An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

The tale is reminiscent of many stories in Lord Dunsany’s The Book of Wonder(1912), several of which similarly deal with attempted robberies that usually end badly for the perpetrators. Probably the closest analogy is with “The Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men.” The three thieves represent the three major non-Anglo-Saxon ethnic groups in Rhode Island (Italian, Polish, and Portuguese).

The location of Kingsport is unspecified; only later, in “The Festival” (1923), did HPL identify it with the town of Marblehead and situate it in Massachusetts.

See Donald R.Burleson, “‘The Terrible Old Man’: A Deconstruction,” LSNo. 15 (Fall 1987): 65–70; Carl Buchanan, “The Terrible Old Man’: A Myth of the Devouring Father,” LSNo. 29 (Fall 1993): 19– 31.

Theunis, Constantin.

In “The Tree on the Hill,” a scholar who suffers a seizure after examining a strange photograph through a special viewing apparatus he has invented.

“Thing on the Doorstep, The.”

Novelette (10,830 words); written August 21–24, 1933. First published in WT(January 1937); first collected in O;corrected text in DH;annotated version in An2and TD.

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Page 263

The narrator, Daniel Upton, tells of his young friend Edward Derby, who since boyhood has displayed a remarkable aesthetic sensitivity toward the weird, in spite—or perhaps because—of the overprotective coddling of his parents. Derby attends Miskatonic University and becomes a moderately recognized fantaisisteand poet. He frequently visits Upton, using a characteristic knock— three raps followed by two more after an interval—to announce himself. When he is thirty-eight he meets Asenath Waite, a young woman at Miskatonic, about whom strange things are whispered: she has anomalous hypnotic powers, creating the momentary impression in her subjects that they are in her body looking across at themselves. Even stranger things are whispered of her father, Ephraim Waite, who died under very peculiar circumstances. Over his father’s opposition, Derby marries Asenath—who is one of the Innsmouth Waites—and settles in a home in Arkham. They seem to undertake very recondite and perhaps dangerous occult experiments. Moreover, people observe curious changes in both of them: whereas Asenath is extremely strong-willed and determined, Edward is flabby and weak-willed; but on occasion he is seen driving Asenath’s car (even though he did not previously know how to drive) with a resolute and almost demonic expression, and conversely Asenath is seen from a window looking unwontedly meek and defeated. One day Upton receives a call from Maine: Derby is there in a crazed state, and Upton has to fetch him because Derby has suddenly lost the ability to drive. On the trip back Derby tells Upton a wild tale of Asenath forcing his mind from his body and going on to suggest that Asenath is really Ephraim, who forced out the mind of his daughter and placed it in his own dying body. Abruptly Derby’s ramblings come to an end, as if “shut off with an almost mechanical click.” Derby takes the wheel from Upton and tells him to pay no attention to what he may just have said.

Some months later Derby visits Upton again. He is in a tremendously excited state, claiming that Asenath has gone away and that he will seek a divorce. Around Christmas of that year Derby breaks down entirely. He cries out: “My brain! My brain! God, Dan—it’s tugging—from beyond—knocking— clawing—that she-devil—even now—Ephraim….” He is placed in a mental hospital and shows no signs of recovery until one day he suddenly seems to be better; but, to Upton’s disappointment and even latent horror, Derby is now in that curiously “energised” state such as he had been during the ride back from Maine. Upton is in an utter turmoil of confusion when one evening he receives a phone call. He cannot make out what the caller is saying—it sounds like “glub…glub”—but a little later someone knocks at his door, using Derby’s familiar three-and-two signal. This creature—a “foul, stunted parody” of a human being—is wearing one of Derby’s old coats, which is clearly too big for it. It hands Upton a sheet of paper that explains the whole story: Derby had killed Asenath to escape her influence and her plans to switch bodies with him permanently; but death did not extinguish Asenath/Ephraim’s mind, for it emerged from the body, thrust itself into the body of Derby, and hurled his mind into Asenath’s corpse, buried in the cellar of their home. Now, with a final burst of determination, Derby (in the body of Asenath) has climbed out of the shallow grave and is now delivering this message to Upton, since he was unable to communicate with him on the phone. Upton