Gruselkabinett, Folge 78: Das Ding auf der Schwelle

Geschrieben von H.P. Lovecraft

Erzählt von Helmut Winkelmann, Stefan Krause, Jürgen Thormann und 2 weiteren

Es ist wahr, ich habe meinem besten Freund in jener regnerischen Nacht Anfang Februar des Jahres 1933 sechs Kugeln durch den Kopf gejagt und doch hoffe ich, beweisen zu können, dass ich nicht sein Mörder bin. Sicherlich werden manche denken, dass ich bloß ein Verrückter bin sogar noch verrückter als der Mann, den ich in seiner Zelle im Arkham Sanatorium erschossen habe. Andere hingegen werden, wenn sie meinen Bericht gehört haben, anerkennen, dass ich gar keine andere Wahl hatte, nachdem ich das grauenhafte Beweisstück gesehen hatte ... dieses Ding auf der Schwelle.

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: Titania Medien
• Erscheinungsdatum: 8. Juni 2018

H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of science fiction and horror stories. Born in Providence, Rhode Island to a wealthy family, he suffered the loss of his father at a young age. Raised with his mother’s family, he was doted upon throughout his youth and found a paternal figure in his grandfather Whipple, who encouraged his literary interests. He began writing stories and poems inspired by the classics and by Whipple’s spirited retellings of Gothic tales of terror. In 1902, he began publishing a periodical on astronomy, a source of intellectual fascination for the young Lovecraft. Over the next several years, he would suffer from a series of illnesses that made it nearly impossible to attend school. Exacerbated by the decline of his family’s financial stability, this decade would prove formative to Lovecraft’s worldview and writing style, both of which depict humanity as cosmologically insignificant. Supported by his mother Susie in his attempts to study organic chemistry, Lovecraft eventually devoted himself to writing poems and stories for such pulp and weird-fiction magazines as Argosy, where he gained a cult following of readers. Early stories of note include “The Alchemist” (1916), “The Tomb” (1917), and “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (1919). “The Call of Cthulu,” originally published in pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928, is considered by many scholars and fellow writers to be his finest, most complex work of fiction. Inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft became one of the century’s leading horror writers whose influence remains essential to the genre.