The village of Dunwich holds a terrible secret. Rumors of black magic and devil worship hover over the town like a sinister shroud. Whispered legends recall unholy bonfires and blasphemous rituals on a nearby hilltop several times a year, and the unearthly screeching of whippoorwills on certain nights. But it was during the harvest season in 1928 that a series of horrific events changed the town forever.
Wilbur Whateley was born in 1913 and raised by his mother, Lavinia, a mentally unstable and unattractive albino, and by his grandfather, who was said to be involved in devil worship and sorcery. The boy matured at an alarmingly fast pace and reached the physical stature of an adult well before he was a teenager. His remarkable size and repulsive, goatish face provoked much gossip around town.
Few visitors ever stopped by Whateley’s farmhouse, and neighbors who did visit came away gossiping about unusual renovations and rumors that some enormous beast was imprisoned upstairs. They remarked on festering sores often seen on the Whateleys’ bodies as well as on their cattle, which likewise provided grist for speculation—Old Whateley would come to town fairly often to purchase cattle, yet the size of his herd never increased.
Wilbur is left to manage on his own when his grandfather dies, and his albino mother disappears under suspicious circumstances. One day, he discovers that his family copy of the dreaded occult book, the Necronomicon, has a damaged page, and he must obtain an intact copy to complete a spell. When Wilbur asks to take the book home on loan and is denied, he breaks in to the Miskatonic library to steal the copy but is attacked by a guard dog and dies on the library floor.
Meanwhile, the evil presence locked away upstairs in the Whateley farmhouse grows stronger. Soon, the farmhouse explodes, unleashing the horror inside. It terrorizes the town, obliterating livestock, murdering families, slaughtering police, and reducing ramshackle farmhouses to rubble. Three professors from Miskatonic University come to the village to battle the invisible horror and wage a life-or-death battle against the dark forces haunting the village, bringing this Lovecraft story to a suspenseful conclusion.
This Classic Edition is a restyled update of a public domain title, lightly edited for modern readers and professionally formatted for enhanced readability and visual appeal. It is part of a series of literature classics published by Virtual University Press for the reading enjoyment of book lovers around the world. We also publish companion study guides, workbooks, and academic editions intended for classroom use by literature and writing students and home-schoolers.
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