1 h 14 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if an ordinary house holds a sickness that no family record can explain?
On a steep street in Providence, an old house carries a history of illness and death. The narrator has wondered about it since boyhood. Now he joins his uncle, Dr. Elihu Whipple, to trace the suffering through old deeds, family records, local gossip and the evidence before their eyes.
Whipple is a retired physician with a sharp memory and a stubborn love of local history. Their search leads through the sorrows of the Harris family and toward the Roulet family, whose reputation shadows the ground beneath the house. In H. P. Lovecraft’s short horror story, each clue makes an ordinary place feel less safe.
What you’ll discover
- A house with a history Follow generations of suffering through a place that the whole street avoids.
- An unlikely pair of investigators Join a curious nephew and his courteous, stubborn uncle as they gather unsettling evidence.
- Dread in the records Watch old deeds and family histories turn a ghost story into a chilling case file.
- Clues beneath the house Enter a damp, earthy cellar where the investigation meets strange physical evidence.
- A past that lingers Explore how family secrets, old fears and grudges can shape the life of a place.
Who will love it
For readers who love atmospheric horror, old houses, and mysteries solved from records and rumor. It also makes a good first taste of Lovecraft.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A house the whole street avoids
- An old doctor gathers the evidence
- Tenant after tenant sickens and fades
- The past reaches back to a French family
- The cellar offers its own strange clues
- What the story is really about, and how it is told
Who’s who
- The narratorA young Providence man, curious since boyhood about the house on the hill, who joins his uncle's investigation and tells the whole story.
- Dr. Elihu WhippleThe narrator's uncle, a retired physician and local historian who has spent years collecting records about the house and its dead.
- The Harris familyThe family who built the house around 1763 and suffered many illnesses and deaths there before leaving it to tenants.
- The Roulet familyFrench Protestant refugees tied to the ground beneath the house, whose odd reputation draws the investigators deeper into the past.
- The tenants and servantsThe ordinary people who rent or work in the house over the years, grow pale and weak, and leave or die.
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- Audiobook
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- Large print paperback
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The Shunned House
by H. P. Lovecraft · 1937
A man and his uncle investigate a Providence house where tenants sicken and a cellar holds strange clues.
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In short
The Shunned House is a short horror story by H. P.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A house the whole street avoids
The story opens with a warning that the most terrible things can hide in ordinary places. The narrator describes an old house on a slope in the Providence hill district, standing close to the street on a steep bank. Its yard is untidy, and its front is shadowed and sagging. Neighbors have long said it is unhealthy, and few people want to live near it.
The house has an odd look that the narrator cannot quite explain. Weeds grow too pale there, and strange growths cling to the ground around it. Even the trees seem stunted. Because the place is so ordinary at first glance, its bad reputation feels all the more disturbing.
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What is The Shunned House about?
It is about a narrator and his uncle, a doctor, who investigate an old house in Providence where people have sickened and died for generations. They use records, family history and a night watch in the cellar to find the cause.
Is The Shunned House based on a true story?
The tale is fiction, but it uses real Providence settings and local folklore. Lovecraft wrote it in 1924 after walking through the old part of the city, and it appeared in Weird Tales in 1928.
Who are the Harris and Roulet families in The Shunned House?
The Harrises built the house around 1763 and suffered many deaths there. The Roulets were French Protestant refugees whose family history is tied to the ground under it, and the investigators trace their story.
The author
H. P. Lovecraft
1890–1937 · American horror writer
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer and editor born in Providence, Rhode Island. He lived mainly in Providence, but also lived in New York City from 1924 to 1926. He wrote horror stories, including “The Call of Cthulhu,” published in 1928, and “The Dunwich Horror,” published in 1929.
More by H. P. Lovecraft
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