The Shunned House

The narrator investigates the legend around the town's "haunted" house. This is written more as an investigation would be written up as opposed to a story. It does come across as a bit dry as Lovecraft fleshes out the provenance of the "haunted" house's legend.

3 STARS

This story was my introduction to Lovecraft. I've been a big fan of Poe, and Stephen King, and I was recommended by a friend to try out Lovecraft because he's an amazing author. The book is good, interesting, and the details are to die for. The story is a short one, but it's one that I really got into and didn't take me long to read.

The only reason I'm not giving this five stars is because Lovecraft himself was a racist writer, and I'm taking a hiatus and xenophobic dude, and I'm taking a hiatus from him. There are none of those themes in this story, but I've read other works that do have that theme, so I'm not really big on him now.

Not the most engaging story by Lovecraft I have read, and some of the pages did not exactly fit in the ebook format, but still fun. I really enjoy how the horror slowly builds, and how, when reading a Lovecraft story, his use of technology, or the way he explains things make you forget that the stories are often set in the 1920's or earlier

I was a bit disappointed in this book. The plot wasn't bad, but the execution of the book it self, left me a bit confused and bewildered. I kept waiting for some totally, dramatic, drawn out ,gruesome depiction of this creature. When I was done reading the book I felt as though something was missing.

The reality is that this story has hardly anything to recommend it. Slow (almost nonexistent) plot, sparse characters.

And I loved it.

This is an example of master craftsmanship as even though it is basically a history of a house without any overt personalization or interest in many of the things that drive us to enjoy a book, Lovecraft is able to write each word so that an atmosphere of terror slowly pervades the senses. A great read for someone learning how to drive fear by making each word matter.

I order'd this booklet from the store because I so love the cover illustration. Alas, this publisher does not give credit to the artist--Virgil Finlay. I think they stole the drawing from the Arkham House book, MARGINALIA, where I believe this fine illustration had its first appearance.

This publisher is rather weird, for they incorrectly refer to "The Shunned House" thus: "A Posthumous story of immense power..." Then, again, on the following page: "His ability to create and sustain a mood of brooding dread and unnamable horror is nowhere better shown than in the posthumous tale presented here..." Posthumous? What the hell are they talking about? Perhaps they are thinking of the unfortunate fate of the story's first appearance--or non-appearance. Here is its history as detailed by S. T. Joshi:

"'The Shunned House' was written in mid-October 1924. It was the first of HPL's major stories to be rejected by Weird Tales, editor Farnsworth Wright maintaining in September 1925 that it began too gradually. Curiously enough, a few months earlier HPL had submitted it to Detective Tales, edited by Edwin Baird. Baird was Weird Tales's first editor (1923-24), who had accepted everything HPL had sent him, but he rejected the story. W. Paul Cook, HPL's amateur associate, initially wished to use it in his magazine, The Recluse, but the one and only issue ever published (1927) had too much other material to accomodate the story, so Cook decided to publish it as a separate booklet. Although he set the story in type (Lovecraft read the proofs in June 1928) and printed three hundred copies, financial and personal misfortunes prevented Cook from binding them. A few copies were bound by R. H. Barlow in 1934-35, but the story did not receive widespread distribution until it appeared in Weird Tales (October 1937)."

Thus we see that the story is by no means "posthumous"--merely unfortunate, and that some few copies were bound and distributed in Lovecraft's lifetime. The text of this edition seems sound and is the editorial work of S. T. Joshi, who receives no acknowledge in this book. Since Joshi's Corrected Text are his property, this publication may in fact be illegal.

The story is quite wonderful and has many elements that are unique unto it. This is an attractive chapbook edition--although it is quite useless if one has the story in other collections of Lovecraft's Tales, such as the magnificent Penguin Classics edition, THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, where the story is completed annotated by editor S. T. Joshi.

But, gawd, that cover illustration sure is awesome.

This short story/book is classic H.P. Lovecraft. The narration by Neil Helligers was well done, although I would pronounce some words differently than he did.

We all know of those houses in our childhoods that we avoided and crossed the street when passing them because we knew they were haunted. This is a story about such a house where the narrator and his uncle, Dr. Elihu Whipple decide to spend the night in it's cellar to see if they can root out the problem. Many people have died in this house or have simply gone mad. Was the house the cause?
Was the property perhaps at fault? They hope to discover this on their overnight trip.

Only one returns.

This is a clever story that fills you with complete dread as you plunge in with the narrator to diagnose a haunted, cursed house in Providence, Rhode Island.

As with all of Lovecraft's stories, this takes to long to establish itself. It seems like a full half of the book is detailing the extensive history of the house, giving several accounting of its strange nature. Several could have been cut out entirely, making the story less monotonous and perhaps a little scary. Butt you read on for so long that it's just boring, even when we descended into the basement of the house.

This is what I'd consider to be a middle-ground Lovecraft story. It's not bad, I don't think it's good enough for me to really remember the story in a few days. And that, for me, is not a good sign.

H.P. Lovecraft knew how to do horror and science fiction (as well as anything else he wrote) in a way that was uniquely his own. In The Shunned House, his brilliance for just such a thing is ever apparent. The story is super short and it has that bit of a creep factor he was known for. It was definitely a fun one to read and for the length of the thing, I would recommend it to everyone out there. Everyone should read a bit of Lovecraft every now and then and this one is great for a heavy duty fan and perfect for someone who just wants to give him a try.

I've read that this book wasn't ever thought of as one of Lovecraft's best, but that's saying much for Lovecraft because it is pretty awesome. His style was wordy but in a very classical and illuminating way. This could have been your typical haunted house story or ghost tale, but it is much more in its creepiness and substance.

It is very good to see this offered as a free download. It was readable and the formatting was okay.

At the moment it seems to be the only free HP Lovecraft book available on the store which is bit strange as his work is out of copyright.

This is a haunted house short story and for a Lovecraft tale it is quite straightforward.

It is very atmospheric and I quite enjoyed it. His longer works can get quite exhausting but I managed to read this all in one go.

It isn't amazing or anything really special but it was pretty interesting and quite enjoyable to see him tackle a more conventional subject than the works that made his name.

The title "shunned house" still stands in Providence, R.I. It's worth a search to have a picture to go along with the story. This book is a slow boil ... it takes a bit to get there but it's totally worth the time. I was mesmerized and unable to take my eyes from the page. Great read!

I had never read this one before, and, having always been a fan of HPL picked it up on here because, well how could I not?
I have not been disappointed and neither has my initial faith in it's being a slice of vintage Lovecraft been in vain; it has all that one might expect: dark implications and malevolent suggestions of madness, fear, and shadowy unwholesome entities alongside a remarkably thorough history and narrative of past times and tragedies, all leading to the final denouement and a thoroughly Lovecraftian climax.
Here's to the Great man, long may he live on!

Lovecraft mastered the eerie mood, the sense of creeping horror. This short story captures that sense, from the first glimmerings of something not quite right to murderous, supernatural forces, to the human domination of that unknown evil. In all those ways, this matches the best of Lovecraft's eldritch oeuvre.

I can't say this story miscarries, just that it never quite comes to term. The evil force barely materializes before being erased with a very special cleaning solution. Great mood, great evocation of massive, mysterious forces, but no reall carry-through. If you can find this free (and you can), it will be worth every cent.

-- wiredwierd

The Shunned House tells of how a man and his uncle delve into the horror surrounding a particular house and of the one night vigil they keep in order to divine the secrets of the house.
All in all the book is not that scary but it is definitely creepy.
While I was reading this book I able to increase the scare factor some due to the fact i was listening to Darklore Manor by Nox Arcana.
A good, quick read.