Nutshell: A young nobleman, the last in his ill-fated and cursed line, leads a lonely existence in his castle. Fated to die before the age of 32, he spends his final days searching for information about the alchemist who cursed his family 600 years before.

Commentary: This is not one of Lovecraft's best works, but it is remarkable all the same since he wrote it somewhere in his late teens, well before he reached his stride and began writing for Weird Tales. It is one of the very, very few early tales of his that he did not destroy. It is certainly worth a read, although it is nowhere near the quality of his later works.

Witch in her magic circle, conjuring demons.

Illustration from Nicolas Remi's Daemonolatria, from the German translation.

Hamburg, 1693

In Brief

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