Synopsis
This story is about a meteorite that crashes into the woods near Arkham, by the Gardner house. Right away the vegetation starts dying and animals become distorted and grotesque. So you have that same idea of animals being affected by a sinister environment like in Fall of the House of Usher. This one just takes a more “scientific” approach to the idea. All of the vegetation grows weird and takes on strange colors. Butterflies are larger than expected. The Gardner family starts to listen to something nobody else is hearing. One of the women living in this area goes mad. Everything that becomes affected has a faint luminance. The vegetation and the animals then begin to turn grey and die.
History
First publication: Amazing, September 1927
Review
Lovecraft takes the basic idea of an area and a house and a family that are slowly declining toward ultimate death and adds his imagination to it, giving an explanation to the source and giving greater detail and greater horrors to the story. What Poe only slightly hints at, Lovecraft makes real.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, hardcover, Liveright, 2014-10-13
The Dunwich Horror and Others, hardcover, Arkham House, 1981-01-00
The Dunwich Horror and Others, hardcover, Arkham House, 1997-00-00
All of the stories in the Cthulhu Mythos series:
The Dweller in Darkness
Shaft Number 247
The Ballad of Black Tom
The Return of the Deep Ones
The Tugging
Sticks
Dark Awakening
The Gathering
Cement Surroundings
Than Curse the Darkness
The Sister City
The Mind Parasites
Rising with Surtsey
The Lady of Shalott
Haggopian
The House of Cthulhu
The Black Tome of Alsophocus
I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket ... But By God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!
Born of the Winds
The Fairground Horror
The Unthinkable
The Children of the Night
The Black Stone
The Return of the Lloigor
The Freshman
The Shadow from the Steeple
The Thing on the Roof
The Tomb of the Old Ones
Notebook Found in a Deserted House
The Second Wish
At the Mountains of Madness
The Tower from Yuggoth
The Lurker at the Threshold
The Star Pools
The Call of Cthulhu
My Boat
The Barrens
The Challenge from Beyond
The Nameless City
On the Slab
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai
The Space-Eaters
The Hound
The Hounds of Tindalos
The Seal of R’lyeh
The Festival
The Colour Out of Space
Jerusalem’s Lot
Discovery of the Ghooric Zone — March 15, 2337
The Fire of Asshurbanipal
The Terror from the Depths
Dig Me No Grave
The Return of the Sorcerer
The Whisperer in Darkness
The Dreams in the Witch-House
The Changeling
The Dunwich Horror
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow Out of Time
The Haunter of the Dark
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Thing That Walked on the Wind
Fat Face
The Truth About Pickman
Usurp the Night
Lord of the Land
The House in the Oaks
The Shambler from the Stars
Beneath the Beardmore
The Mine on Yuggoth
The Black Bear Bites
Crouch End
Beyond the Threshold
The Shadow on the Doorstep
