# At the Mountains of Madness *A novella by H. P. Lovecraft (written 1931, serialized in Astounding Stories, February-April 1936).* > I read the full Project Gutenberg text of the Astounding serial (all twelve chapters), Wikipedia's articles on the novella and on Lovecraft, and the vault note for the video. I did not read any critical edition or the Joshi corrected text, so differences between the magazine text and later editions are reported from Wikipedia, not checked. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *At the Mountains of Madness* | | Author | H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft | | Form | Novella; Wikipedia calls it science fiction and cosmic horror | | Written | February-March 1931 (Wikipedia) | | First publication | *Astounding Stories* (Street & Smith), February, March and April 1936 issues (Gutenberg record: "Original publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Inc., 1936") | | Book editions | Wikipedia names the Arkham House volume *At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels* (S. T. Joshi's restored text, corrected 5th printing, 1985). I did not check ISBNs or page counts, so they are left blank | | Structure | Twelve numbered chapters (I-XII) in the Gutenberg text | | Narrator | Dr. William Dyer, geologist, Miskatonic University | | Series | Part of the wider Cthulhu Mythos; tied to *The Whisperer in Darkness* and *The Shadow Out of Time* (Wikipedia) | **Where it came up.** - Video: [Is Anyone Home Inside an AI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lLz5EROz_8), *Count Grey Matter*. - Mention: [1:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lLz5EROz_8&t=73s), Part One, "The lodger (the shoggoth)": the shoggoth-with-a-smiley-mask meme and Lovecraft's creature. - Vault note: [[Video Summaries/Count Grey Matter/Is Anyone Home Inside an AI]]. ## 2. Book resources **Reference pages** - [Wikipedia: At the Mountains of Madness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness) - [Wikipedia: Shoggoth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoggoth) - [Wikipedia: H. P. Lovecraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft) **Where to get it (legal, free)** - **Project Gutenberg:** [eBook #70652](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70652), released 27 April 2023, with the plain text at [pg70652.txt](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70652/pg70652.txt). It is the *Astounding* text (the Howard V. Brown illustrations are noted). The transcriber's note reads: "Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed." That is a public-domain claim for US readers; Gutenberg tells readers elsewhere to check local law. - **Which text:** this is the 1936 magazine text. Wikipedia says the *Astounding* editor cut roughly 1,000 words and that the first Arkham House edition still had nearly 1,500 errors; the fully restored text came with Joshi's 1985 edition. The Gutenberg text is therefore the magazine version, not Joshi's restored one. - **Copyright note:** I did not independently verify the non-renewal. Outside the US, Lovecraft (died 1937) is generally in the public domain under life + 70, but that is not something I checked. - **Audiobook:** two free LibriVox recordings, [version 1](https://librivox.org/at-the-mountains-of-madness-by-h-p-lovecraft/) (4:13:24) and [version 2](https://librivox.org/at-the-mountains-of-madness-version-2-by-h-p-lovecraft/) (4:30:24), both English; found through LibriVox's API by author, both pages return HTTP 200. I did not compare either reading with the Gutenberg text. - Wikisource had no page at the title I tried (HTTP 404); no other free copy is linked. ## 3. Author biography Howard Phillips Lovecraft (20 August 1890 - 15 March 1937) was an American writer of weird, horror, fantasy and science fiction, best known for the Cthulhu Mythos ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft)). - Born in Providence, Rhode Island; his father was institutionalized in 1893 and died in 1898 (death certificate: general paresis); his mother was institutionalized in 1919. The family's wealth dissipated after his grandfather's death. - Began writing for the United Amateur Press Association; in 1913 wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that led to his pulp-fiction career. Married Sonia Greene in 1924 and lived in New York; returned to Providence in 1926 and wrote there for the final 11 years of his life. - His fiction is rooted in "cosmicism", the view that humanity is an insignificant part of the cosmos. He never supported himself from writing or editing and was almost exclusively published in pulp magazines in his lifetime. - Wikipedia states he held a number of racist views for much of his adult life. This bears on how his work is read and discussed; I note it without elaboration. - Scholarly revival began in the 1970s; he is now regarded as a major 20th-century author of supernatural horror. ## 4. Author interviews and talks None exist: Lovecraft died in 1937, before recorded interviews of this kind. His own words survive mainly in letters; Wikipedia quotes his letters on the novella (e.g. to August Derleth on the ending, and on its reception). I did not open the letters themselves. Related reading: S. T. Joshi's biographical and textual work is cited by Wikipedia; I did not open it. ## 5. Summary **Thesis.