The Horror in the Museum

"The Horror in the Museum" is a short story ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft for Somerville, MA writer Hazel Heald in October 1932, published in 1933.^[1] It is one of five stories Lovecraft revised for Heald. The story has been reprinted in several collections, such as The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. Heald had been introduced to Lovecraft by his Providence friend Muriel E. Eddy (see C. M. Eddy, Jr.). Starting in 1965 his letters to friends and other writers were published in which Lovecraft claimed that this story was mostly his own work. E.g. in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith he wrote on 14th of June 1933 (published in 'Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill', page 420): "Yes—the waxwork museum story is mostly my own; entirely so in wording, & also so far as concerns the background of Alaskan archaeology & antique horror. You will find Tsathoggua mentioned."

Plot

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The tale concerns the relationship between Stephen Jones and George Rogers, the owner of a private wax museum specialising in the grotesque in London. Initially cordial, it degenerates as Jones first mocks Rogers then comes to suspect that he is demented with his "wild tales and suggestions of rites and sacrifices to nameless elder gods". Jones takes up Rogers's standing offer to spend a night in the museum and is attacked by his host, who is in turn killed by the entity Rhan-Tegoth that he has been making sacrifices to, and ends up becoming part of the display. It is implied that his assistant shot Rhan-Tegoth to make him part of said display.

References

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^ Joshi, S.T.; Schultz, David E. (2004). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Hippocampus Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0974878911.

External links

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Works related to The Horror in the Museum at Wikisource

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Short stories	"The Beast in the Cave" "The Alchemist" "The Tomb" "Dagon" "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson" "Polaris" "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" "Memory" "Old Bugs" "The Transition of Juan Romero" "The White Ship" "The Street" "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" "The Statement of Randolph Carter" "The Terrible Old Man" "The Tree" "The Cats of Ulthar" "The Temple" "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" "Celephaïs" "From Beyond" "Nyarlathotep" "The Picture in the House" "Ex Oblivione" "Sweet Ermengarde" "The Nameless City" "The Quest of Iranon" "The Moon-Bog" "The Outsider" "The Other Gods" "The Music of Erich Zann" "Herbert West–Reanimator" "Hypnos" "What the Moon Brings" "Azathoth" "The Hound" "The Lurking Fear" "The Rats in the Walls" "The Unnamable" "The Festival" "The Shunned House" "The Horror at Red Hook" "He" "In the Vault" "Cool Air" "The Call of Cthulhu" "Pickman's Model" "The Silver Key" "The Strange High House in the Mist" "The Colour Out of Space" "The Descendant" "History of the Necronomicon" "The Very Old Folk" "Ibid" "The Dunwich Horror" "The Dreams in the Witch House" "The Thing on the Doorstep" "The Evil Clergyman" "The Book" "The Haunter of the Dark"
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Books about	H. P. Lovecraft: A Life H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia Lovecraft: A Biography Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos
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