious city of Arkham, Massachusetts. See full publication history and electronic text.

Q

R

S

T

Tempest Mountain: A fictitious mountain set in the Catskill Mountains of New York state created by Lovecraft for his serialized short story "The Lurking Fear." It has a reputation in the local area for being haunted and is characterized by terrible storms and lightning strikes, fulgurites, and oddly-shaped mounds in the woods clinging to its slopes. Its peak is occupied by the ruins of the Martense family mansion, the remains of Dutch gardens, groves of misshapen trees, and the burying ground for the family.

U

U-29: This World War I German submarine was the venue for most of the action in H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Temple." There was, in fact, a German Imperial Navy submarine with this name active during the Great War, but there is no indication that Lovecraft based his vessel on the historic submarine.

For one thing, the U-29 is unequivocally known to have been sunk early in the war, on March 18, 1915, when it was struck by the battleship HMS Dreadnought (the only submarine known to have ever had such a dubious distinction). It is certainly possible that Lovecraft's submarine had the same characteristics as the U-29, a U-27-type vessel (pictured here), which was a diesel-powered torpedo attack craft that had a crew of 35 and was armed with a 105 mm deck gun.

upas tree: An actual sort of flora, the Antiaris toxicaria, that H.P. Lovecraft mentions in the prose poem "Memory": "In the valley of Nis the accursed waning moon shines thinly, tearing a path for its light with feeble horns through the lethal foliage of a great upas-tree." The upas tree is native to savannas and coastal plateaus in parts of Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific and the sap from its leaves and bark is used by native peoples to manufacture a deadly, heart-stopping poison for spears and arrows. It has a thick canopy of long, wide leaves, bears small edible red or purple fruit, and can grow to heights of greater than 100 feet.

V

VOCABULARY

H.P. Lovecraft had a wonderful and extensive vocabulary and made good use of it in his works. The criteria for if a particular term is included here is, simply, whether or not the editors were sure what it meant. Most definitions are adapted from entries on Wiktionary.

desiderate:

proxenoi:
("The Tree")

rugose: Having wrinkles, creases or ridges; having a rough, wrinkled surface (botany).

W

WEAPONS

Characters in H.P. Lovecraft's stories sometimes try to cope with the horrors facing them through the use of weapons, and this section is dedicated to listing them.

automatic pistol:

Crookes tube: Not a weapon in any conventional sense, the protagonist of "The Shunned House" unsuccessfully attempts to harm an incorporeal monster with a device of this sort.

flamethrower:

X

Y

Z

Zann, Erich: This is the title character in the H.P. Lovecraft short story "The Music of Erich Zann," who is described as "an old German viol-player, a strange dumb man ... who played evenings in a cheap theatre orchestra" whose "desire to play in the night after his return from the theatre was the reason he had chosen this lofty and isolated garret room ..."

The original heading for the first magazine publication of The Music of Erich Zann" in Weird Tales in 1925, with art by Andrew Brosnatch.