"Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" (also known as "The White Ape" and simply "Arthur Jermyn") is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

in the

horror fiction Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J ...

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

, written by American author H. P. Lovecraft in 1920. The themes of the story are tainted ancestry, knowledge that it would be best to remain unaware of, and a reality which human understanding finds intolerable.

Plot

The story begins by describing the ancestors of Sir Arthur Jermyn, a British

nobleman Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteristi ...

. His great-great-great-grandfather was Sir Wade Jermyn, an early explorer of the

Congo region The Congo Basin (french: Bassin du Congo) is the sedimentary basin of the Congo River. The Congo Basin is located in Central Africa, in a region known as west equatorial Africa. The Congo Basin region is sometimes known simply as the Congo. It con ...

whose books on a mysterious white civilization there were ridiculed. He was confined to an

asylum Asylum may refer to: Types of asylum * Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome * Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute * Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea ...

in 1765. Lovecraft describes how the Jermyn family has a peculiar physical appearance that began to appear in the children of Wade Jermyn and his mysterious and reclusive wife, who Wade claimed was Portuguese. Wade's son, Philip Jermyn, was a sailor who joined the navy after fathering his son and disappeared from his ship one night as it lay off the Congo coast. Philip's son, Robert Jermyn, was a scientist who made two expeditions into the interior of Africa. He married a daughter of the (fictional) 7th Viscount Brightholme and fathered three children, two of whom suffered from severe disabilities, but the middle one of whom, Nevil Jermyn, had a son, Alfred, who was Arthur's father. In 1852, Robert met with an explorer, Samuel Seaton, who described "a grey city of white apes ruled by a white god". Robert killed the explorer after hearing this, as well as all three of his children. Nevil managed to save his son, Alfred, before his death. Robert was put in an asylum and, after two years, died there. Alfred grew up to inherit his grandfather's title but abandoned his wife and child to join a circus, where he became fascinated with a gorilla "of lighter colour than the average". He became its trainer, but was killed in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

after an incident in which the gorilla attacked him and he fought back. Arthur inherited the family possessions and moved into Jermyn House with his mother. Arthur is described as having a very unusual appearance, and supposedly the strangest in the line descended from Wade. Arthur became a scholar, eventually visiting the

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...

on a research expedition, where he heard tales of a stone city of white apes and the stuffed body of a white ape goddess, which had since gone missing. Returning to a trading post, Arthur talks to a Belgian agent who offers to both obtain and ship the goddess's body to him. Arthur accepts his offer and returns to England. After a period of several months, the body arrives at Jermyn House. Arthur begins his examination of the mummy, only to run away from his room screaming, and later commit suicide by dousing himself in oil and burning himself alive. Lovecraft then describes the contents of the stuffed goddess's coffin—the ape goddess has a golden locket around her neck with the Jermyn

arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...

on it and bears a striking resemblance to Arthur Jermyn. It is clear that Wade's supposedly Portuguese wife was really the ape goddess, and all of his descendants were the product of their bestial union. Arthur's remains are neither collected nor buried on account of this. The mummy is removed and burnt by the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

Inspiration

Both of Lovecraft's parents died in a mental hospital, and some writers have seen a concern with having inherited a propensity for physical and mental degeneration reflected in the plot of his stories, especially his 1931 novella, ''

The Shadow over Innsmouth ''The Shadow over Innsmouth'' is a horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in November–December 1931. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization, and references several shared ...

'', which shares some themes with ''Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family''. As in many of his stories, the mind of a character deteriorates as his investigations uncover an intolerable reality, a central tenet of

Cosmicism Cosmicism is the literary philosophy developed and used by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft in his fiction. Lovecraft was a writer of philosophically intense horror stories that involve occult phenomena like astral possession and alien mis ...

which Lovecraft outlines in the opening sentence of "The Call of Cthulhu": "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928). In a letter, Lovecraft described the impetus behind ''Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family'':

Publishing history and possible influences

The story was first published in the journal ''The Wolverine'' in March and June of

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...

. To Lovecraft's distaste, the story was retitled "The White Ape" when it appeared in ''

Weird Tales ''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, prin ...

'' in

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hol ...

; he commented: "If I ever entitled a story 'The White Ape', ''there would be no ape in it''." Subsequent reprintings titled it "Arthur Jermyn" until the corrected publishing in ''Dagon and Other Macabre Tales'' in 1986. Critic William Fulwiler suggests that the plot of "Arthur Jermyn" may have been inspired by

Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American author, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best-known for creating the characters Tarzan and John Carter, he ...

's novels ''

The Return of Tarzan ''The Return of Tarzan'' is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the second in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was first published in the pulp magazine '' New Story Magazine'' in the issues for Ju ...

'' (1913) and ''

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar ''Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar'' is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fifth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It first appeared in the November and December issues of ''All-Story Cavalier W ...

'' (1916), in which the lost city of Opar is "peopled by a hybrid race resulting from the matings of men with apes."

E. F. Bleiler Everett Franklin Bleiler (April 30, 1920 – June 13, 2010) was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" s ...

, too, has commented that it "undoubtedly owes much to Edgar Rice Burroughs's Opar in his Tarzan series".E.F. Bleiler, "H.P. Lovecraft" in ''Supernatural Fiction Writers'', Vol 2, NY: Scribners, 1985, p. 482.

References

Sources

* Explanatory Notes by S. T. Joshi. * Frye, Mitch, "The Refinement of "Crude Allegory" : Eugenic Themes and Genotypic Horror in the Weird Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft", ''Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts'', vol. 17, issue 3, Fall 2006, pp. 237–254 (JSTOR 26390171). * Simmons, David, "“A Certain Resemblance”: Abject Hybridity in H. P. Lovecraft's Short Fiction", in ''New critical essays on H. P. Lovecraft'', New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, , pp. 31–54.

External links