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| Art: Andrew Brosnatch, Weird Tales Jan. 1926 |
Opening Statement:
In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative.What in Brown Jenkin's Name..?
A young man is strangely obsessed with an ancient, sealed tomb. When he finally gains entry, he discovers that he has much in common with the occupants.Synopsis:
An introverted young boy, Jervas Dudley, becomes entranced by the mysterious Hyde tomb, which is secured by a padlocked chain. After many tomb-side vigils, he begins to have strange insights into past colonial times, and learns that he himself is related to the Hyde family line, whose uphill mansion had burned down generations ago.
Years later, he is awoken from a tomb-side vigil by strangely-antiquated, unseen voices, and notices a briefly-lit light coming from inside the tomb. Somehow he is gifted with the location of the tomb’s key in his family attic. Inside the tomb he discovers an empty coffin inscribed with a very "familiar" name on it. He begins secretly sleeping in the coffin, and soon begins to take on the speech characteristics of a colonial "man of the world". Strangely, witnesses claim that Jervas only sleeps outside the tomb, never entering it.
On one stormy night, Jervas sees the old Hyde mansion supernaturally restored to its former glory on the hill. Jervas joins the party, but lightning strikes and the mansion is destroyed (along with Jervas, seemingly). Jervas wakes and finds a porcelain figurine bearing the initials J.H. and a face matching his own. His family finds him and puts him into an insane asylum, since he believes that he is the reincarnation of "Jervas Hyde". He wishes to be reunited with "his family tomb", and claims that the burning of the mansion had dispersed Jervas Hyde's ashes on that long-ago stormy night, depriving him of a reserved resting spot in the family tomb. Jervas' father reiterates that Jervas had never actually been inside the tomb, and nearly convinces Jervas that all of his experiences had been a form of madness. However, Jervas’ servant Hiram later enters the tomb and finds that one empty coffin is labeled with the name "Jervas" on it.
Down its moss-covered slopes my first steps of infancy were taken, and around its grotesquely gnarled oak trees my first fancies of boyhood were woven...the darkest of the hillside thickets; the deserted tomb of the Hydes... The vault to which I refer is of ancient granite, weathered and discolored by the mists and dampness of generations. Excavated back into the hillside, the structure is visible only at the entrance. The door, a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone, hangs upon rusted iron hinges, and is fastened ajar in a queerly sinister way by means of heavy iron chains and padlocks... By the time I came of age, I had made a small clearing in the thicket before the mold-stained facade of the hillside, allowing the surrounding vegetation to encircle and overhang the space like the walls and roof of a sylvan bower.
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And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the Hydes! Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde? Aye! I would claim my heritage of death, even though my soul go seeking through the ages for another corporeal tenement to represent it on that vacant slab in the alcove of the vault. Jervas Hyde should never share the sad fate of Palinurus!
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| Weird Tales 1926.01 |
Often considered his first "mature" work, HPL takes pains in this story to create a kind of mythic history for the character, even incorporating some "drinking songs" from the main character's past life. Lovecraft also begins a strong stylistic tendency to name-drop various literary and mythological references (here including Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield, John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester, John Gay, Matthew Prior, Plutarch's Lives, Theseus, and the un-buried Palinurus), in order to provide a sense of verisimilitude to the proceedings. More importantly, the newly-introduced devices of possession and obsession (in Lovecraft's literary corpus) would be frequently re-occurring devices for the rest of Lovecraft's career as a horror fantasist.
- First tomb/cemetery story.
- First use of psychic possession from the past.
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| Gustave Doré: from Dante's Inferno "He, soon as I there stood at the tomb's foot, Eyed me a space; then in disdainful mood Address'ed me: 'Say what ancestors were thine.'" |
On a slab in an alcove he found an old but empty coffin whose tarnished plate bears the single word: "Jervas". In that coffin and in that vault they have promised me I shall be buried.
Follow'd by "Dagon"
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| (Granada (Panther) 1974) |
