Amy H. Sturgis's Blog, page 157
October 24, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 24, and POLL!
Today's the equivalent of "Open Mic Night" here at the Countdown to Halloween...
POLL TIME: What's your favorite spooky poem? Please post it in the comments for everyone to read! Thanks!
I'll kick things off with a few personal favorites...
"Oil And Blood"
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1913)
I tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.
But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.
"The Grey Thing"
by Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
There is a grey thing that lives in the tree-tops
None knows the horror of its sight
Save those who meet death in the wilderness
But one is enabled to see
To see branches move at its passing
To hear at times the wail of black laughter
And to come often upon mystic places
Places where the thing has just been.
"The Warning"
by Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914)
Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk... as strange, as still...
A white moth flew... Why am I grown
So cold?
October 23, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 23
I'm a big fan of Librivox.org and the unabridged narrations its volunteers offer for free download. If you feel like going "old school" this Halloween, here are some of the 18th-century Gothic works Librivox has available for your Halloween listening:
* The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764)
* The History of the Caliph Vathek by William Beckford (1786)
* A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe (1790)
* The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794)
This photo hails from Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, USA:
Text of the Day: Here's another classic Gothic novel - a short one, I should note - that's available at Librivox: The Old English Baron (1777) by Clara Reeve (1729-2807).
Excerpt:
Markham cried out, "For Heaven's sake, let us in!"
Upon hearing his voice, the door was opened, and Markham approached his Uncle in such an attitude of fear, as excited a degree of it in the Baron. He pointed to Wenlock, who was with some difficulty recovered from the fit he was fallen into; the servant was terrified, he rung the alarm-bell; the servants came running from all parts to their Lord's apartment; The young gentlemen came likewise, and presently all was confusion, and the terror was universal. Oswald, who guessed the business, was the only one that could question them. He asked several times,
"What is the matter?"
Markham, at last, answered him, "We have seen the ghost!"
All regard to secrecy was now at an end; the echo ran through the whole family—"They have seen the ghost!"
Read the complete novel.
Download an unabridged narration at Librivox.org.
* The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764)
* The History of the Caliph Vathek by William Beckford (1786)
* A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe (1790)
* The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794)
This photo hails from Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, USA:
Text of the Day: Here's another classic Gothic novel - a short one, I should note - that's available at Librivox: The Old English Baron (1777) by Clara Reeve (1729-2807).
Excerpt:
Markham cried out, "For Heaven's sake, let us in!"
Upon hearing his voice, the door was opened, and Markham approached his Uncle in such an attitude of fear, as excited a degree of it in the Baron. He pointed to Wenlock, who was with some difficulty recovered from the fit he was fallen into; the servant was terrified, he rung the alarm-bell; the servants came running from all parts to their Lord's apartment; The young gentlemen came likewise, and presently all was confusion, and the terror was universal. Oswald, who guessed the business, was the only one that could question them. He asked several times,
"What is the matter?"
Markham, at last, answered him, "We have seen the ghost!"
All regard to secrecy was now at an end; the echo ran through the whole family—"They have seen the ghost!"
Read the complete novel.
Download an unabridged narration at Librivox.org.
October 22, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 22
Are you looking for some Halloween-related online fun? Here are a few suggestions:
-- Go here to play The Creature Must Die!, the game in which you are Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Your goal is to bring the creature to life by harnessing the power of lightning to charge your machines and give three jolts of life-generating electricity to the creature. But you must first get a brain for the creature -- and you must do all of this while defending your laboratory against a mob of angry villagers.
-- Go here to play Halloween Hangman, complete with a skeleton who hurls insults at you.
-- Go here to use the Goth-O-Matic Poetry Generator and create your eerie masterpiece. You have your choice of darkly Gothic poem styles: Supernatural Violence and Horror, Feeling Very Sorry for Yourself, Fear of Religious Persecution, Eternal Love of Vampires, and The Black Abyss of Righteous Hatred. What's not to love?
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "The Room of the Evil Thought" by Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1862-1935).
