The Tree ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror Short) ♦ Full Audiobook

The Tree ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror Short) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Tree



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By:  Michael Sample



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



Plot:

On a slope of Mount Maenalus in Arcadia is an olive grove that grows around a marble tomb and the ruin of an old villa. There, one gigantic tree resembles a frighteningly distorted man, and the roots of the tree have shifted the blocks of the tomb.



The narrator explains that the beekeeper who lives next door told him a story about the tree: Two renowned sculptors, Kalos and Musides, lived in the colonnaded villa, which was "resplendent" in its day. Both men created works that were widely known and celebrated. They were devoted friends, but different in disposition: Musides enjoyed the nightlife, while Kalos preferred the quiet of the olive grove. It was there he was said to receive his inspiration.



One day, emissaries from "the Tyrant of Syracuse" ask the sculptors each to create a statue of Tyché (Greek: τύχη, lit. 'fortune; fate'). The statue, they are told, must be "of great size and cunning workmanship", since it is to be "a wonder of nations and a goal of travellers." The most beautiful statue will be erected in the Tyrant's city, Syracuse. Kalos and Musides accept the commission. Secretly, the Tyrant expects the sculptors not only to compete but to cooperate, resulting in statuary that will be truly magnificent.



The work proceeds, and although Musides is still social and active, he seems morose—apparently because Kalos has fallen ill. Despite Kalos' weakened state, his visitors detect in him a serenity that contrasts Musides' dismay. Despite the efforts of his doctors and his friend Musides, Kalos weakens. When Kalos' death seems imminent, Musides weeps and promises to carve for him an elaborate marble sepulchre. Kalos asks that one twig each from two specific olive trees in the grove be buried near his head. Soon after, Kalos dies in the olive grove.



Musides builds the tomb and buries the olive twigs. From the burial place of the twigs an enormous olive tree grows at an incredible rate. An especially large branch hangs over the villa and Musides' statue.



Three years later, Musides' work on the statue is complete. The Tyrant's agents arrive, then head to town to stay the night. That evening, a windstorm whips down the mountain. When the Tyrant's people return to the villa the next morning, they find it utterly destroyed; the great tree branch has fallen, and Musides' statue has been crushed into unrecognizable pieces. Musides himself is nowhere to be found.



The end of the story recalls the Latin aphorism that precedes the text: "Fata viam invenient" ("fate will find a way"). Summary By Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tree_(short_story)



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The Street ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

The Street ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Street



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By:  Sarah Jennings



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



Plot:

The story traces the history of the eponymous street in a New England city, presumably Boston, from its first beginnings as a path in colonial times to a quasi-supernatural occurrence in the years immediately following World War I. As the city grows up around the street, it is planted with many trees and built along with "simple, beautiful houses of brick and wood," each with a rose garden. As the Industrial Revolution runs its course, the area degenerates into a run-down, polluted slum, with all of the street's old houses falling into disrepair.



After World War I and the October Revolution, the area becomes home to a community of Jewish Russian immigrants; among the new residents are the leadership of a "vast band of terrorists" who are plotting the destruction of the United States on Independence Day. When the day arrives, the terrorists gather to do the deed, but before they can get started, all the houses in the street collapse concurrently on top of them, killing them all. An observer at the scene testified that immediately after the collapse, he had seen visions of the trees and the rose gardens that had once been in the street. Plot by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Street_(short_story)



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The White Ship ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

The White Ship ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The White Ship



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By:  Phil Chenevert



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



Plot:

Basil Elton, a lighthouse keeper, engages in a peculiar fantasy in which a bearded man in robes is piloting a mystical white ship which appears when the moon is full. Elton walks across the water on a bridge of moonbeams, joins the bearded man on the ship, and together they explore a mystical chain of islands unlike anything that can be found on Earth.



They travel past Zar, a green land where "dwell all the dreams and thoughts of beauty that come to men once and then are forgotten", then the majestic city of Thalarion, "City of a Thousand Wonders", where frightful demons dwell. They pass Akariel, the huge carven gate of Thalarion, and continue their voyage. Elton is informed that those who enter both places have never returned. During the voyage, they seem to be following an azure celestial bird. They also pass Xura, the "Land of Pleasures Unattained", which seems pleasant from a distance but reeks of plague upon getting nearer. They finally settle in Sona-Nyl, the "Land of Fancy", where Elton spends a period of time which he describes as "many aeons", living in what seems to be a perfect society. During his time in Sona-Nyl, he learns of Cathuria, the "Land of Hope". Though no man truly knows where Cathuria is or what lies there, Elton is thrilled with the idea, fantasizing about it wildly, and urges the bearded man to take him there, which the man reluctantly agrees to do. They follow the celestial bird westward. After a perilous journey to where the crew believes Cathuria to be, the ship instead finds itself at the edge of the world, and plummets to its doom.



