The Lovecraft Vault

THE SHUNNED HOUSE was first published by The Recluse Press in 1928. Set in Lovecraft’s hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, the story follows the narrator and his uncle, Dr. Elihu Whipple, as they investigate a decaying old house on Benefit Street that has been plagued by generations of mysterious deaths, madness, and decay. Despite its long history of misfortune, the house’s true nature remains...

MUSIC OF THE STARS is a Cthulhu Mythos story by the American author, Duane W. Rimel. The tale, which first appeared in The Acolyte in its Spring 1943 edition, tells of a musician who claims to have discovered an ancient and terrible form of music.

HYPNOS first appeared in The National Amateur vol. 45, no. 5 (May 1923). It is one of Lovecraft’s key early entries in his Dream Cycle, exploring themes of altered consciousness, artistic obsession, and the boundaries of reality. The story is narrated by an unnamed sculptor who forms an intense intellectual and psychic bond with a mysterious, beautiful man he meets in a train station. Together, th...

IN THE VAULT was first published in the magazine The Tryout in November 1925. The story centres on George Birch, an unrefined and careless undertaker in a small New England town. One day, while locking up the vault that temporarily stores coffins during cold weather, Birch becomes accidentally trapped inside.

THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS is a Cthulhu Mythos story by Frank Belknap Long. First published in Weird Tales in 1929, the story follows Halpin Chalmers, an author who, after taking the Chinese drug Liao, encounters extra-dimensional beings known as The Hounds of Tindalos.

THE SHADOW FROM THE STEEPLE is a short story by American author, Robert Bloch, first published in 1950. It completes a series of tales started by Bloch in 1935 with The Shambler from the Stars, and continued by H. P. Lovecraft in 1936 with The Haunter of the Dark. The story concludes the mystery surrounding the "Shining Trapezohedron".

THE HAUNTER OF THE DARK is a Cthulhu Mythos story, written in November 1935 and first published in the December 1936 issue of Weird Tales. It is notable for being Lovecraft’s final major work of fiction and serves as a sequel of sorts to Robert Bloch’s earlier story The Shambler from the Stars. The tale follows Robert Blake, a writer with an interest in the occult, who becomes fascinated by a sini...

THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS is a horror short story by American writer Robert Bloch, first published in the September 1935 issue of Weird Tales. A Cthulhu Mythos tale, it introduced the forbidden tome De Vermis Mysteriis (Mysteries of the Worm). Later on in 1935, Lovecraft wrote the short story "The Haunter of the Dark" as a sequel and dedicated it to Bloch. Eventually, in 1950, Bloch wrote his ow...

THE SECRET OF KRALITZ is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Henry Kuttner. The tale, which first appeared in Weird Tales in October 1936, was described as follows: “A story of the shocking revelation that came to the twenty-first Baron Kralitz.”

THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP is a Cthulhu Mythos story, written in 1933 and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales. The story is narrated by Daniel Upton, who confesses to murdering his lifelong friend, Edward Derby—but insists it was not truly Derby he killed. As Upton recounts the strange events leading up to the crime, he describes Derby’s marriage to the mysterious Asenath Waite...

THE HOUND is a Cthulhu Mythos story, written in 1922 and first published in the February 1924 issue of Weird Tales. The story is narrated by one of two decadent grave-robbers obsessed with morbid curiosities and the occult. Seeking ever-greater thrills, they exhume a burial mound in Holland and steal a jade amulet from the centuries-old grave of a supposed ghoul. From that moment on, they are haun...

THE NAMELESS OFFSPRING is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith. The tale, which first appeared in Strange Tales of Mystery in Terror back in June 1932, tells of a man's troubling stay at a remote property in the English countryside.

THE NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER is a work of horror by Arthur Machen—a key story in his 1895 novel, "The Three Impostors". In the story, a young man begins taking a prescribed medicine for a minor ailment, but his condition soon takes a strange and unsettling turn.

THE NAMELESS CITY is one of Lovecraft’s earliest explorations of cosmic horror and pre-human civilizations, introducing themes that would become central to the Cthulhu Mythos—particularly the insignificance of humanity in the face of ancient, alien forces. It was first published in the November 1921 issue of The Wolverine.

A REMINISCENCE OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON is a satirical short story, written in the style of an exaggerated 18th-century memoir. The narrator, an absurdly aged gentleman named James Boswell (a clear parody of the real-life biographer of Dr. Johnson), claims to have been born in 1690 and reminisces about his interactions with the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson.

THE SPACE-EATERS is a short story by American writer, Frank Belknap Long. It first appeared in the July 1928 edition of Weird Tales. The story explores the concept of the 'ultimate horror', as viewed from the perspective of a short story writer, and his closest friend.

THE NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL is a work of horror by Arthur Machen—a key story in his 1895 novel, "The Three Impostors". The story follows Professor Gregg, an antiquarian whose studies uncover disturbing evidence of a lost and terrible people, whose relics and language persist in the remote corners of Britain.

MEMORY was written in 1919 and first published in The United Co-operative, June 1919. This ultra-short story takes place in a ruined, ancient world where a spirit and a demon discuss the fate of humanity.

BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP was written in 1919 and first published in Pine Cones in October of that same year. The story is narrated by an unnamed researcher at a mental hospital who becomes fascinated by a violent, backwoods patient named Joe Slater. Slater, a degenerate from the Catskill Mountains, suffers from strange, vivid dreams in which he experiences celestial visions and claims to transform...

THE BLACK STONE is a Cthulhu Mythos story by American author, Robert E. Howard, first published in the November 1931 edition of Weird Tales Magazine. Notably, it marks the first appearance of the fictional work, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten, by Friedrich von Junzt. The story tells of an occult researcher's pursuit of a curious, sinister monolith in the mountains of Hungary.

THE TALE OF SATAMPRA ZEIROS is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Clark Ashton Smith, forming part of his Hyperborean Cycle. The tale, which first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in November 1931, tells of a thief and his companion in search of treasure in the former capital of Hyperborea.

THE BEAST IN THE CAVE was written in 1904 when Lovecraft was just a teenager and was first published in The Vagrant in June 1918. The story follows an unnamed protagonist who becomes lost while exploring Mammoth Cave, a vast underground labyrinth.

THE WHITE SHIP is a fantasy story that belongs to Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. It was written in October 1919 and first published in United Amateur in November 1919. The story follows Basil Elton, a lighthouse keeper who longs for something beyond his mundane existence. One night, a mysterious white ship, piloted by a silent, robed figure, appears and carries him across fantastical seas to wondrous la...

HISTORY OF THE NECRONOMICON was written in 1927 but remained unpublished until 1938, a year after Lovecraft’s death, when it appeared in Leaves, a publication by Rebel Press. Presented as a scholarly account, this short pseudo-historical essay outlines the origins and fate of the infamous Necronomicon, the fictional grimoire frequently referenced in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

THE THING ON THE ROOF is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Robert E. Howard, first published in the February 1932 edition of Weird Tales Magazine. The story tells of a man and his quest for a lost temple known as the 'Temple of the Toad'.