Excerpt:
Sitting one night till late,—so late that the fashionable young wives with their husbands had retired from the strips of stair carpeting,—and raging at the loneliness which ate at his heart like a cancer, he heard, softly creeping through the windows of the house adjoining his own, the sound of comfortable melody.
It breathed upon his ear like a spirit of consolation, speaking of peace, of love which needs no reward save its own sweetness, of aspiration which looks forever beyond the thing of the hour to find attainment in that which is eternal. So insidiously did it whisper these things, so delicately did the simple and perfect melodies creep upon the spirit—that Boyce felt no resentment, but from the first listened as one who listens to learn, or as one who, fainting on the hot road, hears, far in the ferny deeps below, the gurgle of a spring.
Then came harmonies more intricate: fair fabrics of woven sound, in the midst of which gleamed golden threads of joy; a tapestry of sound, multi-tinted, gallant with story and achievement, and beautiful things. Boyce, sitting on his absurd piazza, with his knees jambed against the balustrade, and his chair back against the dun-colored wall of his house, seemed to be walking in the cathedral of the redwood forest, with blue above him, a vast hymn in his ears, pungent perfume in his nostrils, and mighty shafts of trees lifting themselves to heaven, proud and erect as pure men before their Judge. He stood on a mountain at sunrise, and saw the marvels of the amethystine clouds below his feet, heard an eternal and white silence, such as broods among the everlasting snows, and saw an eagle winging for the sun. He was in a city, and away from him, diverging like the spokes of a wheel, ran thronging streets, and to his sense came the beat, beat, beat of the city's heart. He saw the golden alchemy of a chosen race; saw greed transmitted to progress; saw that which had enslaved men, work at last to their liberation; heard the roar of mighty mills, and on the streets all the peoples of earth walking with common purpose, in fealty and understanding. And then, from the swelling of this concourse of great sounds, came a diminuendo, calm as philosophy, and from that, nothingness.
Read the complete short story.
-- Go here to play The Creature Must Die!, the game in which you are Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Your goal is to bring the creature to life by harnessing the power of lightning to charge your machines and give three jolts of life-generating electricity to the creature. But you must first get a brain for the creature -- and you must do all of this while defending your laboratory against a mob of angry villagers.
-- Go here to play Halloween Hangman, complete with a skeleton who hurls insults at you.
-- Go here to use the Goth-O-Matic Poetry Generator and create your eerie masterpiece. You have your choice of darkly Gothic poem styles: Supernatural Violence and Horror, Feeling Very Sorry for Yourself, Fear of Religious Persecution, Eternal Love of Vampires, and The Black Abyss of Righteous Hatred. What's not to love?
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "The Room of the Evil Thought" by Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1862-1935).
Excerpt:
Sitting one night till late,—so late that the fashionable young wives with their husbands had retired from the strips of stair carpeting,—and raging at the loneliness which ate at his heart like a cancer, he heard, softly creeping through the windows of the house adjoining his own, the sound of comfortable melody.
It breathed upon his ear like a spirit of consolation, speaking of peace, of love which needs no reward save its own sweetness, of aspiration which looks forever beyond the thing of the hour to find attainment in that which is eternal. So insidiously did it whisper these things, so delicately did the simple and perfect melodies creep upon the spirit—that Boyce felt no resentment, but from the first listened as one who listens to learn, or as one who, fainting on the hot road, hears, far in the ferny deeps below, the gurgle of a spring.
Then came harmonies more intricate: fair fabrics of woven sound, in the midst of which gleamed golden threads of joy; a tapestry of sound, multi-tinted, gallant with story and achievement, and beautiful things. Boyce, sitting on his absurd piazza, with his knees jambed against the balustrade, and his chair back against the dun-colored wall of his house, seemed to be walking in the cathedral of the redwood forest, with blue above him, a vast hymn in his ears, pungent perfume in his nostrils, and mighty shafts of trees lifting themselves to heaven, proud and erect as pure men before their Judge. He stood on a mountain at sunrise, and saw the marvels of the amethystine clouds below his feet, heard an eternal and white silence, such as broods among the everlasting snows, and saw an eagle winging for the sun. He was in a city, and away from him, diverging like the spokes of a wheel, ran thronging streets, and to his sense came the beat, beat, beat of the city's heart. He saw the golden alchemy of a chosen race; saw greed transmitted to progress; saw that which had enslaved men, work at last to their liberation; heard the roar of mighty mills, and on the streets all the peoples of earth walking with common purpose, in fealty and understanding. And then, from the swelling of this concourse of great sounds, came a diminuendo, calm as philosophy, and from that, nothingness.
