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The Outsider

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"The Outsider" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between March and August 1921, it was first published in Weird Tales, April 1926. In this work, a mysterious man who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search of human contact. "The Outsider" is one of Lovecraft's most commonly reprinted works and is also one of the most popular stories ever to be published in Weird Tales.

66 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1926

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About the author

H.P. Lovecraft

4,680 books18.2k followers
Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Wikipedia

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5 stars
1,843 (32%)
4 stars
2,191 (38%)
3 stars
1,299 (22%)
2 stars
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 501 reviews
Profile Image for Dr. Appu Sasidharan (Dasfill).
1,358 reviews3,447 followers
September 24, 2022
How painful is it for a person to lead a lonely life?

Lovecraft tells us the story of a mysterious man living alone. His life as a lonely man in the big castle has become boring, and he decides to go searching for other people. What will happen to him? Will he find any other human beings?
“No teacher urged or guided me, and I do not recall hearing any human voice in all those years—not even my own; for although I had read of speech, I had never thought to try to speak aloud. ”


This is yet another amazing story by the author, with multiple themes embedded in it to satisfy the readers. This is considered one of the most popular stories written by Lovecraft.
Profile Image for Bill Kerwin.
Author 2 books83.6k followers
May 12, 2019

I do not think it coincidence that Lovecraft’s three finest early tales--”Dagon,” “Nyarlathotep,” and the last and greatest, “The Outsider”—all share the hermetic and unassailable “logic” of dreams. The world of “The Outsider” defies reason: how can the narrator climb relentlessly upward, leaving behind the castle in the wood, his childhood home, only to emerge hours later on the surface of the earth? Yet we readers of Lovecraft do not find this improbable, for—dreamers too--we know what it is to dwell in a gothic world of subterranean darkness.

Written in 1921 (although not published until 1926, in Weird Tales), “The Outsider is clearly a homage to Edgar Allan Poe. A decade after its composition, H.P. conceded that it represented “my literal, unconscious imitation of Poe at its very height” and decried the “barbaric pomposity of its language” and its “baroque and windy rhetoric.” Lovecraft was being too harsh, for though I often find his diction “pompous” and “windy,” I do not find it to be so here. The 19th century style of the narrator’s speech both alienates us and paradoxically draws us closer to him: for even as it proclaims his isolation, it whispers to us of his loneliness.

I suppose this tale has imperfections, but if so, I for one never notice them. It speaks to me not in spite of its baroque language and broken logic but because of them, for they are tools Lovecraft uses to create that antique dream we all share: the dream in which I too am “The Outsider,” ageless, deprived of memories, alone.
Profile Image for Carol.
1,370 reviews2,310 followers
February 1, 2019
THE OUTSIDER is my first visit into the world....and mind of Lovecraft (that I can recall) and, unfortunately, I ruined it for myself by reading the background summary offered just prior to the story in my complete collection of H. P. Lovecraft. Darn it. Won't make that mistake again!

Anyway, I won't ruin it for anyone else. THE OUTSIDER is a dark and sad super atmospherically creepy story from start to finish. It is about a mysterious man who lives alone in a nasty-old-smelly-damp-castle with dark passages, cobwebs and crumbling walls; his only wish to see the sky....the light of day.

Alienated from the outside world, he desperately searches for a way out of the dark, but fears the unknown....as he well should.

Profile Image for Eloy Cryptkeeper.
296 reviews215 followers
October 24, 2020
the Outsider/ El Extraño - H. P. Lovecraft(1926)

"Infeliz es aquel a quien sus recuerdos infantiles sólo traen miedo y tristeza. Desgraciado aquel que vuelve la mirada hacia horas solitarias en bastos y lúgubres recintos de cortinados marrones y alucinantes hileras de antiguos volúmenes, o hacia pavorosas vigilias a la sombra de árboles descomunales y grotescos, cargados de enredaderas, que agitan silenciosamente en las alturas sus ramas retorcidas. Tal es lo que los dioses me destinaron... a mí, el aturdido, el frustrado, el estéril, el arruinado y sin embargo, me siento extrañamente satisfecho y me aferro con desesperación a esos recuerdos marchitos cada vez que mi mente amenaza con ir más allá"

