Today Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is perhaps the best known for two things. The first, and the culturally most notable is his Cthulhu mythos which includes the dark elder gods Dagon, Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath and Nyarlathotep among other vile and vindictive beings. The other thing is, that he was a staunch racist, which also often crept into his writings.
But before I get into either of those subject matters, I'll begin with the earliest surviving writings of Lovecraft he wrote when he was only a kid. The first surviving piece is from his tender age of 7 and the last one when he was around 18.
The Little Glass Bottle (1897) This is an old story Lovecraft wrote when he was 7. So that in mind, the cohesiveness of it is quite remarkable. It is clumsy in the way you'd expect a story written by a seven-year-old to be, so I'll leave scrutinizing any literal merits to a minimum, as I sure as hell wasn't writing at this level when I was 7.
The story is simple enough. William Jones, the captain of a small ship finds a message from a bottle showing a way to a treasure sunk in the ocean. The greedy captain and his men go to the location, only to find a note stating it all was just a practical joke, but in order to pay the expenses of the venture, the anonymous, as the person responsible signed the note, sunk just enough money to other location to cover the costs. So they go there, pick up the money and learn their lessons to not follow orders found in junk mail. Except they don't learn a thing, as they do find money from the other location.
As I've underlined, the story was written by a 7-years old, so that in mind it is pretty good. I doubt it was ever actually released during his lifetime, but it is nonetheless an interesting view on what kind of stories young Lovecraft might have been interested in.
The Secret Cave (1898) Two kids, Alice aged 2 and John aged 10 are left alone at home. While the two of them are playing, a part of the wall crumbles, revealing a hidden passage, which the kids decide to follow. They find a box, take it with them only to end up in peril, when they are drowned by water. Alice ends up dying and the saddened boy takes his sister's corpse back home where he explains it all to their parents. The story ends with this: From inside the box they found a chunk of gold worth 10,000 dollars. it was enough to pay anything but the death of his sister.
Just like the Little Glass Bottle, The Secret Cave is short and somewhat clumsy in its structure. It is an adventure story, but it also ends on a sadder note and with a moral lesson on how things might end up if kids don't believe their parents as well as with the notion, that money isn't everything.
The Mystery of the Graveyard (1898) Here's where Lovecraft is trying his hand in a bit more complex story, albeit still very far from the style he was later better known of. This is a flat out fast-paced detective mystery with twists and turns enough for a couple of stories. What it lacks in structure, it makes up with sheer childlike enthusiasm.
Mr Dobson is partaking in a burial, where he is to perform the last wishes of the deceased by placing a golden ball inside his tomb. Dobson goes into the tomb but never comes back up. Later his daughter gets a visit from mysterious Mr Bell, who asks for ransom money.
Calmly Miss Dobson places a call to the police station, asking famed detective King John to arrive immediately, as the kidnapper is on-premises. From here, begins a manhunt to detain the guilty party and to retrieve Mr Dobson.
In his youthful enthusiasm, Lovecraft plays with the story structure, narrating things out of order. In this enthusiasm, he ends up making the big revelation of the titular mystery a bit too soon, as it is clear it was originally meant to be revealed at the end. The story also contains one character that could be described as a racist caricature of a black man, but considering Lovecraft was only 8 when he wrote this, I'm giving him a pass of not still knowing any better.
The Mysterious Ship (1902) The story Lovecraft wrote at the age of 12 is, surprisingly enough the worst of this lot. A group of random people from all over the world get kidnapped by pirates. They are rescued and all is well. That's it. There are no specific reasons why these people are kidnapped, they just are and that's the gist of it.
The Beast in Cave (1905) With this story, Lovecraft was evidently finding his own voice. Or at least the basic gist of his penchant for macabre horror and hysterical heroes within them. A man has been on a cave expedition and gets lost after stranding away from his guide. In the darkness, he begins to hear voices of steps, at times going on all fours, at times on two legs.
After some intense chase in the dark, he manages to fling rocks towards the creeping character before he escapes, in hopes of finding his guide. It doesn't take long for him to hear the voice of the guide and after he is located, he narrates the story of the stalker in the dark. Together they go back to the caves only to find a white-haired, ape-like beast succumbed on the ground.
As a story, the Beast in the Cave is very different from the previous ones. It is a straight cut horror story, playing with the ideas of darkness and insanity. While the ending reveal is somewhat sensationalistic in nature, the overall quality of the story is very good. It is well written and thought out tale that ended up being released later on in 1918 in an amateur press journal the Vagrant.
The Alchemist (1908) Another story that was published much later from its writing. Count Antoine De C narrates the sorry history of his family, plagued with early deaths. All of the male members of his family had died at the age of 32 because of the curse placed on them by a son villainous wizard Michael Mauvais. The reason for the curse was that the ancestors of Antoine were responsible for the death of Mauvais.
All alone in his mansion, with his 32nd birthday nearing, Antoine begins to wander around the old house and the surroundings. He manages to find a hidden passage, that takes him to a secret room beneath the family house. In the room, he meets a man, who is revealed to be no other than the son of the dead wizard. For centuries, he has been fulfilling the curse, as he managed to create an elixir of life to keep him up and running.
The Alchemist is a decent enough of a story. It isn't quite as intriguing as the Beast in the Cave, but it does show how Lovecraft evolving as a writer. It also has elements of Lovecraft's racial ponderings in it in the form of the narrator thinking of how his racial heritage is affecting him. Though I'm not quite sure if he should have been talking about parental ancestry rather than race.
So that's for the stories H.P. Lovecraft wrote when he was 18 or younger. The most interesting thing about his pre-teen stories is, how enthusiastic they are. His later stories already have the air of desperation and macabre sense of horror he later became known for. But sadly enough, some of these stories also contain an inkling of his less savoury views on equality.