Read the complete short story.
October 21, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 21
Happy Friday! Don't miss
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380451598i/2033940.gif)
mabiana
's new pictures of a remarkable pumpkin exhibition in Ludwigsburg, Germany! (Thanks to
agentxpndble
.)
Also, be sure to check out ExtremePumpkins.com for pumpkin carving at its wildest. Make sure to check out the galleries of past contest winners. They are amazing!
Here's another amazing photo from
lizziebelle
. I love the leaves in this one:
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "Death and the Woman" by Gertrude Atherton (1857-1948).
Excerpt:
Her husband was dying, and she was alone with him. Nothing could exceed the desolation of her surroundings. She and the man who was going from her were in the third-floor-back of a New York boarding-house. It was summer, and the other boarders were in the country; all the servants except the cook had been dismissed, and she, when not working, slept profoundly on the fifth floor. The landlady also was out of town on a brief holiday.
The window was open to admit the thick unstirring air; no sound rose from the row of long narrow yards, nor from the tall deep houses annexed. The latter deadened the rattle of the streets. At intervals the distant elevated lumbered protestingly along, its grunts and screams muffled by the hot suspended ocean.
Read the complete short story.
mabiana
's new pictures of a remarkable pumpkin exhibition in Ludwigsburg, Germany! (Thanks to
agentxpndble
.)Also, be sure to check out ExtremePumpkins.com for pumpkin carving at its wildest. Make sure to check out the galleries of past contest winners. They are amazing!
Here's another amazing photo from
lizziebelle
. I love the leaves in this one:
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "Death and the Woman" by Gertrude Atherton (1857-1948).
Excerpt:
Her husband was dying, and she was alone with him. Nothing could exceed the desolation of her surroundings. She and the man who was going from her were in the third-floor-back of a New York boarding-house. It was summer, and the other boarders were in the country; all the servants except the cook had been dismissed, and she, when not working, slept profoundly on the fifth floor. The landlady also was out of town on a brief holiday.
The window was open to admit the thick unstirring air; no sound rose from the row of long narrow yards, nor from the tall deep houses annexed. The latter deadened the rattle of the streets. At intervals the distant elevated lumbered protestingly along, its grunts and screams muffled by the hot suspended ocean.
Read the complete short story.
October 20, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 20
Broken Sea Audio Productions is celebrating the Halloween season with new recordings of Poe and Lovecraft, Classic Old Time Radio, and more! Check out BrokenSea Audio's Halloween 2011 offerings! (Thanks to Robert!)
Today's haunting photo comes from the Parish Church of St Cuthbert, a congregation of the Church of Scotland within the Presbytery of Edinburgh.
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "A Bottomless Grave" by the one and only Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?).
Excerpt:
My name is John Brenwalter. My father, a drunkard, had a patent for an invention for making coffee-berries out of clay; but he was an honest man and would not himself engage in the manufacture. He was, therefore, only moderately wealthy, his royalties from his really valuable invention bringing him hardly enough to pay his expenses of litigation with rogues guilty of infringement. So I lacked many advantages enjoyed by the children of unscrupulous and dishonorable parents, and had it not been for a noble and devoted mother, who neglected all my brothers and sisters and personally supervised my education, should have grown up in ignorance and been compelled to teach school. To be the favorite child of a good woman is better than gold.
