An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

The subject of the poem is a king of Zimbabwe who “fears to dream.” WTrejected the poem because of its length. HPL probably derived some of the plot and imagery from accounts of Zimbabwe told to him by Edward L.Sechrist, who had actually explored the ruins of the African city. “Outsider, The.”

Short story (2,620 words); probably written in spring or summer 1921. First published in WT(April 1926); rpt. WT(June–July 1931); first collected in O;corrected text in DH;annotated version in CC A mysterious individual has spent his entire life virtually alone except for some aged person who seems to take care of him. He resides in an ancient castle that has no mirrors. At length he decides to forsake the castle and seek the light by climbing the tallest tower of the edifice. With great effort he manages to ascend the tower and experiences “the purest ecstasy I have ever known: for shining tranquilly through an ornate grating of iron…was the radiant full moon, which I had never before seen save in dreams and in vague visions I dared not call memories.” But horror follows this spectacle, for he now observes that he is not at some lofty height but has merely reached “the solid ground.”Stunned by this revelation, he walks dazedly through a wooded park where a “venerable ivied castle” stands. This castle is “maddeningly familiar, yet full of perplexing strangeness to me”; but he detects the sights and sounds of joyous revelry within. He steps through a window of the castle to join the merry band, but at that instant “there occurred one of the most terrifying demonstrations I had ever conceived”: the partygoers flee madly from some hideous sight, and the protagonist appears to be alone with the monster who has seemingly driven the crowd away in frenzy. He thinks he sees this creature “beyond the golden-arched doorway leading to another and somewhat similar room” and finally does catch a clear glimpse of it. It proves to be a loathsome monstrosity—“a compound of all that is unclean,

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uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation; the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide.” He seeks to escape the monster, but inadvertently falls forward instead of retreating; at that instant he touches “the rotting outstretched paw of the monster beneath the golden arch.”It is only then that he realizes that that arch contains “a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.”