The Dreams in the Witch House

I've always been a big reader / fan of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction. Love his crazy, cosmically horrifying imagination, his wordy, luxurious writing voice, and his dark, unswerving certainty regarding the unavoidable, miserable future for the pathetic little human race.

So I've been struck by the urge to do a series of illustrations based on his work.

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"The Dreams in the Witch-House" was one of the first stories I ever read (or tried to read...) by H.P. Lovecraft, when I was just beginning to take an interest in his fiction... I think I was probably about 15 years old at that time. If you know Lovecraft's work - you know that his complex writing style can take some getting used to. Like most delicacies, it's an unusual flavor, and at that early stage I hadn't acquired a taste for it yet. So, on my first reading of "Dreams in the Witch-House", it didn't make a big impression on me.

As time went on, I gradually plowed through all of Lovecraft's shorter, simpler stories, then worked my way through his longer novellas, and finally reached a point where I felt downright cozy with Lovecraft's "voice". Eventually I ran across "Dreams in the Witch-House" in one of the collections, and decided to give it another try. ...And this time - loved it.

Clearly the only reason I hadn't enjoyed it the first time around was because I was still too new to Lovecraft's style, too unfamiliar with the continuing themes of his work, and just not ready for this insane little epic, which offers a mind boggling blend of old fashioned haunted-house horror with sci-fi quantum physics and alternate dimensions.

Since then, I have found myself returning to "Dreams in the Witch-House" over and over again, and enjoying it more and more each time. It has definitely entered my top ten list of all-time favorite Lovecraft stories.