When I was nineteen years of age my father had the misfortune to die. He had always had perfect health, and his death, which occurred at the dinner table without a moment's warning, surprised no one more than himself. He had that very morning been notified that a patent had been granted him for a device to burst open safes by hydraulic pressure, without a noise. The Commissioner of Patents had pronounced it the most ingenious, effective and generally meritorious invention that had ever been submitted to him, and my father had naturally looked forward to an old age of prosperity and honor. His sudden death was, therefore, a deep disappointment to him; but my mother, whose piety and resignation to the will of Heaven were conspicuous virtues of her character, was apparently less affected. At the close of the meal, when my poor father's body had been removed from the floor, she called us all into an adjoining room and addressed us as follows:
"My children, the uncommon occurrence that you have just witnessed is one of the most disagreeable incidents in a good man's life, and one in which I take little pleasure, I assure you. I beg you to believe that I had no hand in bringing it about. Of course," she added, after a pause, during which her eyes were cast down in deep thought, "of course it is better that he is dead."
Read the complete short story.
Today's haunting photo comes from the Parish Church of St Cuthbert, a congregation of the Church of Scotland within the Presbytery of Edinburgh.
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "A Bottomless Grave" by the one and only Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?).
Excerpt:
My name is John Brenwalter. My father, a drunkard, had a patent for an invention for making coffee-berries out of clay; but he was an honest man and would not himself engage in the manufacture. He was, therefore, only moderately wealthy, his royalties from his really valuable invention bringing him hardly enough to pay his expenses of litigation with rogues guilty of infringement. So I lacked many advantages enjoyed by the children of unscrupulous and dishonorable parents, and had it not been for a noble and devoted mother, who neglected all my brothers and sisters and personally supervised my education, should have grown up in ignorance and been compelled to teach school. To be the favorite child of a good woman is better than gold.
When I was nineteen years of age my father had the misfortune to die. He had always had perfect health, and his death, which occurred at the dinner table without a moment's warning, surprised no one more than himself. He had that very morning been notified that a patent had been granted him for a device to burst open safes by hydraulic pressure, without a noise. The Commissioner of Patents had pronounced it the most ingenious, effective and generally meritorious invention that had ever been submitted to him, and my father had naturally looked forward to an old age of prosperity and honor. His sudden death was, therefore, a deep disappointment to him; but my mother, whose piety and resignation to the will of Heaven were conspicuous virtues of her character, was apparently less affected. At the close of the meal, when my poor father's body had been removed from the floor, she called us all into an adjoining room and addressed us as follows:
"My children, the uncommon occurrence that you have just witnessed is one of the most disagreeable incidents in a good man's life, and one in which I take little pleasure, I assure you. I beg you to believe that I had no hand in bringing it about. Of course," she added, after a pause, during which her eyes were cast down in deep thought, "of course it is better that he is dead."
Read the complete short story.
October 19, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 19
Today's photo hails from Pere Lachaise, Paris:
Text of the Day: Today's spooky short story is "The White Feather Hex" by Don Peterson, originally published in the March 1951 issue of Weird Tales.
Excerpt:
It all started with a Dutchman, a Pennsylvania Dutchman named Peter Scheinberger, who tilled a weather beaten farm back in the hills.
A strong, wiry man he was—his arms were knotted sections of solid hickory forming themselves into gnarled hands and twisted stubs of fingers. His furrowed brow, dried by the sun and cracked in a million places by the wind was well irrigated by long rivulets of sweat. When he went forth in the fields behind his horse and plow, it wasn't long before his hair was plastered down firmly to his scalp. The salty water poured out of the deep rings in his ruddy neck and ran down his dark brown back. As he grew older the skin peeled and grew loose. It hung on him in folds like the brittle hide of a rhino.
It seemed that the more years he spent in his fields behind the plow horse, the more he slipped back into the timeless tradition of his forefathers. He was a proud descendant of a long line of staunch German settlers commonly known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. He grew up in his fundamental, religious sect having never known any other environment. He was exposed to the sun, soil, and wind from the early days of his childhood, and along with the elements he also was exposed to the evils of the hexerei. The hexerei, or witchcraft, was something that was never doubted or scoffed at by his people. Then why should he, a good Pennsylvania Dutchman, doubt or scoff at such tradition?
Read the complete short story.
