HAPPY HALLOWEEN

When I was a teenager and home alone one night, I started reading an old, used book of short stories I had picked up on sale. It was written by an author I had never heard of. His name is H.P. Lovecraft.

After I had read for a while, the room seemed to grow colder, the house seemed darker and somehow I really needed to make certain the doors and windows were locked. Every little sound and creak of the house sounded ominous. Lovecraft does that to a person.

Today, Lovecraft is famous. Stephen King called him ”the Twentieth Century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.” Several motion pictures have been made of his work, including the “Dunwich Horror.”

Lovecraft was a very mixed up person, living a confused life. Sadly, he never made enough money from writing to properly support himself. The fame he has today eluded him during his lifetime. Lovecraft’s stories appeared in “Weird Tales” magazine, looked down upon by sophisticates of his time. Lovecraft died in poverty in 1937.

Last year, to celebrate Halloween, I recorded one of Lovecraft’s short stories,
“ The Terrible Old Man,” for my friends. I decided to post it to YouTube and share it with the Listen2Read audiobook blog community.

“The Terrible Old Man” is a classic gothic horror story. It was published in 1921, early in Lovecraft’s writing career. It is about 10 minutes long.

And so, in the spirit of Halloween, I share it once again.

Here’s the link:

Happy Halloween.

Andre Stojka
Publisher
Listen2Read audiobooks
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