Que maravilla de relato, tan oscuro y majestuoso. Pero lo mas sorprendente es que parece bastante autobiográfico.
Hacia bastante tiempo que no lo leía y me volvió a deslumbrar.
Si todavía hay alguien ahí afuera que quiera adentrarse en su obra... por favor empiecen con esta, es perfecta para iniciarse. No se les ocurra empezar por historias como "El horror de Dunwich" o "la sombra sobre Innsmouth"
Profile Image for Alejandro.
1,214 reviews3,703 followers
November 26, 2018
A tale, truly Lovecraft style!


MONSTRUOS(LY) SUPERB!

In this sad tale, the main character has been living all alone and without light...

...in a decaying castle for so much time...

...that he even forget how he came ending there...

...and who was before of being there.

Once he decides to venture into the outer world,...

...soon enough he is face to face with the most hideous monster.

Profile Image for Peter.
3,619 reviews678 followers
June 18, 2019
He doesn't belong in this century, he revels in the past, he's the outsider. What does he find in the decaying castle he's climbing up to the torrent? What is inside the rooms? Follow the Outsider on a trip full of dreams and nightmares. Typical Lovecraft, very fantastic and dreamlike. Recommended!
Profile Image for Jayakrishnan.
518 reviews201 followers
December 12, 2024
I interpreted the The Outsider as Lovecraft showing his middle finger to boring and cruel humanity and hanging out with cool otherwordly creatures in some other dimension where no human would dare step into. Look at the final lines of the short story:

"I found the stone trap-door immovable; but I was not sorry, for I had hated the antique castle and the trees. Now I ride with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind, and play by day amongst the catacombs of NephrenKa in the sealed and unknown valley of Hadoth by the Nile. I know that light is not for me, save that of the moon over the rock tombs of Neb, nor any gaiety save the unnamed feasts of Nitokris beneath the Great Pyramid; yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage."

Lovecraft's heroes are never caught in dealing with mundane human concerns. They are always wrestling with obscure mysteries involving strange phenomena. The protagonist in The Outsider is no different. As Lovecraft wrote in Pickman’s Model – “and I tell you, people knew how to live, and how to enlarge the bounds of life, in the old time! This wasn’t the only world a bold and wise man could know – faugh! And to think of today in contrast, with such pale-pink brains that even a club of supposed artists gets shudders and convulsions if a picture goes beyond the feelings of a Beacon Street teatable!"
Profile Image for Janete on hiatus due health issues.
785 reviews428 followers
November 25, 2019
An audiobook in Portuguese. "In this short story, a mysterious man who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search of human contact and light. It combines horror, fantasy, and Gothic fiction to create a nightmarish story, containing themes of loneliness, the unhuman, and the afterlife."
Profile Image for Jason Koivu.
Author 7 books1,356 followers
June 12, 2016
Great build up to a solid surprise reveal!

The Outsider has a very Poe-esque feel to it. An old castle. A mysterious stranger. An ominous inner monologue.

This short story feels like a birth-to-adolescence progression. The main character knows very little about himself, but he learns and gradually all is revealed in a spine-chilling climatic ending when we discover he
Profile Image for Orient.
255 reviews241 followers
May 25, 2017
A BR with Lovecraft cheerleader Craig :)

What a lovely short spooky story. I loved the atmosphere and the secret revelation wasn't really secret, but I felt that every page of this short story was used fully :)

Profile Image for Sarah.
186 reviews440 followers
March 24, 2018
In The Outsider H.P. Lovecraft crafts a soul-shattering tale of self-knowledge and self-realization.

