The Horror at Martin's Beach
Short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Sonia H. Greene
| "The Horror at Martin's Beach" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by H. P. Lovecraft Sonia H. Greene | |
 Text available at Wikisource | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Weird Tales |
| Publication date | November 1923 |
"The Horror at Martin's Beach" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Sonia H. Greene. It was written in June 1922 and first published (as "The Invisible Monster") in November 1923 in Weird Tales (Vol. 2, No. 4, pages 75–76, 83).[1]
Plot
Sailors kill a 50-foot creature at sea after a lengthy battle. The creature bears strange anatomical irregularities such as a single large eye and rudimentary forelegs and six-toed feet in place of pectoral fins. After inspection by marine biologists, it is revealed to be just a juvenile. The captain who captured the creature tours the coast and profits from the corpse of the deceased creature. Some month's later, the vessel with the creature, breaks free from its moorings in a storm and disappears.
A few weeks later, as the captain attempts to finish his business at Martin's Beach, two lifeguards and other on the beach attempt to rescue something at sea, but are pulled in. The captain and others attempt to rescue the victims but it is too late. The rescuers and the captain are seemingly hypnotized and pulled into the water by the creature's apparently vengeful mother, to the horror of an onlooking crowd.
Reprints
The story has been included in at least four collections of Lovecraft's works:
- Something About Cats and Other Pieces, Arkham House, 1949. Facsimile reprint by Books for Libraries Press, 1971.
- The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1970 as "The Invisible Monster" by Sonia Greene
- The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. Edited by S. T. Joshi. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1989, ISBN 0-87054-040-8, 325–30. As "The Horror at Martin’s Beach" by Sonia H. Greene
- The Loved Dead and Other Revisions. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1997, ISBN 0-7867-0445-4, 125–30.
References
- ^ Joshi, S.T.; Schultz, David E. (2004). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Hippocampus Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-0974878911.
External links
The full text of The Horror at Martin's Beach at Wikisource- The Horror at Martin's Beach title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- v
- t
- e
- "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"
- "The Green Meadow"
- "Poetry and the Gods"
- "The Crawling Chaos"
- "The Horror at Martin's Beach"
- "Under the Pyramids"
- "The Curse of Yig"
- The Mound
- "Medusa's Coil"
- "The Horror in the Museum"
- "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
- "Out of the Aeons"
- "The Tree on the Hill"
- "Till A' the Seas"
- "In the Walls of Eryx"
- The Cancer of Superstition
- "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
- To Quebec and the Stars
- Autobiography: Some Notes on a Nonentity
- 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
- Lovecraft studies
- Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture
- H. P. Lovecraft (band)
- H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society
- Adaptations
- Lovecraft (crater)
- Cthulhu Macula
- Aklo
- Dream Cycle
- Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (documentary)
- Sonia Greene (wife)
- The Thing in the Moonlight
Category
 | This article about a horror short story (or stories) published in the 1920s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e
