Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Tomb and Other Tales by H.P. Lovecraft The Tomb. " The Tomb " is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft written in June 1917 and first published in the March 1922 issue of The Vagrant . Contents. Plot summary [ edit | edit source ] "The Tomb" tells of Jervas Dudley, a self-confessed day-dreamer. While still a child, he discovers the entrance to a mausoleum, belonging to the family Hyde, whose nearby family mansion had burnt down many years previously. The entrance to the mausoleum is padlocked and slightly ajar. Jervas attempts to break the padlock, but is unable. Dispirited, he takes to sleeping beside the tomb. Eventually, inspired by reading Plutarch's Lives , Dudley decides to patiently wait until it is his time to gain entrance to the tomb. One night, several years later, Jervas falls asleep once more beside the mausoleum. He awakes suddenly in the late afternoon, and believes that a light has been latterly extinguished from inside the tomb. Taking leave, he returns to his home, where he goes directly to the attic, to a rotten chest, and therein finds the key to the tomb. Once inside the mausoleum, Jervas discovers an empty coffin with the name of "Jervas" upon the plate. He begins, so he believes, to sleep in the empty coffin each night. He also develops a fear of thunder and fire, and is aware that he is being spied upon by one of his neighbours. One night, against his better judgement, Jervas sets out for the tomb on an overcast night, a night threatening to storm. As he approaches the tomb, he sees the Hyde mansion restored to its former state; there is a party in progress, which he joins, abandoning his former quietude for blasphemous hedonism. During the party, lightning strikes the mansion, and it burns. Jervas loses consciousness, having imagined himself being burnt to ashes in the blaze. He finds himself screaming and struggling, being held by two men with his father in attendance. A small antique box is discovered, having been unearthed by the recent storm. Inside is a porcelain miniature of a man, with the initials "J.H." Jervas fancies its face to be the mirror image of his own. He begins jabbering that he has been sleeping inside the tomb. His father, saddened by his son's mental instability, tells him that he has been watched for some time and has never gone inside the tomb, and indeed, the padlock is rusted with age. Jervas is removed to an asylum, presumed mad. He then asks his servant Hiram, who has remained faithful to him despite his current state, to explore the tomb – a request which Hiram fulfills. After breaking the padlock and descending with a lantern into the murky depths, Hiram returns to his master and informs him that there is, indeed, a coffin with a plate which reads "Jervas" on it. Jervas then states that he has been promised burial in that coffin when he dies. R. H. Barlow. Born at a time when his father Lieutenant Colonel Everett Darius Barlow, was serving with the American Forces in France, Barlow spent much of his youth at Fort Benning, Georgia, where his father was stationed. Around 1932 Col. Barlow received a medical discharge and settled his wife (Sarah Barlow) and son in the small town of DeLand, Florida. Family difficulties later forced Robert H. Barlow to move to Washington, D.C., and Kansas. He received training at the Kansas City Art Institute and subsequently at San Francisco Junior College. He went to Mexico in 1940-41, studied at the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas, and upon his return to California received the B.A. degree at the University of California in 1942. Returning to Mexico as a permanent resident, he joined the staff of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. In 1944 he received a Rockefeller Foundation and in 1946-48 a Guggenheim Fellowship. He became head of the Department of Anthropology at Mexico City College, which position he held at the time of his passing on January 2, 1951. According to fellow anthropologist Charles E. Dibble, "In the brief span of a decade, Barlow gave Middle American research an impetus and perspective of enduring consequence. His contributions in Mexican archaeology, classical and modern Nahuatl, Mexican colonial history, and what he preferred to call "Bilderhandschriften" are of lasting importance." Dibble compared Barlow's zeal for searching for and deciphering little known or dimly recalled codices and colonial manuscripts to that of Zelia Nuttall. [2] Contents. Life and career [ edit | edit source ] Lovecraft associate [ edit | edit source ] Barlow had been a friend of writers H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard since he was 13. He collaborated with Lovecraft on six stories (among them Till A' the Seas and The Night Ocean ), and Lovecraft made several extended visits to the young Barlow at his home in DeLand, Florida. Barlow attempted to bind and distribute Lovecraft's story The Shunned House (1928) but bound only a few copies (Arkham House distributed some bound versions of the original Barlow project as late as the 1970s). Barlow aided significantly in the preservation of Lovecraft's manuscripts by typing texts in exchange for autograph manuscripts. At his death, Lovecraft's will named Barlow his literary executor. Barlow came to Providence, Rhode Island shortly thereafter, donating most of the manuscripts and some printed matter to the John Hay Library of Brown University. Barlow transcribed Lovecraft's story "The Shadow Out of Time" and had the manuscript still in his possession when he secured a teaching position at Mexico City College. When he later became Chairman of the Department of Anthropology, he met June Ripley, a post-graduate student studying the Nahuatl language, Barlow's specialty. The two apparently became friends and Barlow entrusted the manuscript to Ripley before his suicide. She remained in Mexico for seven more years, then taught at several places in the United States before retiring in 1993. She died December 28, 1994 and the long-lost Lovecraft manuscript was found by Ripley's sister-in-law Lucille Shreve. The manuscript, written in pencil in a child's notebook, was donated by Nelson and Lucille Shreve to the Lovecraft collection of John Hay Library. [1] Author, publisher [ edit | edit source ] Barlow was interested in printing and after becoming involved in the early 'fan' scene relating to fantasy and science fiction, published several important journals - The Dragon-Fly (two issues - Oct 15, 1935 and May 15, 1936); and Leaves (two issues - Summer 1937; Winter 1938/39). [2]. He was also proprietor of his imprint, the Dragon-Fly Press (Cassia, Florida) and