“I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.”
Profile Image for Althea Ann.
2,251 reviews1,149 followers
September 22, 2015
A re-read.
It doesn't get any more gothic than this!
Alone in a dreary dark castle, a young man has no memories of every being anywhere else, of ever seeing another human soul. He learns of the outside world from the castle's extensive libraries, and develops the desire to see the light. Thus, he embarks on a dangerous excursion to try to reach the exterior.
This story is a classic example of the paradox at the heart of Lovecraft's art and life: He was xenophobic well past what was considered average at the time, but yet he writes of horrors - "outsiders" - from an inside perspective, with remarkable sympathy.
Profile Image for Christian Nikitas.
431 reviews50 followers
October 14, 2021
Listened to while cleaning and cooking. Once the people reacted at the step through the window, I kinda figured out the reason.
Profile Image for Zuky the BookBum.
622 reviews421 followers
April 21, 2017
Loved this short story! I'm only just getting into Lovecraft but I'm already very impressed with his work and his writing.

Creepy setting and descriptions set this up to be a really dark and disturbing little story.

This is fantastic! A story about our fear of the unknown, but with a twist... maybe the unknown is scared of us & the unknown too.
Profile Image for Tamoghna Biswas.
326 reviews130 followers
December 16, 2022
It is surprising how a story with such a simple premise and predictability could be elevated to such a level only through storytelling prowess. Not remotely scary on a surface level, but the terror that this story manages to relate to on a psychological level is age-old and brilliantly done. Just started reading an entire collection of Lovecraft and Poe's works, and here we go.

Lovecraft #1
Profile Image for Kathy.
443 reviews4 followers
June 17, 2022
"La conmoción más demoníaca es la de lo abismalmente inesperado, la de lo grotescamente increíble."

Tanto, en tan poco. Un relato que muestra la incomprensión, el sentirse ajeno a todo, una mente que se reconoce a si misma más allá de lo corpóreo y consciente, una mente en el olvido que se vuelve a encontrar.
Un relato que se disfruta desde sus primeras palabras.
Profile Image for Brian .
427 reviews5 followers
June 21, 2017
A powerful and moving story of a man forced by fate to live alone, and his venture into another world, filled with people and a monstrosity forever pursuing him.

Profile Image for Jonathan Dunne.
Author 21 books1,308 followers
January 15, 2022
Atmospheric. Couldnt help but think Lovecraft might've been inspired by the ancient Count Dracula and his lonely life in the old castle.
Profile Image for Suhaib.
260 reviews105 followers
February 7, 2018
Horrific. Heart-wrenching. And Brilliant.

A mysterious man lives in a morbid castle surrounded with a seemingly endless forest. The story tells of his attempt to escape to the other-upper side.

I said heart-wrenching and this is why:

H. P. Lovecraft wrote this short story as a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, his idol. Poe reached the literary summits during his lifetime; Lovecraft didn't. He died in poverty and was virtually unknown, confined to the pulps. He epitomizes this confinement in the story.

"I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men."


I was touched by his personal life and especially his last years. I'm definitely reading more of his work. Recommended.

Note: In the story, the ascent symbolizes Lovecraft's desire to rise in the literary field. The ghoulish setting reflects his alienation
Profile Image for Suad Alhalwachi.
737 reviews87 followers
July 5, 2023
Thrilling, great language and sad. Not sure if it was a nightmare or a real adventure into the unknown by a person who had never seen the lights, never spoken to anyone and spent his time in a cold castle surrounded by trees and darkness. When he decides to go up the tower he finds a door out to walkways and so he ventures out and once he sees people gathering in a house he enters but lo and behold they all run. He doesn’t know what he was because he never saw himself as a monster!

To me the story is real, we do not know the person in front of us. The mere suggestion of a single difference make us look the other way. Sad but true.

I like the poem written in the beginning:

That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe; And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, Were long be-nightmared.
—Keats

So through endless twilights I dreamed and waited, though I knew not what I waited for.
Then in the shadowy solitude my longing for light grew so frantic that I could rest no more, and I lifted entreating hands to the single black ruined tower that reached above the forest into the unknown outer sky. And at last I resolved to scale that tower, fall though I might; since it were better to glimpse the sky and perish, than to live without ever beholding day.
In the dank twilight I climbed the worn and aged stone stairs till I reached the level where they ceased, and thereafter clung perilously to small footholds leading upward
Profile Image for Keith Ham.
19 reviews1 follower
November 1, 2011
This story is probably, in my opinion, one of Lovecraft's best. I have read it dozen's of times and I never seem to get bored with it.