Text of the Day: Today's spooky short story is "The White Feather Hex" by Don Peterson, originally published in the March 1951 issue of Weird Tales.
Excerpt:
It all started with a Dutchman, a Pennsylvania Dutchman named Peter Scheinberger, who tilled a weather beaten farm back in the hills.
A strong, wiry man he was—his arms were knotted sections of solid hickory forming themselves into gnarled hands and twisted stubs of fingers. His furrowed brow, dried by the sun and cracked in a million places by the wind was well irrigated by long rivulets of sweat. When he went forth in the fields behind his horse and plow, it wasn't long before his hair was plastered down firmly to his scalp. The salty water poured out of the deep rings in his ruddy neck and ran down his dark brown back. As he grew older the skin peeled and grew loose. It hung on him in folds like the brittle hide of a rhino.
It seemed that the more years he spent in his fields behind the plow horse, the more he slipped back into the timeless tradition of his forefathers. He was a proud descendant of a long line of staunch German settlers commonly known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. He grew up in his fundamental, religious sect having never known any other environment. He was exposed to the sun, soil, and wind from the early days of his childhood, and along with the elements he also was exposed to the evils of the hexerei. The hexerei, or witchcraft, was something that was never doubted or scoffed at by his people. Then why should he, a good Pennsylvania Dutchman, doubt or scoff at such tradition?
Read the complete short story.
October 18, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 18
If you're looking to build a Halloween-themed playlist, check out this post and these!
Today's photo is from the Old Burying Point in Salem, Massachusetts.
Text of the Day: Today's story is short but spooky: "In the Light of the Red Lamp" by Maurice Level (1875-1926).
Excerpt:
Seated in a large armchair near the fire, his elbows on his knees, his hands held out to the warmth, he was talking slowly, interrupting himself abruptly now and again with a murmured: "Yes…yes…" as if he were trying to gather up, to make sure of his memories: then he would continue his sentence.
The table beside him was littered with papers, books, odds and ends of various kinds. The lamp was turned low: I could see nothing of him except his pallid face and his hands, long and thin in the fire-light.
The purring of a cat that lay on the hearthrug and the crackling of logs that sent up strangely-shaped flames were the only sounds that broke the silence.
Read the complete short story.
Today's photo is from the Old Burying Point in Salem, Massachusetts.
Text of the Day: Today's story is short but spooky: "In the Light of the Red Lamp" by Maurice Level (1875-1926).
Excerpt:
Seated in a large armchair near the fire, his elbows on his knees, his hands held out to the warmth, he was talking slowly, interrupting himself abruptly now and again with a murmured: "Yes…yes…" as if he were trying to gather up, to make sure of his memories: then he would continue his sentence.
The table beside him was littered with papers, books, odds and ends of various kinds. The lamp was turned low: I could see nothing of him except his pallid face and his hands, long and thin in the fire-light.
The purring of a cat that lay on the hearthrug and the crackling of logs that sent up strangely-shaped flames were the only sounds that broke the silence.
Read the complete short story.
October 17, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 17
Celebrating its 13th year, "Out ov the Coffin" is hosted by the fabulous D.J. Ichabod. What was born as a means of spreading dark and esoteric music to the Nashville area via WRVU, broadcasting from my graduate alma mater, Vanderbilt University (Go 'Dores!), is now an spine-tingling and atmospheric podcast. Check it out for some perfect Halloween music! You won't be sorry.
Next, here's the latest trailer from the fabulous H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society for its forthcoming film adaptation of Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness:
Text of the Day: Today's reading is the short story "The Cuckoo Clock" by Wesley Barefoot, which was first published in the March 1954 issue of Amazing Stories.
Teaser:
You know a murderer preys on your household—lives with you—depends on you—and you have no defence!
Read the complete story.
Download an unabridged narration from Librivox.org.
Next, here's the latest trailer from the fabulous H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society for its forthcoming film adaptation of Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness:
Text of the Day: Today's reading is the short story "The Cuckoo Clock" by Wesley Barefoot, which was first published in the March 1954 issue of Amazing Stories.
