The only full-length work of fiction by HP Lovecraft, the master of 20th century horror, which inspired Roger Cormans The Haunted Palace and Lucio Fulcis The Beyond. This new edition also includes Lovecrafts rare History of the Necronomicon, and a challenging new introduction by D. M. Mitchell, an acknowledged authority on Lovecraft. A nameless terror surges through centuries to engulf the soul of Charles Dexter Ward, a brilliant New England antiquarian. Evil spirits, malefic gods whose memories live on in whispered legends and fear-stricken superstitions, still lurk in vile catacombs beneath the surface of a blighted land. Ward is driven to unleash these loathsome horrors upon a defenseless world, possessed by the demonic shade of his ancestor Joseph Curwen, a warlock steeped in the blackest arts of magic. Now Ward, too, must master these obscene rituals, and pay the price in blood. Human blood.