The Lurking Fear and Other Stories

by H.P. Lovecraft

Book Overview

"The Lurking Fear" is a 1923 short story by master of horror fiction H. P. Lovecraft. The tale revolves around an intrepid monster hunter's investigation into reports in the media of attacks... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345326040
• ISBN13: 9780345326041
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Tread Softly on these Pages

(These pages were included in the documents sought out by investigators searching the attic of an original site (439 Spring Street) and then transferred to the Newport Public Library. Excerpts of the personal Journal of F. Mobbs including entries from April-September l934, are now preserved in the Portsmouth Antiquarian Society holdings (East main Road, Portsmouth, R.I.) (ed. note) "The locales about Newburyport (Newport) and Innsmouth (Portsmouth) from the 1920's to late 40's - both barren marshes and windswept heaths with atmosphere flavored with mists from the breakers of Narragansett River are as described - I wandered these environs aimlessly seeking terrain of the most isolate in search of SOMETHING from bleak February mornings into late Summer. No clear vision of the sought for particulars presented itself - only the vague urgings of neuronal, Boolian logics inherited from eons past and hidden securely hinted of a state of my being completely alone - where that expressable now only in seemingly vacuous phrases would manifest itself substantially unfettered by visual and auditroy stimuli yielding the immediacy of distraction. As thaws brought swales and vernal pools through the rotting snow creatures most curious made an appearance - and these I trapped by pail from the unseen depths. Aided by the original Brehm's Aullustrites Thierleben (Leipzig 1883) and Wood's Animate Creation (Selmar Hess, 1898) I fitted these denizens most uncomfortably into known species...but those not to be classified to the Batrachia, Acanthopterygii, Pseudophidia or other Greek or Roman categories sensibly established - those religated in that huge phylum of the unaccountable Chaos - always eluded me. Lone treks on the Carboniferous shales of the beaches and the barren reaches of bedrock on Sachuest Point (near the ominous, boiling river) never yielded the promised quarry. The morphic resonance of Grey Craig (three long shale ridges covered with tortured vegetation bent almost to submission by the prevailing Westerlies) always drew me there at the end my walks. On lone, February mornings I stood at the apex of Hanging Rock (1) in a palpable quiet interrupted only by the ticks of falling snowflakes, and waited... to no avail. Careful searches of the puddingstone ridges did reveal a deep chasm below a sharp declivity (2) whose walls of crumbling shale oozed fetid water in all seasons - illuminated with a yellow green efflugence (some attributed to the rhizomorphs of Armillaria mellea) where my senses indicated a presence unsettling in the extreme of irrationality. One soft, August afternoon, the amniotic air gently warmed and thickened by the nearness of the sun and sea, I wandered - driven by power rules and preferential connectedness - across the narrow link of nodes: the Esplanade and Cliff Walk. Through an arch and on a narrow path and into the essence of perfect experience I drifted in the intoxication of the senses - ahead appeared

The unexplored oceans...

...seem to be the focus of many of the stories within this book. The short stories are: The Lurking Fear, Dagon (ocean related story), The White Ship (the oceans within our mind?), Arthur Jermyn, From Beyond, The Temple (ocean related story), The Moon-Bog, The Hound, The Unnamable, The Outsider (an almost SAD story) and The Shadow Over Innsmouth (a must for any fan of Lovecraft).Dagon and The Shadow Over Innsmouth are linked together by the character of Dagon, an elder deep one. The Temple was a new story (to me) and a very interesting one about a German sub that finds...well, I won't tell you, but you can guess.

True Horror

Lovecraft is one of the best horror writers ever and this is one of his best collection of stories. I read Poe and Lovecaft long before I ever read a King book, and I still shiver when I read this book. There is a reason that some of Kings short stories borrow ideas from Lovecraft. If you've never read any of Lovecrafts writing give it a try. You won't be disappointed.

Review found in Arkham Sanitarium

As I am confined in a small locked room within a structure called Arkham Sanitarium, I realize that my attempt to relate high praise and admiration for this collection of spectral and macabre tales written by the under appreciated Howard Phillips Lovecraft will be perceived by many as only the ravings of a fanatical individual caught in the tendrils of dementia.That I have been admonished many times by well meaning acquaintances to find more wholesome reading pursuits, is well noted, but against all warnings, I have continued to indulge in reading these narratives, which can only be described as frenzied, yet lucid visions of an author whose mind had dwelled in realms far from a sunlit plane of existence.I do not as yet, understand this compelling force which drives me to set this feverish reflection down for all to see. To describe further the unnameable and unimaginable works of Lovecraft may have the disasterous effect of drawing one into the nether realms of shadowy phantasms and singular landscapes of nebulous chaos. What is this malignant force that impels me to entice unsuspecting neophytes to enter a dimension far removed from any experience associated with convention and rationality? Even more important, can I stop myself before finishing this morbid rumination and perhaps save an unknowing reader from glimpsing apparitions that lurk in stygian shadows?But as I ponder this dilemma it strikes me with numbing insight, the hideous truth behind my obsession to display this account for all to see. The undeniable motive now roars through my consciousness like a horrible peal of thunder. For what insideous reason have I presented this review?One hundred dollars worth of free books. The revelation shocks me back to the cold reality of my bleak confines. But listen...they are coming for me now. I can hear their footsteps in the hallway. I can only sit and wait. Wait and mutter to myself quietly...free books...free books... free books...free..