Teaser:
You know a murderer preys on your household—lives with you—depends on you—and you have no defence!
Read the complete story.
Download an unabridged narration from Librivox.org.
October 16, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 16
Happy early birthday wishes to
vulpine137
,
witchcat07
,
wallhaditcoming
,
bookwoman2009
,
jinjifore
,
edroxy
,
gracious_anne
,
lindajsingleton
,
xtrustisyoursx
, and
greenhoodloxley
! May all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day.
As you may have guessed, I love the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. If you'd like (and only if you'd like!), you can...
* read my essay (originally published in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest) "The New Shoggoth Chic: Why H.P. Lovecraft Now?" here;
* read my essay "H.P. Lovecraft and the Imaginative Tale" at Revolution Science Fiction here: Part 1 and Part 2;
* listen to my tribute to Lovecraft on this episode of StarShipSofa; and/or
* listen to my two-part discussion of Lovecraft's non-fiction on StarShipSofa: Part 1 and Part 2.
Take the virtual tour of Lovecraftian sites in Providence! In 2008, I was invited to lecture at Brown University, and while I was there I led students on a walking tour of Lovecraftian sites around his hometown of Providence, RI. I photographed all of our stops and wrote up explanations and descriptions, so you can take a virtual tour of Lovecraftian Providence with me!
From that tour, here is the house used by H.P. Lovecraft as the Ward house in his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. (One of the students had never read the tale, and yet he said the house still gave him chills.) In the story, Lovecraft describes the house as follows:
"His home was a great Georgian mansion atop the well-nigh precipitous hill that rises just east of the river; and from the rear windows of its rambling wings he could look dizzily out over all the clustered spires, domes, roofs, and skyscraper summits of the lower town to the purple hills of the countryside beyond. Here he was born, and from the lovely classic porch of the double-bayed brick facade his nurse had first wheeled him in his carriage..."
Text of the Day: You guessed it! Today's text is the wonderfully haunting novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).
Excerpt:
From a private hospital for the insane near Providence, Rhode Island, there recently disappeared an exceedingly singular person. He bore the name of Charles Dexter Ward, and was placed under restraint most reluctantly by the grieving father who had watched his aberration grow from a mere eccentricity to a dark mania involving both a possibility of murderous tendencies and a profound and peculiar change in the apparent contents of his mind. Doctors confess themselves quite baffled by his case, since it presented oddities of a general physiological as well as psychological character.
Read the complete novella.
Download an unabridged reading on episodes 60-75 of the Cthulhu podcast.
Listen to a discussion of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward on episodes 54-58 of The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast.
vulpine137
,
witchcat07
,
wallhaditcoming
,
bookwoman2009
,
jinjifore
,
edroxy
,
gracious_anne
,
lindajsingleton
,
xtrustisyoursx
, and
greenhoodloxley
! May all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day.As you may have guessed, I love the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. If you'd like (and only if you'd like!), you can...
* read my essay (originally published in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest) "The New Shoggoth Chic: Why H.P. Lovecraft Now?" here;
* read my essay "H.P. Lovecraft and the Imaginative Tale" at Revolution Science Fiction here: Part 1 and Part 2;
* listen to my tribute to Lovecraft on this episode of StarShipSofa; and/or
* listen to my two-part discussion of Lovecraft's non-fiction on StarShipSofa: Part 1 and Part 2.
Take the virtual tour of Lovecraftian sites in Providence! In 2008, I was invited to lecture at Brown University, and while I was there I led students on a walking tour of Lovecraftian sites around his hometown of Providence, RI. I photographed all of our stops and wrote up explanations and descriptions, so you can take a virtual tour of Lovecraftian Providence with me!
From that tour, here is the house used by H.P. Lovecraft as the Ward house in his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. (One of the students had never read the tale, and yet he said the house still gave him chills.) In the story, Lovecraft describes the house as follows:
"His home was a great Georgian mansion atop the well-nigh precipitous hill that rises just east of the river; and from the rear windows of its rambling wings he could look dizzily out over all the clustered spires, domes, roofs, and skyscraper summits of the lower town to the purple hills of the countryside beyond. Here he was born, and from the lovely classic porch of the double-bayed brick facade his nurse had first wheeled him in his carriage..."