** A first-person warning. Dyer tells what the 1930-31 Miskatonic University Antarctic expedition found so that a planned new expedition will be abandoned. The Gutenberg text opens: "I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why." The horror is scientific and historical rather than supernatural: the planet was occupied by a vast, ancient, non-human civilization, and human history is a small, recent episode. **Chapter outline** (I read the text; chapter divisions are the Roman numerals in the Gutenberg text; summaries are mine and verified against it): 1. **I.** Dyer's warning; the expedition's voyage, drill and early work, ending on odd marked fossil fragments, estimated at 500 million to a billion years old. 2. **II.** Lake's subexpedition heads northwest; a drill strikes a cave and his radio reports describe a "monstrous barrel-shaped fossil of wholly unknown nature". 3. **III.** Wireless contact with Lake's camp is lost during a storm; Dyer's party flies out to find it. 4. **IV.** Dyer's party flies to the ruined camp; dead men and dogs, the missing Gedney, six buried star-shaped specimens, and the first view across the mountain wall. 5. **V.** The vast stone city beyond the pass. 6. **VI.** Exploring the city and its mural carvings. 7. **VII.** The sculptures' history: the star-headed Old Ones come to Earth, create earth life, and breed Shoggoths as servants; the Shoggoths later rebel and are put down. 8. **VIII.** Later sculptures show the race's decline; Danforth and Dyer study the local carvings. 9. **IX.** A plan to find the tunnels to the black inner world; they find Gedney's body and the missing dog. 10. **X.** The northward tunnel, the abyss, and the first signs of pursuit (blind penguins, then something not a penguin). 11. **XI.** The Shoggoth appears and cries "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" 12. **XII.** The flight back; Danforth's breakdown; Dyer's closing plea. (The outline of 5, 6, 8-10 is from chapter openings and endings plus Wikipedia's plot summary, not a line-by-line reading of each chapter.) **Key ideas** - **The Old Ones and Shoggoths.** The Old Ones made the Shoggoths as "ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community"; the Shoggoths later rebelled, and the Old Ones used "curious weapons of molecular disturbance against the rebel entities" and tamed them. Later Shoggoths are "a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes". They have "no voice save the imitated accents of their bygone masters", which is why they cry "Tekeli-li", a cry borrowed from Poe's *Pym*. - **Poe's influence.** Wikipedia says Lovecraft explicitly drew on Poe's *The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym* and that the title came from Lord Dunsany's "The Hashish Man". - **Historical setting.** Wikipedia says the expedition was modelled on Richard E. Byrd's 1928-30 expedition and that Lovecraft was accurate about Antarctic geography as known in the 1930s. - **Reception.** Wikipedia: hostile during Lovecraft's lifetime; he said it did "more than anything to end [his] effective fictional career". It was rejected by *Weird Tales* in July 1931 and sold to *Astounding* in 1935 via agent Julius Schwartz. - **Role in the video.** The video uses the shoggoth as an image for a language model wearing a friendly mask; that reading is from the 2022 meme, not from Lovecraft. ## 6. Fact-check Overall verdict: **mixed**. The identification of the creature and its origin as servants is correct; the quoted phrase and "black jelly" description are not Lovecraft's wording. | Claim (video) | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Lovecraft's *At the Mountains of Madness* is from 1936 | Supported | Wikipedia and the Gutenberg record: serialized in 1936 (written in 1931) | | The shoggoth was made as a servant by an older race | Supported | Gutenberg text, ch. VII: the Old Ones bred Shoggoths as "ideal slaves" | | They "took them for tools, and lived to regret it" | Not in the text | I searched the full Gutenberg text for "lived to regret" and for a "tools" line and found neither; the substance (the Shoggoths rebelled and were subdued) is in ch. VII, but the quoted wording is the video's, not Lovecraft's | | The shoggoth is a heap of black jelly and eyes | Partly | The text describes "protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous" with "myriads of temporary eyes" in "greenish light" (ch. XI), not black jelly; the "black" detail may come from other Lovecraft or later depictions. | | The smiley-face shoggoth meme dates from December 2022 | Not checked | The vault note credits @TetraspaceWest, 30 December 2022; I did not open the original post | | It is usually read as a warning | Not checked | A claim about commentary, not about the book | ## 7. Citations and references - Lovecraft, H. P. "At the Mountains of Madness," *Astounding Stories*, February, March, April 1936. Project Gutenberg eBook [#70652](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70652). - Wikipedia: [At the Mountains of Madness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness), [H. P. Lovecraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft), [Shoggoth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoggoth) (listed, not read beyond its existence check). - Video: [Is Anyone Home Inside an AI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lLz5EROz_8), *Count Grey Matter*.