L'Alchimiste: La collection HP Lovecraft

Écrit par H.P. Lovecraft

Raconté par Patrick Blandin

The Alchemist » est une nouvelle écrite en 1908, alors que Lovecraft avait 17 ou 18 ans, et publié pour la première fois dans le numéro de novembre 1916 du United Amateur. L'histoire est racontée par le protagoniste, le comte Antoine de C, à la première personne. Il y a des centaines d'années, le noble ancêtre d'Antoine était responsable de la mort d'un sorcier noir, Michel Mauvais. Le fils du sorcier, Charles le Sorcier, a juré de se venger non seulement de lui mais de tous ses descendants, les maudissant de mourir à l'âge de 32 ans. Le protagoniste raconte comment ses ancêtres sont tous morts d'une manière mystérieuse vers l'âge de 32 ans. La ligne a diminué et le château est tombé en ruine, tour par tour. Enfin, Antoine est le seul qui reste, avec un pauvre serviteur, Pierre, qui l'a élevé, et une infime partie du château avec une seule tour est encore utilisable. Antoine a atteint l'âge adulte, et sa 32e année approche.

• Langue: Français
• Éditeur: Compagnie Du Savoir
• Date de sortie: 9 sept. 2022
• ISBN: 9782821188006

H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of science fiction and horror stories. Born in Providence, Rhode Island to a wealthy family, he suffered the loss of his father at a young age. Raised with his mother’s family, he was doted upon throughout his youth and found a paternal figure in his grandfather Whipple, who encouraged his literary interests. He began writing stories and poems inspired by the classics and by Whipple’s spirited retellings of Gothic tales of terror. In 1902, he began publishing a periodical on astronomy, a source of intellectual fascination for the young Lovecraft. Over the next several years, he would suffer from a series of illnesses that made it nearly impossible to attend school. Exacerbated by the decline of his family’s financial stability, this decade would prove formative to Lovecraft’s worldview and writing style, both of which depict humanity as cosmologically insignificant. Supported by his mother Susie in his attempts to study organic chemistry, Lovecraft eventually devoted himself to writing poems and stories for such pulp and weird-fiction magazines as Argosy, where he gained a cult following of readers. Early stories of note include “The Alchemist” (1916), “The Tomb” (1917), and “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (1919). “The Call of Cthulu,” originally published in pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928, is considered by many scholars and fellow writers to be his finest, most complex work of fiction. Inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft became one of the century’s leading horror writers whose influence remains essential to the genre.