A claustrophobic tale of a visitor lost in the depths of Mammoth Cave.

The BEast in the Cave

This story is very early H. P. Lovecraft first published in 1905 when he was only 15 years old. It is a classic tale of ‘fear of the other’ with a delightful twist at the end. When I was young, I loved pulp stories with twist endings and this one fits the bill!

Drawing inspiration from early pulp novels, I created a series of illustrations that provide a sense of claustrophobia as the protagonist wander lost in the caverns. To help ease your fright and assist you on your journey, a sewn-in flashlight bookmark is there to help. It contains one of my favorite quotes from Lovecraft, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

My work often centers around ‘fear of the other’ and I discuss this along with other aspects of the story in the afterword.

features of the beast in the cave