The Thing in the Moonlight by H. P. Lovecraft and J. Chapman MiskeThe Thing in 
the Moonlight
by H. P. Lovecraft and J. Chapman Miske
Written November 24, 1927 
Published 
The following is based, in places word for word, on a letter Lovecraft wrote to 
Donald Wandrei on November 24, 1927. The first three and last five paragraphs 
were added by J. Chapman Miske; the remainder is almost verbatim Lovecraft. 
In the letter, Lovecraft reveals that his "dreams occasionally approach'd the 
phantastical in character, tho' falling somewhat short of coherence." Many of 
his stories were inspired by dreams. 
Morgan is not a literary man; in fact he cannot speak English with any degree of 
coherency. That is what makes me wonder about the words he wrote, though others 
have laughed. 
He was alone the evening it happened. Suddenly an unconquerable urge to write 
came over him, and taking pen in hand he wrote the following: 
  My name is Howard Phillips. I live at 66 College Street, in Providence, Rhode 
  Island. On November 24, 1927--for I know not even what the year may be now--, 
  I fell asleep and dreamed, since when I have been unable to awaken. 
  My dream began in a dank, reed-choked marsh that lay under a gray autumn sky, 
  with a rugged cliff of lichen-crusted stone rising to the north. Impelled by 
  some obscure quest, I ascended a rift or cleft in this beetling precipice, 
  noting as I did so the black mouths of many fearsome burrows extending from 
  both walls into the depths of the stony plateau. 
  At several points the passage was roofed over by the choking of the upper 
  parts of the narrow fissure; these places being exceeding dark, and forbidding 
  the perception of such burrows as may have existed there. In one such dark 
  space I felt conscious of a singular accession of fright, as if some subtle 
  and bodiless emanation from the abyss were engulfing my spirit; but the 
  blackness was too great for me to perceive the source of my alarm. 
  At length I emerged upon a tableland of moss-grown rock and scanty soil, lit 
  by a faint moonlight which had replaced the expiring orb of day. Casting my 
  eyes about, I beheld no living object; but was sensible of a very peculiar 
  stirring far below me, amongst the whispering rushes of the pestilential swamp 
  I had lately quitted. 
  After walking for some distance, I encountered the rusty tracks of a street 
  railway, and the worm-eaten poles which still held the limp and sagging 
  trolley wire. Following this line, I soon came upon a yellow, vestibuled car 
  numbered 1852--of a plain, double-trucked type common from 1900 to 1910. It 
  was untenanted, but evidently ready to start; the trolley being on the wire 
  and the air-brake now and then throbbing beneath the floor. I boarded it and 
  looked vainly about for the light switch--noting as I did so the absence of 
  the controller handle, which thus implied the brief absence of the motorman. 
  Then I sat down in one of the cross seats of the vehicle. Presently I heard a 
  swishing in the sparse grass toward the left, and saw the dark forms of two 
  men looming up in the moonlight. They had the regulation caps of a railway 
  company, and I could not doubt but that they were conductor and motorman. Then 
  one of them sniffed with singular sharpness, and raised his face to howl to 
  the moon. The other dropped on all fours to run toward the car. 
  I leaped up at once and raced madly out of that car and across endless leagues 
  of plateau till exhaustion forced me to stop--doing this not because the 
  conductor had dropped on all fours, but because the face of the motorman was a 
  mere white cone tapering to one blood-red-tentacle... 
  I was aware that I only dreamed, but the very awareness was not pleasant. 
  Since that fearful night, I have prayed only for awakening--it has not come! 
  Instead I have found myself an inhabitant of this terrible dream-world! That 
  first night gave way to dawn, and I wandered aimlessly over the lonely 
  swamp-lands. When night came, I still wandered, hoping for awakening. But 
  suddenly I parted the weeds and saw before me the ancient railway car--and to 
  one side a cone-faced thing lifted its head and in the streaming moonlight 
  howled strangely! 
  It has been the same each day. Night takes me always to that place of horror. 
  I have tried not moving, with the coming of nightfall, but I must walk in my 
  slumber, for always I awaken with the thing of dread howling before me in the 
  pale moonlight, and I turn and flee madly. 
  God! when will I awaken? 
That is what Morgan wrote. I would go to 66 College Street in Providence, but I 
fear for what I might find there. 



Document modified: 03/01/2000 08:36:48