The Lovecraft series continues with a piece of his juvenalia.
Raw Feed (2005): “The Beast in the Cave”, H. P. Lovecraft, 1905.
Written when he was 15, this story shows, in its setting in Mammoth Cave, Lovecraft’s predilection for horror set underground.
It also shows, right from almost the beginning of his fiction, a couple of other motifs.
There is what T. E. D. Klein, in the introduction to this collection, termed Lovecraft’s “neurasthenic narrator”. Here the narrator, when reunited with the cave guide, nearly faints.
Second, there is the theme of devolution since the strange beast the narrator meets in the cave turns out to be a devolved man.
More reviews of Lovecraft related titles are indexed on the Lovecraft page.
More reviews of fantastic fiction are indexed by title and author/editor.
MarzAat 