I'm sure everyone can relate to its general theme of 'being scared of the unknown' but I loved that fact that this story went one step further and made it about how the unknown may just be afraid of us too.
Profile Image for David Sven.
288 reviews476 followers
October 4, 2012
It’s very difficult saying too much about this story without giving things away so I’ll try not to spoil it. The story is told in the first person by someone who is trapped in extreme isolation – both internally and externally. We start knowing very little about this person other than their situation is rather bizarre to say the least and I found myself extremely intrigued from the very first few sentences about who this person is and even where this person is. As the story progresses our narrator seeks to lift themselves out of this isolation and in so doing we begin to discover more even as the narrator discovers more about themselves. And things get increasingly bizarre until we reach the crescendo when we get a more complete picture to which my first reaction was “Ah Ha!” and my next was “What is it?” and then it was an immediate rewind back to the beginning and start over, abandoning all the assumptions I had made that blinded me to all the clues strewn through the whole book.

Now I’m not going to tell you what that picture is other than to say think of a Mr Potato Head. Lovecraft gives you a Mr Potato Head in the beginning, unassembled. He then lets you make whatever assumptions you like in putting that Potato Head together. And in the end, Mr Potato Head looks pretty weird. But what is more in this story, I was not sure that I had actually put Mr Potato Head together right. Hence my re listen. But even the second time around the brilliance of this story is there is no right way to put Mr Potato Head together. Now there might be some wrong ways to interpret this story, but there is definitely no one single right way. And its all rather bizarre and macabre however you do it and I found it rather satisfying.

I’ve said this before, but a mistake I feel a lot of horror writers make is revealing the monster too early. The fun and scariness lies in the unknown. Once the horror is revealed it loses a lot of its power. This short story gives us the cake and lets us eat it too. We get the big reveal, but what we see is still subject to interpretation and so we are still left something lurking in the corner of the eye that gives this story re-readability.

5 stars
Profile Image for Michael Gardner.
Author 20 books73 followers
April 6, 2020
Lovecraft does a surprisingly prophetic Covid-19 story about a man who is self-isolating, who then decides to stop self-isolating, and then realises that self-isolating is really quite a good idea after all. Maybe he should have titled it The Insider.
Profile Image for Nicolás Ortenzi.
251 reviews10 followers
May 4, 2020
Es un cuento bastante triste, donde el personaje es un ser incomprendido y tratado como persona mala y horrorosa, al final el siendo tan inteligente, como aparentemente se creía termino por darle la razón a un puñado de tontos.
Creo que algo de la soledad de Lovecraft, veo en este cuento.
Profile Image for Scarlet Cameo.
628 reviews402 followers
October 12, 2015
"Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness"

Este cuento fue el primero que leí de Lovecraft y de eso ya tiene bastantes años, pero dejo tiene un lugar muy especial en mi vida porque el extraño nos presenta a un personaje triste, solitario y olvidado por el mundo, que teme lo que hay en el exterior de su habitación (¿puedo llamarlo habitación?) pero detesta ese lugar...básicamente describía de manera estupenda como me sentía en el momento que lo leí (dah, pre-adolescencia).

No es un cuento de horror(o nunca lo vi así) simplemente es una historia muy atrapante y triste
Profile Image for Michelle {Book Hangovers}.
460 reviews192 followers
January 3, 2019
I just recently began my journey into the world of Lovecraft. I’m about 4 stories in, now, and I’m absolutely bewitched. The gothic style of writing is new to me but I’m absolutely spellbound by it.
The Outsider was wonderful yet heartbreaking story of despair, reclusiveness and self discovery in the most wicked way.
One of my goals for 2019 is to conquer my HP LOVECRAFT Quest and read Lovecraft’s complete fiction collection.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 501 reviews

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