TSOU - The Trap
vonj...@hotmail.com
"The Trap" (with Henry S. Whitehead)
Sources: _The Horror in the Museum_, Arkham; _The Loved Dead_, Carroll and
Graf.
Synopsis: The narrator is a teacher at a boy's school in Connecticut, who
has among his possessions a mirror from the Virgin Islands. One day, a pupil
of his points out a curious swirling in one part of the mirror, and the two
resolve to investigate the matter further. Before they can, the boy
disappears. While asleep in his room, the teacher receives telepathic
messages from the boy, who is now trapped in the mirror. The boy has
discovered that the mirror was made centuries ago by a magician, and has
entrapped several people since then. The teacher sets out to bring back his
pupil, and does so with but one unforeseen consequence.
Comments: This piece probably ranks on the upper end of Lovecraft's
revisions. The concept of a mirror which entraps individuals within it is by
no means unknown to fans of fantasy literature, but what makes the story
(IMO) is Lovecraft's painstaking depiction of the conditions within the
prison, each piece of information as carefully thought out as those in "At
the Mountains of Madness".
Lovecraft's collaborator, Henry S. Whitehead, was already an established pulp
writer when Lovecraft heard from him. I wish I could say more about him, but
I've only read a few of his stories, and at the moment I can't remember
anything about them, save that they were colored by Whitehead's time in the
West Indies. In May of 1931, Lovecraft visited Whitehead in the town of
Dunedin, Florida, near Saint Petersburg; according to Joshi, we know little
about that visit, save that this story was the result. Sadly, Whitehead was
to die in the following year. Lovecraft is said to have advised Whitehead on
two other stories, "Cassius" and "Bothon" (though the latter may be the work
of August Derleth.)
How does this story connect to the Cthulhu Mythos, you might ask? Well, it
doesn't. Lovecraft didn't include any references to the Mythos, and it seems
to have escaped the attention of Mythos authors/gamers/what have you. If
you're looking for an HPL story which virtually no one has used, this is the
one to try.
And again, "The Trap" will be discussed this Sunday at 5:00 PM EDT
in the Lovecraft chatroom, (DALnet #cthulhu). Hope to see everyone there!
Yrs.,
Daniel Harms
http://members.tripod.com/~danharms/
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