For it is this gang of three men – three “foreigners” in Protestant New England – who seek to rob the story’s old man – a former sea captain – of his treasure. Not only am I guessing Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, but that these three aforementioned nationalities were among Lovecraft’s least favorite immigrant groups in his home town of Providence, Rhode Island. While the titular character, the Terrible Old Man, is never given an identifying name, the men who plot to steal from the old mysterious pirate are most explicitly marked by their “ethnic” sounding names: Angelo Ricci, Joe Czanek, and Manuel Silva. The plot is simple, but loaded with noticeable xenophobic undertones that make this little known story even less valuable than it otherwise would have been in light of Lovecraft’s far more historically significant later works. Originally published in the amateur journal Tryout (1921) and subsequently reprinted many times, including Pirate Ghosts of the American Coast (1988), the very brief story is notable for its New England coastline setting, one that Lovecraft would return to time and again in his more sophisticated writings. Lovecraft’s “The Terrible Old Man” could certainly be built upon and skillfully adapted into a truly captivating Gothic horror film. Reprinted many times.Īlthough there really isn’t that much literary value in the story, H.

LOVECRAFT “The Terrible Old Man.” Written January 28, 1920, and first published in the Tryout, an amateur press publication, July 1921.

Title: “The Terrible Old Man” written in 1920, first published in the magazine The Tryout, July 1921.H. This was short story and while the ending wasn’t a great surprise, it was, well, almost light-hearted. They see their prize in a defenseless old man who pays for his goods in town in Spanish gold and silver mined two centuries ago. Unfortunately, their profession is robbery. Tonight, The Terrible Old Man will have three visitors: Angelo Ricci, Joe Czanek and Manuel Silva who will be coming to call in a professional capacity. It’s also rumored that The Terrible Old Man keeps a treasure in his decrepit house. The bottles had pendulums inside them and he named them: Jack, Scar-Face, Long Tom, Spanish Joe… There seemed to be vibrations about when these conversations took place. Even the adults in town, when peering through the windows of the decrepit old house, have seen The Terrible Old Man talking to an various bottles on a table on the ground floor of the house. Among the gnarled trees in his front yard stand oddly arranged stones.

He keeps to himself, but it’s believed that he was once a captain of East India clipper ships. The Terrible Old Man lives on Water Street in an old house that the good New England folk shun.

The terrible old man lovecraft