Elton awakens to find himself on the wet rocks next to his lighthouse, mere moments after he first departed on the white ship - and just in time to witness a catastrophic shipwreck caused by the light having gone out for the first time. He is further shaken by his later finding a dead azure bird and a spar of pure white. Summary by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Ship_(story)



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Dagon ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

Dagon ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  Dagon



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By:  Phil Chenevert



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



Plot:

The story is the testament of a tortured, morphine-addicted man who relates an incident that occurred during his service as an officer during World War I. In the unnamed narrator's account, 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".[2] 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 [he] could see.... The region was putrid with the carcasses of decaying fish and less describable things which [he] saw protruding from the nasty mud of the unending plain." He theorizes that this area was formerly a portion of the ocean floor thrown to the surface by volcanic activity, "exposing regions which for innumerable millions of years had lain hidden under unfathomable watery depths."[3]



After waiting three days for the seafloor to dry out sufficiently to walk on, he ventures out on foot to find the sea and possible rescue. After two days of walking, he reaches his goal, a hill which turns out to be a mound on the edge of an "immeasurable pit or canyon".[4] Descending the slope, he sees a gigantic white stone object that he soon perceives to be a "well-shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures."[5] The monolith, situated next to a channel of water in the bottom of the chasm, is covered in unfamiliar hieroglyphs "consisting for the most part of conventionalized aquatic symbols such as fishes, eels, octopuses, crustaceans, mollusks, whales, and the like."[5] There are also "crude sculptures" depicting:



men—at least, a certain sort of men; though the creatures were shown disporting like fishes in the waters of some marine grotto, or paying homage at some monolithic shrine which appeared to be under the waves as well... [T]hey were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough, they seemed to have been chiseled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shown in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself Summary by Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon_(short_story)



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The Alchemist ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

The Alchemist ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Alchemist



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By:  Phil Chenevert



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



Plot:

The story is recounted by the protagonist, Count Antoine de C, in the first person. Hundreds of years ago, Antoine's noble ancestor was responsible for the death of a dark wizard, Michel Mauvais. The wizard's son, Charles le Sorcier, swore revenge on not only him but all his descendants, cursing them to die on reaching the age of 32.



The protagonist recounts how his ancestors all died in some mysterious way around the age of 32. The line has dwindled and the castle has been left to fall into disrepair, tower by tower. Finally, Antoine is the only one left, with one poor servant, Pierre, who raised him, and a tiny section of the castle with a single tower is still usable. Antoine has reached adulthood, and his 32nd year is approaching.



His servant eventually dies, leaving him completely alone, and he begins exploring the ruined parts of the castle. He finds a trapdoor in one of the oldest parts. Below, he discovers a passage with a locked door at the end. Just as he turns to leave, he hears a noise behind him and sees that the door is open and someone is standing in it. The man attempts to kill him but Antoine kills him first. His dying words reveal that he is none other than Charles, who actually managed to successfully fabricate the elixir of life, enabling him to personally fulfill the curse generation after generation. Summary by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(short_story)



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The Crawling Chaos ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

The Crawling Chaos ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Crawling Chaos



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By:  Joseph Canna



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



Plot:

The story begins with the narrator describing the effects of opium and the fantastical vistas it can inspire. The narrator then tells of his sole experience with opium in which he was accidentally administered an overdose by a doctor during the "year of the plague".



After a disembodied sensation of falling, the narrator finds himself within a strange beautiful room containing exotic furniture, where a pounding sound from outside inspires an inexplicable sense of dread within the narrator. Determined to identify the origin of this sound, the narrator 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, the narrator quickly exits the building. Fleeing the waves, the narrator 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, the narrator crawls on his hands and knees toward the great palm.



Soon after arriving at the tree, the narrator observes an angelic child fall from its branches. The child then smiles and extends its hand towards the narrator and the narrator hears ethereal singing within the upper air followed by the child saying in an otherworldly voice:



It is the end. They have come down through the gloaming from the stars. Now all is over, and beyond the Arinurian streams we shall dwell blissfully in Teloe.



As the child speaks, the narrator observes two youths emerging from the leaves of the tree. They take the narrator by the hand and describe the worlds of "Teloe" and "Cytharion of the Seven Suns" which lie beyond the Milky Way.



As they speak, the narrator observes that he is floating in the upper atmosphere, with the palm tree far below, and now accompanied by an ever increasing number of singing, vine-crowned youths. As they ascend, the child tells the narrator that he must always look upward and never down at the earth below.



As he rises further listening to the youths singing, the narrator is disturbed by the return of the sound of the waves, and, forgetting what the child said, looks downward and observes a sight of global destruction, with the waves consuming the cities until there is nothing left. This is followed by the waters draining into the Earth's core via an opening gulf, which causes the Earth to explode. Summary by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crawling_Chaos



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The Cats of Ulthar ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

The Cats of Ulthar ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Cats of Ulthar



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By:  jpontoli



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



An unnamed narrator, while gazing upon his pet cat, begins to reminisce about a law in the town of Ulthar which forbids the killing of cats and relates the story of how this law came to be. The tale begins with the introduction of an old cotter and his wife who delight in trapping and violently killing any cats who venture onto their property. The people of the town are too afraid of the couple to speak against these acts, so they instead focus their efforts on keeping their felines from approaching the cotter's house. One night a caravan of travelers from a distant land arrives and passes through the village. They bring with them an orphan named Menes who, having lost his family to a plague, has only a small, black kitten to keep him company. After being unable to find his kitten on the third day of his stay, Menes hears the stories of the old cotter and his wife, and decides to take action.



