Herbert West: Reanimator

Sheba Blake, H.P. Lovecraft

Summary

Herbert West: Reanimator is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. The story was the basis of the 1985 horror film Re-Animator and its sequels, in addition to numerous other adaptations in various media. The story is the first to mention Lovecraft's fictional Miskatonic University. It is also notable as one of the first depictions of zombies as scientifically reanimated corpses, with animalistic and uncontrollable temperament. Lovecraft originally serialised the story in Home Brew Vol. 1, No. 1-6, an amateur magazine published by his friend George Julian Houtain. Lovecraft claimed to be unhappy with the work, writing it only because he was being paid five dollars for each installment. Moreover, he disliked the requirement that each installment end with a cliffhanger, which was unlike his normal style. He also had to begin each installment with a recap of the previous episode. The book Science Fiction-The Early Years calls "Herbert West-Reanimator" "wretched work". Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi claims that "Herbert West-Reanimator" is "universally acknowledged as Lovecraft's poorest work." According to his letters, Lovecraft wrote the story as a parody of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He drops in numerous Frankenstein references (even hinting at the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as Shelley did).

Available since: 04/19/2017.

Other books that might interest you

Stories and Rhymes

Beatrix Potter, Hans Christian...

An entertaining selection of short stories and rhymes, perfect for bedtime.

Show book

The Red Flower - This deep...

Vsevelod Garshin

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was born on 14th February 1855 in what is now Dnipro in the Ukraine, but then part of the Russian Empire.

After attending secondary school he studied at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.

Wars between and on behalf of Empires were a regular feature of the decades then. Garshin volunteered to serve in the Russian army at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.

He began as a private in the Balkans campaign and was wounded in action. By the end of the war, in 1878, he had been promoted to officer rank.

By now Garshin, having previously published some articles and reviews in newspapers, wished to devote himself to a literary career. The decision made he resigned his army commission.

His time as a soldier provided rich experiences for his early stories. His first ‘Four Days’ was related as the interior monologue of a wounded soldier left for dead on the battlefield for four days, face to face with the corpse of a Turkish soldier he had killed, gained him early admiration as an author of note.

He wrote perhaps only 20 stories, but their influence was immense, although in these more modern times he is barely remembered and lives in the more prolific shadows of others. His characters are superbly worked into stories that come alive in the intensity and reality of his prose.

Garshin’s most well-known story is ‘The Red Flower’, also known as ‘Scarlet Blossom’ and is easily amongst the first rank of stories dealing with mental health issues.

Despite early literary success, he himself experienced periodical bouts of mental illness.

In one such bout Garshin attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself down the stone stairs leading into his apartment building. Although not immediately fatal, Vsevolod Garshin died as a result of his injuries in a St Petersburg hospital on 5th April 1888. He was 33.

In this captivating story a man is placed into an insane asylum. Life may be grim within its walls but he has a plan to remove evil from the world. All it takes is further sacrifice from himself.

Show book

Dating with Allergies

Martin Lundqvist

A flash fiction story about Jasmine and Francois who inadvertently send eachother to hospital on their first two dates, due to ignorance of the partners obscure allergies.

Show book

The Ice King

FREI

"Deep inside the glacier lives The Ice King, supple and smooth. His skin is aglow with the cold, and unbelievably soft. He should be milky white, but there’s an olive tint to his hue, and no sooner do I see him, than I want to touch him." 
The Ice King is a poetic short story about life in a world of the senses and the expanded mind. 
EDEN miniatures are twelve texts from EDEN by FREI – a concept narrative in the here & now about the where, the wherefore and forever, first published online at EDENbyFREI.net.

Show book

The Canterville Ghost

Oscar Wilde

This is Oscar Wilde's tale of the American family moved into a British mansion, Canterville Chase, much to the annoyance of its tired ghost. The family -- which refuses to believe in him -- is in Wilde's way a commentary on the British nobility of the day -- and on the Americans, too. The tale, like many of Wilde's, is rich with allusion, but ends as sentimental romance. .

Show book

Night Beast - And Other Stories

Ruth Joffre

A debut collection of doomed love stories and twisted fairytales “perfect for fans of Kelly Link and of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties” (Booklist).   In Night Beasts, author Ruth Joffre explores the lives of women—particularly queer women and mothers—and reveals the monsters lurking in our daily lives: the madness, isolation, betrayals, and regrets that arise as we seek human connection. Joffre takes readers to places where the sun never sets, where cornfields rustle ominously, and sleepwalkers prowl the night. In “Weekend,” the lead actors of an avant-garde television show begin to confuse their characters’ identities with their own; in “Go West, and Grow Up,” a young girl living in a car with her mother is forced to shed her innocence too soon; and in “Safekeeping,” a woman trapped inside a futuristic safehouse gradually unravels as she waits for her lover, who may never return.   “A cri de coeur for sympathy and understanding,” Night Beast is a mind-bending, genre-hopping debut, a provocative and uncommonly raw examination of relationships and sexuality, trauma and redemption, the meaning of family, and coming-of-age—and growing old—as an outsider (Publishers Weekly).

Show book