H P Lovecraft

Dagon H P Lovecraft

Two stories by H. P. Lovecraft, master of cosmic horror. DagonThe story a tortured, morphine-addicted man who relates an incident that occurred during his service as an officer during World War I. His cargo ship is captured by an Imperial German sea-raider in one of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad Pacific. He escapes on a lifeboat and drifts aimlessly, south of the equator, until he eventually finds himself stranded on a slimy expanse of hellish black mire which extended about him in monotonous undulations as far as could see ... First published in The Vagrant, November 1919, reprinted in Weird Tales, October 1923. The Crawling ChaosAfter a disembodied sensation of falling, a man finds himself within a strange beautiful room containing exotic furniture, where a pounding sound from outside inspires an inexplicable sense of dread within him. Determined to identify the origin of this sound, he moves towards a window and observes a terrifying scene of fifty-foot waves and seething vortex consuming the shoreline at an incredible rate. Sensing imminent danger, he quickly exits the building. Fleeing the waves, the man travels inland. The narrator eventually arrives in a valley with tropical grass extending above his head and a great palm tree in the center. Driven by curiosity despite his fear, he crawls on his hands and knees toward the great palm ... Based on a dream experienced by Winifred V. Jackson, credited as "Elizabeth Berkeley," the story first appeared in the United Cooperative, April 1921.