The Outsider

‘The Outsider‘ is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between March and August 1921, it was first published in Weird Tales, April 1926. In this work, a mysterious individual who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search of human contact and light. ‘The Outsider‘ is one of Lovecraft‘s most commonly reprinted works and is also one of the most popular stories ever to be published in Weird Tales. ‘The Outsider‘ combines horror, fantasy, and gothic fiction to create a nightmarish story, containing themes of loneliness, the abhuman, and the afterlife. Its epigram is from John Keats‘ 1819 poem ‘The Eve of St. Agnes‘. In a letter, Lovecraft himself said that, of all his tales, this story most closely resembles the style of his idol Edgar Allan Poe, writing that it ‘represents my literal though unconscious imitation of Poe at its very height.‘ The opening paragraphs echo those of Poe‘s ‘Berenice‘, while the horror at the party recalls the unmasking scene in ‘The Masque of the Red Death‘.