But before I get into either of those subject matters, I'll begin with the earliest surviving writings of Lovecraft he wrote when he was only a kid. The first surviving piece is from his tender age of 7 and the last one when he was around 18.
The Little Glass Bottle (1897) This is an old story Lovecraft wrote when he was 7. So that in mind, the cohesiveness of it is quite remarkable. It is clumsy in the way you'd expect a story written by a seven-year-old to be, so I'll leave scrutinizing any literal merits to a minimum, as I sure as hell wasn't writing at this level when I was 7.The story is simple enough. William Jones, the captain of a small ship finds a message from a bottle showing a way to a treasure sunk in the ocean. The greedy captain and his men go to the location, only to find a note stating it all was just a practical joke, but in order to pay the expenses of the venture, the anonymous, as the person responsible signed the note, sunk just enough money to other location to cover the costs. So they go there, pick up the money and learn their lessons to not follow orders found in junk mail. Except they don't learn a thing, as they do find money from the other location.
As I've underlined, the story was written by a 7-years old, so that in mind it is pretty good. I doubt it was ever actually released during his lifetime, but it is nonetheless an interesting view on what kind of stories young Lovecraft might have been interested in.
The Secret Cave (1898) Two kids, Alice aged 2 and John aged 10 are left alone at home. While the two of them are playing, a part of the wall crumbles, revealing a hidden passage, which the kids decide to follow. They find a box, take it with them only to end up in peril, when they are drowned by water. Alice ends up dying and the saddened boy takes his sister's corpse back home where he explains it all to their parents. The story ends with this: From inside the box they found a chunk of gold worth 10,000 dollars. it was enough to pay anything but the death of his sister.
Just like the Little Glass Bottle, The Secret Cave is short and somewhat clumsy in its structure. It is an adventure story, but it also ends on a sadder note and with a moral lesson on how things might end up if kids don't believe their parents as well as with the notion, that money isn't everything.
The Mystery of the Graveyard (1898) Here's where Lovecraft is trying his hand in a bit more complex story, albeit still very far from the style he was later better known of. This is a flat out fast-paced detective mystery with twists and turns enough for a couple of stories. What it lacks in structure, it makes up with sheer childlike enthusiasm.
Mr Dobson is partaking in a burial, where he is to perform the last wishes of the deceased by placing a golden ball inside his tomb. Dobson goes into the tomb but never comes back up. Later his daughter gets a visit from mysterious Mr Bell, who asks for ransom money.
Calmly Miss Dobson places a call to the police station, asking famed detective King John to arrive immediately, as the kidnapper is on-premises. From here, begins a manhunt to detain the guilty party and to retrieve Mr Dobson.
In his youthful enthusiasm, Lovecraft plays with the story structure, narrating things out of order. In this enthusiasm, he ends up making the big revelation of the titular mystery a bit too soon, as it is clear it was originally meant to be revealed at the end. The story also contains one character that could be described as a racist caricature of a black man, but considering Lovecraft was only 8 when he wrote this, I'm giving him a pass of not still knowing any better.
The Mysterious Ship (1902) The story Lovecraft wrote at the age of 12 is, surprisingly enough the worst of this lot. A group of random people from all over the world get kidnapped by pirates. They are rescued and all is well. That's it. There are no specific reasons why these people are kidnapped, they just are and that's the gist of it.
The Beast in Cave (1905) With this story, Lovecraft was evidently finding his own voice. Or at least the basic gist of his penchant for macabre horror and hysterical heroes within them. A man has been on a cave expedition and gets lost after stranding away from his guide. In the darkness, he begins to hear voices of steps, at times going on all fours, at times on two legs.
After some intense chase in the dark, he manages to fling rocks towards the creeping character before he escapes, in hopes of finding his guide. It doesn't take long for him to hear the voice of the guide and after he is located, he narrates the story of the stalker in the dark. Together they go back to the caves only to find a white-haired, ape-like beast succumbed on the ground.
As a story, the Beast in the Cave is very different from the previous ones. It is a straight cut horror story, playing with the ideas of darkness and insanity. While the ending reveal is somewhat sensationalistic in nature, the overall quality of the story is very good. It is well written and thought out tale that ended up being released later on in 1918 in an amateur press journal the Vagrant.
The Alchemist (1908) Another story that was published much later from its writing. Count Antoine De C narrates the sorry history of his family, plagued with early deaths. All of the male members of his family had died at the age of 32 because of the curse placed on them by a son villainous wizard Michael Mauvais. The reason for the curse was that the ancestors of Antoine were responsible for the death of Mauvais.
All alone in his mansion, with his 32nd birthday nearing, Antoine begins to wander around the old house and the surroundings. He manages to find a hidden passage, that takes him to a secret room beneath the family house. In the room, he meets a man, who is revealed to be no other than the son of the dead wizard. For centuries, he has been fulfilling the curse, as he managed to create an elixir of life to keep him up and running.
The Alchemist is a decent enough of a story. It isn't quite as intriguing as the Beast in the Cave, but it does show how Lovecraft evolving as a writer. It also has elements of Lovecraft's racial ponderings in it in the form of the narrator thinking of how his racial heritage is affecting him. Though I'm not quite sure if he should have been talking about parental ancestry rather than race.
So that's for the stories H.P. Lovecraft wrote when he was 18 or younger. The most interesting thing about his pre-teen stories is, how enthusiastic they are. His later stories already have the air of desperation and macabre sense of horror he later became known for. But sadly enough, some of these stories also contain an inkling of his less savoury views on equality.
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