Text of the Day: You guessed it! Today's text is the wonderfully haunting novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).
Excerpt:
From a private hospital for the insane near Providence, Rhode Island, there recently disappeared an exceedingly singular person. He bore the name of Charles Dexter Ward, and was placed under restraint most reluctantly by the grieving father who had watched his aberration grow from a mere eccentricity to a dark mania involving both a possibility of murderous tendencies and a profound and peculiar change in the apparent contents of his mind. Doctors confess themselves quite baffled by his case, since it presented oddities of a general physiological as well as psychological character.
Read the complete novella.
Download an unabridged reading on episodes 60-75 of the Cthulhu podcast.
Listen to a discussion of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward on episodes 54-58 of The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast.
October 15, 2011
Halloween Countdown, Day 15
Every year, my parents send their granddog, the fabulous Virginia, a Halloween costume for her to wear (as well as treats to bribe her to model for pictures). This year's was Princess Leia from Star Wars -- a bit of a family joke, as it was my Halloween costume when I was six. Poor Virginia, paying for my past! LOL.
As always, you can see more pictures of Virginia here.
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "The House of Nightmare" by Edward Lucas White (1866-1934).
Excerpt:
Conspicuous on the orchard side between two of the flanking trees was a white object, which I took to be a tall stone, a vertical splinter of one of the tilted limestone reefs with which the fields of the region are scarred.
The road itself I saw plain as a boxwood ruler on a green baize table. It gave me a pleasurable anticipation of a chance for a burst of speed. I had been painfully traversing closely forested, semi-mountainous hills. Not a farmhouse had I passed, only wretched cabins by the road, more than twenty miles of which I had found very bad and hindering. Now, when I was not many miles from my expected stopping-place, I looked forward to better going, and to that straight, level bit in particular.
As I sped cautiously down the sharp beginning of the long descent the trees engulfed me again, and I lost sight of the valley. I dipped into a hollow, rose on the crest of the next hill, and again saw the house, nearer, and not so far below.
The tall stone caught my eye with a shock of surprise. Had I not thought it was opposite the house next the orchard? Clearly it was on the left-hand side of the road toward the house. My self-questioning lasted only the moment as I passed the crest. Then the outlook was cut off again; but I found myself gazing ahead, watching for the next chance at the same view.
At the end of the second hill I only saw the bit of road obliquely and could not be sure, but, as at first, the tall stone seemed on the right of the road.
Read the complete short story.
As always, you can see more pictures of Virginia here.
Text of the Day: Today's short story is "The House of Nightmare" by Edward Lucas White (1866-1934).
Excerpt:
Conspicuous on the orchard side between two of the flanking trees was a white object, which I took to be a tall stone, a vertical splinter of one of the tilted limestone reefs with which the fields of the region are scarred.
The road itself I saw plain as a boxwood ruler on a green baize table. It gave me a pleasurable anticipation of a chance for a burst of speed. I had been painfully traversing closely forested, semi-mountainous hills. Not a farmhouse had I passed, only wretched cabins by the road, more than twenty miles of which I had found very bad and hindering. Now, when I was not many miles from my expected stopping-place, I looked forward to better going, and to that straight, level bit in particular.
As I sped cautiously down the sharp beginning of the long descent the trees engulfed me again, and I lost sight of the valley. I dipped into a hollow, rose on the crest of the next hill, and again saw the house, nearer, and not so far below.
The tall stone caught my eye with a shock of surprise. Had I not thought it was opposite the house next the orchard? Clearly it was on the left-hand side of the road toward the house. My self-questioning lasted only the moment as I passed the crest. Then the outlook was cut off again; but I found myself gazing ahead, watching for the next chance at the same view.
At the end of the second hill I only saw the bit of road obliquely and could not be sure, but, as at first, the tall stone seemed on the right of the road.
Read the complete short story.
