At The Mountains of Madness

At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in February and March 1931 and originally serialized in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories. It has been reproduced in numerous collections since Lovecraft’s death. Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi describes the novella as representing the decisive “demythology” of the Cthulhu Mythos by reinterpreting Lovecraft’s earlier supernatural stories in a science fiction paradigm.

The story is written in the first-person perspective by the geologist William Dyer, a professor from Miskatonic University. He writes to disclose hitherto unknown and closely kept secrets in the hope that he can deter a planned and much publicized scientific expedition to Antarctica. On a previous expedition there, a party of scholars from Miskatonic University, led by Dyer, discovered fantastic and horrific ruins and a dangerous secret beyond a range of mountains taller than the Himalaya.

Lovecraft had a lifelong interest in Antarctic exploration; biographer S.T. Joshi wrote that “Lovecraft had been fascinated with the Antarctic continent since he was at least 12 years old, when he had written several small treatises on early Antarctic explorers.” At about the age of nine, inspired by W. Clark Russell’s 1887 book The Frozen Pirate, Lovecraft had written “several yarns” set in Antarctica.