The Monster of Lake LaMetrie:

by Wardon Allan Curtis

This early work by Wardon Allan Curtis was originally published in 1899 and we are now republishing it as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'The Monster of Lake LaMetrie' is a short story told through extracts of a diary written by a professor and medical doctor. It tells a tale of a creature that attacks the doctor while he is walking along the shore. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary creatures. Whether it be giant spiders, werewolves, lake monsters, or dinosaurs, the Cryptofiction Classics series offers a fantastic introduction to the world of weird creatures in fiction.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Fantasy

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

Reviews

[Peter]

What a bizarre story. Two friends travel to a remote lake in the countryside. One of the friends falls deadly ill and the other discovers a dinosaur emerging from the lake. When his friends commits suicide he has a very interesting idea what to do with the human brain... incredible tale for that era. I've read all kind of monster stories but this one is different and sinister. Also the twist at the end is outstanding and cynical. Highly recommended!

[Michael Sorbello]

All of the ideas pitched in this story could’ve lead to something really interesting, but none of the ideas were ever fully realized. A massive well at the bottom of a lake holds all of the worlds deepest secrets within it. Every so often it erupts and prehistoric creatures from ages long past rise to the surface.

The concept is pretty darn cool, but it never goes anywhere with it. We never even get an answer as to how or why it happens in the first place. It could have led to something really interesting but just ends up feeling incomplete and unrealized.

[Xtina Reads]

If Frankenstein’s monster had a baby with a Kaiju in the 1800s

I did see some reviews wish this was a longer story but honestly my adhd brain thought it was perfect lol

[Kevin Hogg]

This short story tells the story of a geologist who is investigating a lake where strange phenomena have been reported. I enjoyed the basic outline of the story, but it felt like it would work better as a novella. I wanted more description, more development of the daily events than the journal entries allowed. While the ending came together in a mostly fulfilling manner, the story would be more memorable if the conflict had been developed more--making the reader feel the emotions of both the experimenter and the experiment.

I would have preferred to see more in the original battle as well. It seemed too simple to "kill" the creature. Likewise, the brain transplant seemed sloppy, as if he just dumped a brain into a skull and trusted that everything would work out. And the creature turning against McLennegan was described too suddenly for me. Overall, I liked the story, but I guess the constant theme in this review is that I wanted more of it.

[Forked Radish]

A hilarious parable. Not reading any books turns a person with a "refined mind" into a veritable dinosaur: "A roistering monster, whose boisterous and commonplace conversation betrays a constantly growing coarseness of mind. No longer is he interested in my scientific investigations, but he pronounces them all bosh. No longer is his conversation such as an educated man can enjoy, but slangy and diffuse iterations concerning the trivial happenings of our uneventful life."

[Danielle]

this story certainly withstood the test of time. entirely too short, i wish i could have had another 200 pages. brilliant!

[Paul Hasbrouck]

A Victorian mish-mash of a adventure tale, with elements of found documents, Hollow Earth theory, dinosaurs, brain transplants and the U.S. Calvary. Silly.

[Jim C]

fellas is it gay to take your homies brain and put it in a dinosaur?

[Red Claire]

A truly silly Victorian monster adventure in the mould of, but not reaching the plausibility, or written quality of, the later works of Conan Doyle. Disableism, gory suicide, the peculiarly Victorian fondness for killing things to classify them, weird classism, interspecies brain transplants and surgery via machete are all jumbled in and leave a rather bad taste.

[mabuse cast]

One of the earliest dinosaur horror stories and boy does it go to some pretty insane places real fast, but for how silly some modern readers might find it, for me personally it really unnerved me and I found it to be a very effective little hidden gem of a short story!

[Steve Chaput]

Dated but intriguing

Easy to read this as a simple page turner from an earlier era. A take on Frankenstein and other stories where understanding of science was limited.

Two men seeking to explore a little known ancient lake encounter a creature long thought extinct. Things take a turn at the death of one of the men.

[Mufti]

7/10

Always been a fan of pioneering works of science fiction but to have it work with themes such as post humanism and living dinosaurs was a treat. Would've loved for the monster to be explored in some more detail and the conclusion felt hasty.

[Georgina Warren]

A new favorite horror classic! Why don’t we have a movie for this story yet? There are many ways that a film adaption can expand upon the themes of discovery, corruption, human weakness and betrayal. Heartbreaking and subtly terrifying.

What’s in the story?
Ambitious explorers
A mysterious serpent from a subterranean world
Mad science

This story has elements of weird Western fiction, and the author published it in the aftermath of the Bone Wars (1877 to 1892), a period of scientific exploration, discovery and competition between two paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh in their pursuit of new dinosaur fossils. There are subtle parallels between these two stories that I can't spoil here. Read it yourself.

Read this book if you like these titles:
Frankenstein: The 1818 Text
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Metamorphosis

The plot is very short, and the ending leaves many questions for the reader to explore. I found the ebook on the Project Gutenberg Australia website.

These are the actors I would choose to cast as the principal characters in a future film adaption:
Michael Shannon - Dr. James McLennegan
Tom Holland - Edward Framingham
Chris Hemsworth - Captain Arthur W. Fairchild

[PenNPaper52]

A bad movie if ever I saw one... Oops sorry this is a book... but reads so much like those cheezy B-grade horrible movies. We often are astonished at the amount of trashy books that are emerging nowadays, but it seems even in the bygone era, such books were published. The Monster of Lake LaMetrie is about a scientist who goes to a lake to observe a phenomenon. To be honest, I have no clue what that was, it was described in such a vacant manner with whirlpools. I kept imagining a sink with water draining... perhaps that was the effect the writer wanted to give. Anyway, so the drain apparently overflows and once a black log is seen in the water which turns out to be dinosaur... sorry forgotten the Dino name... the scientist cleaves the head off, but apparently the thing isn't dead. The man then goes along and carves out the dino's brain matter and still the creature lives. Now the scientist was accompanied by a sick frnd who kills himself to stop the pain. The scientist gets a brilliant idea to turn into Frankenstein and while his frnd is still alive... mind you... he carves out the brain and sticks it in the dino. Yes yes, the dino without a brain is still alive... any Tom Dick n Harry intern will tell you that's next to impossible, not without machines... As for the rest of the story, well if I have peaked an interest... Read on and see what happens next...

[Dan]

This was a not-paricularly-interesting yet readable short story involving a brain transplant.

[Zacharie]

Underrated! I also love killing myself over a tummy ache.