Menes spends time meditating prior to unleashing a prayer that affects the shapes and movements of the clouds in the sky. The caravan leaves Ulthar that night, shortly before the townspeople notice that all of their cats have gone missing. The townspeople suspect both the old couple and the wanderers, but the innkeeper's son Atal witnesses the felines circling the property of the cotter. The next morning, the cats have returned to their owners well-fed, but the cotter and his wife have vanished. When the townspeople explore their abandoned house, they discovered nothing more than two skeletons that have been picked clean. The local burgesses, after reviewing the evidence and stories of the townspeople, decide to pass a law that forbids the killing of cats in Ulthar. Summary by wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cats_of_Ulthar



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Beyond Wall of Sleep ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

Beyond Wall of Sleep ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  Beyond Wall of Sleep



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By: D.E. Wittkower



Librivox Recording



More H. P. Lovecraft audiobooks found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVJ7kWYJDj_AzWne2FNXApOVRIf2J9z



An intern in a mental hospital relates his experience with Joe Slater, an inmate who died at the facility a few weeks after being confined as a criminally insane murderer. He describes Slater as a "typical denizen of the Catskill Mountain region, who corresponds exactly with the 'white trash' of the South", for whom "laws and morals are nonexistent" and whose "general mental status is probably below that of any other native American people". Although Slater's crime was exceedingly brutal and unprovoked he had an "absurd appearance of harmless stupidity" and the doctors guessed his age at about forty. During the third night of his confinement, Slater had the first of his "attacks". He burst from an uneasy sleep into a frenzy so violent it took four orderlies to strait-jacket him. For nearly fifteen minutes he gave vent to an incredible rant. The words were in the voice and couched in the paltry vocabulary of Joe Slater but the onlookers could construe from the inadequate language a vision of:



green edifices of light, oceans of space, strange music, and shadowy mountains and valleys. But most of all did he dwell upon some mysterious blazing entity that shook and laughed and mocked at him. This vast, vague personality seemed to have done him a terrible wrong and to kill it in triumphant revenge was his paramount desire. In order to reach it... he would soar through abysses of emptiness 'burning' every obstacle that stood in his way.



The ranting stopped as suddenly as it had started. This was the first of what would become nightly "attacks" of a similar nature. The peripheral otherworldly images of Slater's visions were different and more fantastic with each successive night, but always there was the central theme of the blazing entity and its revenge. The doctors were perplexed with the Slater case. Where did a backward man like Slater get such visions, when surely an illiterate rustic like him would have had little if any exposure to fairy tales or fantasy stories? Not that there were stories similar to Slater's. Why, too, was Slater dying?



As an undergraduate, the intern had built a device for two-way telepathic communication which he had tested with a fellow student with no result. The device was designed around his principle that thought was ultimately a form of radiant energy. Heedless of any ethics, he attached himself with Slater to the device as Slater lay near death. With the device switched on, he received a message from a being of light whose experiences had been what were transmitted through the medium of Joe Slater. This being explained that, when not shackled to their physical bodies, all humans are light beings. The thought-message went on to explain that, as light beings within the realm of sleep, humans can experience the vistas of many planes and universes which remain unknown to waking awareness.



The intern understood that the light being would now become completely incorporeal, and undertake at last a final battle with its nemesis near Algol. Joe Slater died then, and there were no further transmissions. That night an enormously bright star was discovered in the sky near Algol. Within a week it had dimmed to the luminosity of an ordinary star and in a few months it had become barely visible to the naked eye. Summary by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Wall_of_Sleep_(short_story)



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The Picture in House ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook

The Picture in House ♦ By H. P. Lovecraft ♦ (Horror) ♦ Full Audiobook



Title:  The Picture in House



Author:  H. P. Lovecraft



Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Short Stories



Language: English



Read By: Sandra Zera



Librivox Recording



While riding on his bicycle in the Miskatonic Valley of rural New England, a genealogist seeks shelter from an approaching storm in an apparently abandoned house, only to find that it is occupied by a "loathsome old, white-bearded, and ragged man," speaking in "an extreme form of Yankee dialect...thought long extinct." The narrator notices that the house is full of antique books, exotic artifacts, and furniture predating the American Revolution. The old man is apparently harmless and ignorant, but shows a disquieting fascination for an engraving in a rare old book, Regnum Congo, and admits to the narrator that it made him hunger for "victuals I couldn't raise nor buy"- presumably human flesh. It is suggested that the old man in the house was murdering men who stumbled upon the shack to satisfy his "craving", and that the old man has extended his life preternaturally through cannibalism. The narrator realizes the old man has been alive for over a century. The old man denies that he ever acted on his desire, but then a red drop of blood falls from the ceiling, clearly coming from the floor above, and splashes a page in the book. The narrator then looks up to see a spreading red stain on the ceiling; this belies the old man's statement. At that moment, a bolt of lightning destroys the house. However, the narrator manages to escape. (Summary by Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_in_the_House



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