Science Fiction & Fantasy Asked on March 27, 2021
I’m looking for a short story that I believe is only a couple of pages long in which the narrator describes his friend who does not speak English falling into a sort of trance and writing down (in English) a cry to help of a man who is trapped in a dream or something of the sort. The story ends with the narrator remarking that he is afraid to seek out the address at which that man is located for fear of what he might find.
Details may vary, I thought that I read this in a Lovecraft anthology but I couldn’t find it among his collected works (maybe I’m just bad at Google).
I think I read this in an unofficial ebook collection of Lovecraft’s complete works which contained all of his well known stories too. So maybe this is one by another author that slipped in? Or I’m confusing it with another weird fiction anthology I have read at some point.
The Thing in the Moonlight by Lovecraft. It starts:
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.
And ends:
That is what Morgan wrote. I would go to 66 College Street in Providence, but I fear for what I might find there.
I read it in the collection Eldritch Tales, though it has appeared in lots of anthologies. It is also available on hplovecraft.com.
Although the story is credited to Lovecraft it is a little more complicated than that. Lovecraft wrote a letter to a friend describing a dream, and the story The Thing in the Moonlight was created by J. Chapman Miske who took the text from Lovecraft's letter and turned it into the short story. You'll note the dreamer describes himself as Howard Phillips and 66 College Street is the address of Lovecraft's house. There is more on this in the Wikipedia article on the story.
Correct answer by John Rennie on March 27, 2021
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