"The Horror in the Museum" is a short story ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft for Somerville, MA writer

Hazel Heald Hazel Heald (April 6, 1896February 4, 1961) was a pulp fiction writer, who lived in Somerville, Massachusetts. She is perhaps best known for collaborating with American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Biography Heald was born the daughter ...

in October 1932, published in 1933. 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

The tale concerns the relationship between Stephen Jones and George Rogers, the owner of a private wax museum specialising in the grotesque in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. 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 displays. It is implied that his assistant shot Rhan-Tegoth to make him part of said display.

References

External links

* 1933 short stories Fantasy short stories Horror short stories Short stories set in London Short stories by H. P. Lovecraft {{1930s-horror-story-stub