“The Mysterious Ship” by H.P. Lovecraft
This story marks Lovecraft’s first fiction piece featuring an arctic (or Antarctic) environment! Most famously, we obviously see him explore the Antarctic ‘Mountains of Madness’ in later works. There are no shoggoths to be found in this story. For historical context, note this story was written in 1902, when Lovecraft would’ve been 11 or 12. It was thus written seven years before Peary’s claim of having reached the North Pole. A lot of younger audiences may not know this: the race to the North and South Poles was somewhat like the space race to the moon. It was an achievement many countries were vying for, so it would’ve been a part of both the American cultural zeitgeist. It may have also been a common theme in pulp, adventure, and mystery fiction, of which Lovecraft was openly and clearly a fan.
I highly perusing Brown’s scans of the typed manuscript. Lovecraft’s art is adorable. Brown Digital Repository | Item | bdr:425208 I’ve provided snippets of said art at the bottom of this blog post.
I read the ‘long version’ of the story for my reading and decided against doing two separate videos (one for the short version, one for the long version.) I had to ad lib some parts that Lovecraft left unfinished, especially at the end, and skip over what may have been spelling mistakes. Note that the chapter marks are part of the original text.
This is another piece of Lovecraft’s juvenilia and it shows. It’s got his fascination with pirates, the sea, mysteries, and spring mechanisms. Note that the springs mentioned are the boing-boing type springs, not water springs.
This story is rather Vernian, given the mention of not just one, but two submarines. Note that Vernes’ “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” was first released in English in 1872. It is thus not out of the question that Lovecraft read this book as a child.
I need to get my tentacles on another copy of S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz’s “Lovecraft’s Library: A Catalogue.” I had a copy back in university. I highly recommend it as a resource for anyone interested in a deeper exploration of Lovecraft’s influences. I don’t think there’s a publication by S.T. Joshi that I wouldn’t recommend. If S.T. Joshi sold printer paper, that’s all I’d use exclusively, by merit of it being Joshi approved. I am an S.T. Joshi Stan (S.T.an?)
The motives of the pirates are never revealed. Why are they kidnapping people? Who is funding their submarine expeditions?
I don’t know what a ‘Madagascar reaper,’ is. It’s mentioned in the story at the end. Google failed me. Thanks, Google. I assume that, given Dahabea was kidnapped while doing farmwork, it’s literally a reaper: a scythe or some other instrument used to collect crops. Sometimes, a white whale is just a white whale, and sometimes, a reaper is just a reaper.
The Mysterious Ship cover art
I don’t know if Lovecraft himself drew this or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He was a much better artist at the age of twelve(?) than I was and I wonder if he ever considered pursuing training in the visual arts. Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
H.P. Lovecraft’s Rhode Island Flag
I would like to formally petition the state of Rhode Island to change their flag to this hand drawn version of the flag by the prince of Providence, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. If they change the flag, I will move there.
