The Mound (short story)
| "The Mound" | |
|---|---|
| Author | H. P. Lovecraft (ghostwriter) and Zealia Bishop (original idea) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction/Horror short story |
| Published in | Weird Tales (Volume 35, Number 6, pages 98-120) |
| Publication type | Magazine |
| Publication date | November, 1940 |
"The Mound" is a horror and sci-fi novella H. P. Lovecraft wrote as a ghostwriter from December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by Zealia Bishop to create a story about an Indian mound which is haunted by a headless ghost. Lovecraft expanded the story into a tale about a mound that conceals a gateway to a subterranean civilization, the realm of K'n-yan. The story was not published during Lovecraft's lifetime. A heavily abridged version was published in the November 1940 issue of Weird Tales, and the full text was finally published in 1989.
H. P. Lovecraft wrote the story as a ghostwriter from December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by Zealia Bishop to create a story based on the following plot synopsis:
"There is an Indian mound near here, which is haunted by a headless ghost. Sometimes it is a woman."
Lovecraft did not like this premise of what seemed to be a conventional ghost story. The outline was so brief it allowed for a great deal of license, so he made it into a 29,560 word story about a mound that conceals a gateway to a subterranean civilization, the realm of K'n-yan, which one of the main characters enters and lives in for a while. The story is one of only three by Lovecraft where a non-human culture is described in rich details, the other two being At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time. It is not as well known as the later two, as it was ghostwritten for another author.
The mound in the story is located in Binger in Caddo County, which is a real town about 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. He places the mound about a third of a mile west of Binger, an area where there are no mounds, which seems to make this geographic detail the only fictional part of its location.
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