under that imprint published two important works by members of the Lovecraft Circle - The Goblin Tower (the first verse collection by Frank Belknap Long - Lovecraft helped Barlow set the type for this) and The Cats of Ulthar , a story by H.P. Lovecraft. [3] Barlow's fiction career was interrupted in 1937 by a variety of circumstances, including the death of his friend and mentor Lovecraft, and his own uprooting from Florida because of family troubles. In 1938 he edited Lovecraft's Notes and Commonplace Book and in 1939 edited After Sunset (John Howell, 1939), a collection of the best poems written by George Sterling in the last years before Sterling's suicide in 1926. In 1943, Barlow lent assistance to the first bibliography of Lovecraft (by Francis T. Laney and William H. Evans). His poignant memoir of Lovecraft, "The Wind That is in the Grass" can be found in Marginalia (Arkham House, 1944). Barlow also contributed the introduction for the 1944 Arkham House volume Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales by his fellow Floridian and Weird Tales author Henry S. Whitehead. Sculptor [ edit | edit source ] Barlow was highly regarded as a sculptor, before his move into anthropology, and in one letter (to Clark Ashton Smith, 16 May 1937) he compained that people took it more seriously than his writings. But it appears that none of his sculptural work has survived. Anthropologist [ edit | edit source ] Barlow moved permanently to Mexico around 1943, where he taught at several colleges, and in 1948 became chairman of the anthropology department at Mexico City College and a distinguished anthropologist of Indigenous Mesoamerican culture. He taught classes at Mexico City College, to mostly American students who were mostly there under funding from the post-war G.I. Bill. The famous writer William S. Burroughs studied the Mayan Codices under Barlow in the first half of 1950, and went on at least one field trip with him to the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan. The Mayan symbolism and political structure he found there later featured heavily in Burroughs' fiction. At the same time Barlow cooperated with Prof. Salvador Mateos Higuera in a descriptive study of Mexican codices. Within a brief three years he had cooperated with George T. Smisor to plan and edit Tlalocan , a journal of source materials on native cultures of Mexico. Beginning in 1943 with the appearance of Tlalocan his productivity attained added momentum and his articles appeared with increasing frequency in the scholarly journals of Mexico, United States and Europe. Concern for minutiae led to such works of detail as "The 18th Century Relaciones Geograficas ". [2] In 1950 he published Mexihkatl itonalama ("The Mexican's calendar"), a Nahuatl-language newspaper. His work in Mesoamerican anthropology is of pioneering significance, and his collected anthropological papers are in the process of publication in Mexico. At this time Barlow was also continuing his work a poet, writing both formalist verse and experimental verse of the Activist school pioneered by Lawrence Hart. Sidebar. Help us to keep the site ad-free and bring fresh paid content from creators as well. Categories. Our RSS Feed. Halloween Countdown 2020 – The Tomb and Other Tales by H.P. Lovecraft. 25. The Tomb and Other Tales by H.P. Lovecraft. Are YOU ready to enter the Tomb? In a dank wooded hollow stands the Tomb, excavated far back into the hillside. Its portals are slabs of granite, its door a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone which hangs upon rusted hinges, fastened ajar in a queerly sinister way with heavy iron chains and padlocks. One man has the key that will open the tomb wide. One man will face the nameless horrors within. You can follow him inside – if you dare… H.P. Lovecraft The world’s greatest master of heart-stopping, mind spinning supernatural horror, weaves his chilling spells of fascination in this superb collection of tales, each one a polished black jewel of ultimate terror. This extraordinary collection features 13 spine-tingling tales of delicious terror by the unquestioned master of the horror genre, as well as portions of stories he never fully completed. Discover how the mind of H.P. Lovecraft worked, and how much his early and late stories tell about this intriguing writer. My introduction to HP many many years ago with one of my all-time favorite covers. The artist, John Holmes, never failed to deliver a load of emotion in his covers for Lovecraft. The text for the entire The Tomb story is available here Bill. H.P. Lovecraft is best known for creating such works as The Call of Cthulhu ( adapted into a silent film by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society) , The Haunter of the Dark (an homage to Robert Bloch and heavily influential to the movie In the Mouth of Madness ), Dreams in the Witch House (adapted into a Masters of Horror episode directed by Stuart Gordon and adapted into an album, The Dreams in the Witch House: A Lovecraftian Rock Opera) , and At the Mountains of Madness (still patiently waiting for Guillermo del Toro to bring us his vision of the story to the big screen). Check back tomorrow for Brian’s choice in our Halloween Cover Countdown! GracieKat was the first co-host of Sci-Fi & Scary, Lilyn’s partner-in-crime, and sub-head of the Kali Krew. She reviews horror books, movies, and games for the site. She also does a weekly Focus on the Frightful feature, and is the site list-maker. She is also in control of the Sci-Fi & Scary podcast which will relaunch soon. Details about The Tomb & Other Tales by H.P. Lovecraft 1975 Horror Cthulhu Ed. August Derleth. You must return items in their original packaging and in the same condition as when you received them. If you don't follow our item condition policy for returns , you may not receive a full refund. Refunds by law: In Australia, consumers have a legal right to obtain a refund from a business if the goods purchased are faulty, not fit for purpose or don't match the seller's description. More information at returns . The Tomb and Other Tales by H.P. Lovecraft. Anacreon had a red nose, so they say; But what’s a red nose if ye’re happy and gay? Gad split me! I’d rather be red whilst I’m here, Than white as a lily—and dead half a year! So Betty, my miss, Come give me a kiss; In hell there’s no innkeeper’s daughter like this! Young Harry, propp’d up just as straight as he’s able, Will soon lose his wig and slip under the table; But fill up your goblets and pass ’em around — Better under the table than under the ground! So revel and chaff As ye thirstily quaff: Under six feet of dirt ’tis less easy to laugh!