Dunwich (Lovecraft)

Dunwich is a fictional village that appeared in the H. P. Lovecraft novella "The Dunwich Horror" (1929). Dunwich is located in the Miskatonic River Valley of Massachusetts, part of the region sometimes called Lovecraft Country. The inhabitants are depicted as inbred, uneducated, and very superstitious, while the town itself is described as economically poor with many decrepit or abandoned buildings.

Origin

Abandoned barn in Athol, Massachusetts

Although Dunwich in Suffolk, England is pronounced "DUN-ich," Lovecraft never specified how he preferred his Dunwich be pronounced.[1]

Lovecraft is said to have based Dunwich on Athol, Massachusetts, and other towns in Western Massachusetts,[2] with him specifically citing "the decadent Massachusetts countryside around Springfield – say Wilbraham, Monson, and Hampden."[3] S. T. Joshi has also seen Dunwich as being influenced by East Haddam, Connecticut, location of the "Devil's Hopyard," the "Moodus Noises," and a witch tradition.[4]

Description

Lovecraft places Dunwich in "north central Massachusetts," found by travellers "tak[ing] the wrong fork at the junction of the Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners." Aylesbury and Dean's Corners are both Lovecraft creations, neither of which appears in any other of his stories, though Aylesbury is mentioned in his poem sequence Fungi From Yuggoth.[5]

Dunwich is described as being surrounded by "great rings of rough-hewn stone columns on the hilltops," which are presumed to have been built by the Pocumtucks.[6]

Notes

Joshi, The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, note #14, p. 108.
Liukkonen, Petri. "H(oward) P(hillip) Lovecraft". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 13 July 2006.
November 6, 1931 letter to August Derleth
Lovecraft, Howard P. (1984) [1928]. "The Dunwich Horror". In S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich Horror and Others (9th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.
Joshi, Index to the Fiction & Poetry of H. P. Lovecraft, pp. 11, 17
The Dunwich Horror

References

Lovecraft, Howard P. (1984) [1929]. "The Dunwich Horror". In S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich Horror and Others (9th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.
Lovecraft, Howard P. (August 1997). "The Dunwich Horror". In S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft. New York, NY: Dell. ISBN 0-440-50660-3.

External links

"The Dunwich Horror," by H. P. Lovecraft. The original story featuring the first appearance of Dunwich.

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[1] Joshi, The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, note #14, p. 108.

[2] Liukkonen, Petri. "H(oward) P(hillip) Lovecraft". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 13 July 2006.

[3] November 6, 1931 letter to August Derleth

[4] Lovecraft, Howard P. (1984) [1928]. "The Dunwich Horror". In S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich Horror and Others (9th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.

[5] Joshi, Index to the Fiction & Poetry of H. P. Lovecraft, pp. 11, 17

[6] The Dunwich Horror

H. P. Lovecraft
Bibliography
Short stories	"The Beast in the Cave" "The Alchemist" "The Tomb" "Dagon" "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson" "Polaris" "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" "Memory" "Old Bugs" "The Transition of Juan Romero" "The White Ship" "The Street" "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" "The Statement of Randolph Carter" "The Terrible Old Man" "The Tree" "The Cats of Ulthar" "The Temple" "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" "Celephaïs" "From Beyond" "Nyarlathotep" "The Picture in the House" "Ex Oblivione" "Sweet Ermengarde" "The Nameless City" "The Quest of Iranon" "The Moon-Bog" "The Outsider" "The Other Gods" "The Music of Erich Zann" "Herbert West–Reanimator" "Hypnos" "What the Moon Brings" "Azathoth" "The Hound" "The Lurking Fear" "The Rats in the Walls" "The Unnamable" "The Festival" "The Shunned House" "The Horror at Red Hook" "He" "In the Vault" "Cool Air" "The Call of Cthulhu" "Pickman's Model" "The Silver Key" "The Strange High House in the Mist" "The Colour Out of Space" "The Descendant" "History of the Necronomicon" "The Very Old Folk" "Ibid" "The Dunwich Horror" "The Dreams in the Witch House" "The Thing on the Doorstep" "The Evil Clergyman" "The Book" "The Haunter of the Dark"
Novellas	The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath The Whisperer in Darkness At the Mountains of Madness The Shadow over Innsmouth The Shadow Out of Time
Novels	The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Collaborations	"The Green Meadow" "Poetry and the Gods" "The Crawling Chaos" "The Horror at Martin's Beach" "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" "The Curse of Yig" The Mound "Medusa's Coil" "The Horror in the Museum" "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" "Out of the Aeons" "The Tree on the Hill" "Till A' the Seas" "In the Walls of Eryx" "The Thing in the Moonlight"
Poetry	Fungi from Yuggoth
Essays	"Supernatural Horror in Literature" To Quebec and the Stars Autobiography: Some Notes on a Nonentity
Locations	Arkham Dunwich Innsmouth Miskatonic University Lovecraft Country R'lyeh Yuggoth
Characters	Randolph Carter Harley Warren Herbert West
Books about	H. P. Lovecraft: A Life H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia Lovecraft: A Biography Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos
Related	Cthulhu Mythos Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture Dream Cycle Lovecraftian horror Cosmicism H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society Necronomicon Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (documentary) Sonia Greene (wife)
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